Painting the Norman Tower (Torre Normanna), Amalfi Coast, Italy

Norman Tower, Amalfi Coast, Italy

Painted en plein air on my April 2015 trip to Italy's Amalfi Coast. The Norman Tower is the biggest and oldest of the rectangular style towers  built as a defense for 800 years of struggle with Saracen bloody raids from the sea. Built around 1250 to 1300, it is one of thirty along the coast. Currently houses a restaurant and meeting facilities.

This scene  was a 10 minute walk from our apartment in Maiori.  I set my easel up on the side walk under tree but was still in the sun. Ten feet to my right was a restaurant/caterer  so this idealistic scene  was accompanied by the odor of cooking food from the kitchen fan. Soon there was a delivery truck with a  load of fresh fish. Next the orange suited street sweeper came along with his long handled dust pan and a twig broom to remove all of yesterdays cigarette butts. There are lots of Italian smokers and they use the sidewalk as ash trays. Over our stay I noticed this  and other cleanup provided a lot of employment and kept the beauty of the region. After that a noisy garbage truck backed in to the curb with it's bumper one foot from my left leg. The odor of  garbage in the truck and the containers being emptied from the restaurant filled my nostrils. Still the scene was  engaging. The slanted wall to the left  supports  the highway of a 1000 curves, SS163, and one can walk along the side of it to reach the Tower. I could have painted the scene from a lower perspective on the beach in a more environmentally friendly spot but the small wheels on my equipment cart were tiny and would hang up in the fine grey sand and pebbles that compose the beach. (Guess I could have carried it). I looked up to see the smiling face of our landlord. He was wearing a heavy black overcoat ( I thought dressed for Sunday) and it was in the 60's Fahrenheit. When I asked about it he said he was riding his motor cycle and needed it. He knew I was an artist so I was easy to spot when he passed by and he wanted to see if things were fine with our rental facilities.
By now it was near 1 PM and  people who looked like they were part of a wedding party were standing in the vicinity. Ten minutes later a limo parked some 50 feet up to the left and soon there was a bride and groom in the scene. I may not be the best age guesser but she looked about 20 and  he looked about 40. She wore a beautiful white maternity wedding gown and he a tux. So i guess they have weddings on Sunday in Italy.
Here is a pic of the paved walk/park area along the entire Maiori  beach front. Maiori has the longest beach on the Amalfi Coast. Way in the distance is my wife and daughter, identifiable by the raised four wheel scooter my daughter used to be rapidly mobile with in spite of  her broken ankle (3 weeks before the trip), Separate close of her on the scooter. More about the advantages of traveling with someone handicapped in later posts.

Has brakes  good for the sttep down slopes of the Amalfi Coast

Maiori Beach Promenade 

 

Painting The Amalfi Coast of Italy-Fishing Boats at Cetara

      In April of 2015 I spent eleven days painting on the  Amalfi Coast of Italy, based in the town of Maiori.  It is centrally located as far as traveling east on the peninsula as far as Positano or west to Salerno by bus. The bus company "Sita"  stop was a couple hundred meters from our apartment, including the 100 meters our apartment was  set back from the main road, enough to subdue the sounds of traffic, yet provide a peekaboo view of the waterfront from the terrace. The road along the cost is SS163 and is known as the road of 1000 curves as it hugs the steep coastline. The bus blows its horn around every curve and traffic from the opposite direction often has to back up so the bus can squeeze by. While this common event was taking place the motorcycle traffic would  zoom around the bus and squeeze through the  small opening between the bus front and the cars in reverse. Bus fare was 1.2 euro each way for any distance, and the town of Amalfi (20 minute ride east from Maiori) was a transfer point to get a bus to Positano (the last town directly on the coast) or to the much farther package tour city of Sorrento. Amalfi also was the  boarding point for the jet ferry boat trips to the Isle of Capri or Isle  d'Ischia (20 euro each way and an hour each way-last ferry back 5 pm).
      On the second Sunday of our stay we went to the fishing village of Cetara, which is west, about half the way to Salerno, the latter being the  capital of the the province of Campania. We were in the hallway to the elevator on our 3rd floor  and out came our rental landlord with a box of pastries  with the sign, "Have a happy Sunday".  He is a Computer Science Professor at the University in Salerno and was on his way there so he offered a ride to Cetara when he heard that was our destination for the day. That saved us the wait for the bus and  the conversation  on way provided more local knowledge,

Modeling at Cetara

      My painting for the day was some of the fishing boats. A funny thing happened while painting. At one point I looked up and saw a photo shoot  a few yards down the dock. Earlier I had the noise of a photographer who apparently solicited visiting couples to purchase a photo shoot. He had three different couples while I was there, and was a very noisy when shouting acrobatic poses for the couples to assume. But this shoot looked like an aspiring model (or perhaps an established one), with  a full camera crew. After the two photos shown I got back to being absorbed with my painting and lost track of the model shoot. Then I felt a presence near the easel and looked up to see the couple standing by my easel. So I was now part of the backdrop. If you happen to see me in an Italian copy of Vogue, you will know the story.

Modeling at Cetara 2

Cetara Fishing Boats, 11 x 14 inches oil on canvas