A Spring Full of Delights in Amalfi

It’s less than an hour’s drive south from Naples to this diminutive port town, Pop.: a contented 10,000.

Squeezed onto a sliver of land, its face is to the sea, its back jammed hard against rocky cliffs so steep that even the goats pick their way with caution.

Come summer, Amalfi must share its town with hordes of visitors. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the townspeople treasure their springtime, savoring it in delight and in privacy.

Spring in Amalfi is more than a season, it’s a state of mind.

About a week before Easter, the wet winds of winter subside almost overnight. The south wind smells of new seaweed, shellfish and sunlight. The north wind is scented with almonds and lemon blossoms. On the whitewashed coastal houses the storm shutters are folded back and latched.

Along the occasional beaches--for this is a shoreline of awesome rocks and cliffs--freshly painted skiffs and January’s mended nets appear.

The gulls wheel and screech in a newly scrubbed pale blue sky. For the moment, the switchback coastal road belongs to the locals. But not for long.

In a handful of weeks, down from Rome, Naples, Florence, New York, London and Paris, the emigrees will begin their annual trek to sea. The trickle, confined at first to weekends, turns quickly into a deluge. The fishing fleet vacates its offshore moorings to make room for the yachts that swoop in across the horizon.

But for the moment, Amalfi luxuriates in privacy, hugging to itself the delights of its spring, its primavera. Along the harbor, cafes break out their tables and chairs.

Up go the Cinzano umbrellas, and never mind that customers prefer to edge from under them, the better to let the sun warm head and shoulders.

In the Piazza Duomo, up and down the 62 stone steps of the cathedral, that extraordinary looking relic of the 9th Century, the sun lovers appear. They sit in two’s and three’s, young women with shopping nets bulging around their feet, pausing, faces atilt to the light, small talk drifting like honey bees around their heads.

Along the narrow, steep incline of the Via Genova that runs inland from the harbor, the door of the gelateria is propped open with a conch shell. You can’t get the 32 flavors of summer yet. For the moment, schoolchildren and mothers with toddlers in tow must be satisfied with spumoni, vanilla, chocolat o limone.

The grocer’s wooden stalls are emptied of winter’s turnips and cabbages. In their place are fragrant baskets of fragolini, Amalfi’s delectable wild strawberries. Salad greens are mounded beside heaps of artichokes and shiny purple pyramids of eggplant.

Onions--smooth and white as ivory--are piled beside pear-shaped tomatoes.

Tubs of ink-black olives, harvested from ancient trees along the cliffs and cured throughout the winter, now line the grocer’s floor.

An elderly, black-kerchiefed shopper surveys the display with obvious satisfaction.

“E la primavera, “ the grocer’s wife informs her pridefully.

“Si ... la primavera. “ They exchange smiles and for just an instant both their age-worn faces reflect some long ago merriment of girlhood.

The foot traffic swirls through the narrow street. Three priests walk abreast, heads bent perhaps in prayer, but more probably in seminarial gossip. A gaggle of boisterous schoolboys, secure in their numbers, runs laughing down the hill toward the open space of the town square.

They carry soccer balls in net sacks. Mamas, unhurried, push their prams and strollers with a slightly distracted air. They pause to peer idly into windows full of sandals, cotton skirts and washing powders.

In the Via Genova, uphill cars must wait at the light for downhill cars to pass. The light changes, the flow is reversed. But uphill or down, all cars must wait for the people.

The cars approach. Pedestrians stroll on, not breaking ranks. Arm remains linked to arm. Conversations flow on. No one in the street so much as glances toward the cars. Not a single elbow is drawn in.

There is no unseemly pulling in of gut or toes to afford a car an easier passage. Helpless, a car must creep along, no faster than the slowest pedestrian.

And woe betide the unfortunate who blows his horn. For then, of course, strollers come to a standstill. Casual discourse deepens into philosophical debate, at which point the driver might just as well cut the ignition. Come king, pope or deliveryman, the streets of Amalfi belong to its people.

Once upon a time, Amalfi was a mighty maritime power competing with Venice, Pisa and Genoa for control of the sea lanes. It was Amalfi that codified the laws of the sea, adopted by all of the Mediterranean powers.

It was a son of Amalfi, Flavio Gioia, who developed the first magnetic compass. The town’s waterfront square is named in his honor and his likeness stands there, atop a handsome pedestal.

For fair proof of Amalfi’s 13th-Century prestige, one need look no further than the high altar of the cathedral where the remains of St. Andrew are respectfully interred. During the Middle Ages fierce competition raged between states over claims to eminent religious relics.

It must have been a considerable triumph for Amalfi to have secured for its own the remains of so lofty a saint, his body being brought by sea from Constantinople.

Scarcely a century later came the storm of which the people still speak as if it had taken place last year. Pointing out the features of the rock-ribbed jetty that protects the harbor, a fisherman explained to a visiting yachtsman that it was designed and built “after the big storm.”

“And when,” the visitor asked,” was that?”

“In 1343” came the answer.

A tidal wave backed by fierce winds inundated the town. Its population of more than 100,000 was decimated. Amalfi’s days as a great seafaring power were over. It was not until the middle of the last century that the town was “rediscovered” by pleasure-loving, sun-starved Victorians.

Henrik Ibsen arrived, settled in, and in a delirium of sunshine and creativity dashed off his masterpiece, “A Doll’s House.” The Sitwells, Edith and Osbert, followed, hauling along more than 100 steamer trunks of books and manuscripts.

Then came H.G. Wells, grudgingly sharing the limelight with Mrs. Wells, who preferred to be known by her nom de plume: Rebecca West.

To house such intellectual luminaries and all who trailed along after them, farmhouses were remodeled, gracious villas built and abandoned monasteries restored and converted to inns and pensioni. This was the era in which the Hotel Santa Caterina was built just west of town, up the hill and through the tunnel. Its setting gave it, right from the start, an unfair advantage.

Unlike its competition, the Santa Caterina sat on the sea side of Amalfi Drive. Today its guests, intent on a swim, need never dodge the torrent of Mercedeses, Lancias, Porsches and Fiats that pour back and forth from Sorrento to Positano and Salerno along Amalfi Drive.

Its 70 rooms look out on the cobalt blue sea. Bougainvillea and hibiscus overhang the doorways. Floors are cool underfoot, covered with the famous, hand-painted local tiles. A series of bathing terraces border the sea at the foot of the cliff into which the hotel is built.

Access to the sea and to a pool carved in the rocks is by a glass-walled elevator. The Santa Caterina is owned and run by the granddaughters of its founder, the Signoras Gambardella, gentle and caring custodians of a long tradition of Amalfi hospitality.

Accommodations for two at the Santa Caterina begin at $238 a night for a room overlooking the sea, including tax, service and continental breakfast. After June 1 prices increase by about 25%.

Soon, too soon, the charms of another spring will fold into a long sun-gilded summer, enjoyed, so it often seems, by half of humanity, all crowded into one small sliver of a town. But for the moment Amalfi basks, undisturbed and uncrowded, in the sunlight of April and May. E la primavera di Amalfi.

For more information on travel to Italy, contact the Italian Government Travel Office, 360 Post St., Suite 801, San Francisco 94108, (415) 392-6206.