A Direct Hit On The Fan

We awoke this morning to an avalanche of emails and messages from friends and family in Australia who had heard overnight that all of Italy was being shutdown due to Covid19. I also got another phone call and on air interview from Andrew at the ABC. Clearly our plans were going to require a major rethink at this stage. We  walked down to the station where we ascertained that trains were still running for those with valid travel reasons. Our decision therefore was to head to Rome as soon as possible so that we could look into rebooking an early flight home.

We walked back to our room at Salerno Downtown where we booked an apartment in Rome with kitchen and living space, in case we ended up in any prolonged lockdown there. Then with nothing better to do, we wandered the lanes and streets of Salerno. Salerno is far cleaner and wealthier looking than Sicily. They have homeless and beggars but even these are reasonably well dressed and middle class looking, in contrast to some of the sad cases we saw in Sicily.  There are lots of upmarket shops which today were still open but quiet. Restaurants and cafes were still open 6am to 6pm but waiters were out with tape measures ensuring all seats were at least a metre apart.

It's a shame we couldn't do more than walk the streets of Salerno because it's an attractive place. With a scenic waterfront, some spectacular hills leading off to Amalfi behind and like all of Italy,  history everywhere. On the train trips from Palermo to here, there are historic ruins on hill tops every few kilometres. Norman forts, medieval churches and the occasional Roman looking ruin. The view from our window in Salerno was a medieval aqueduct that once provided the city water supply.

The view from our window in Salerno.

At lunch, Trish had expressed a wish for fish and chips given that we were in a seaside town. We found a little hole in the wall kind of place that sold paper cones of chips with calamari and while we were sitting at the counter eating our lunch I noticed that the right hand door jamb was a stone pillar that was clearly of significant antiquity. I am not an archaeologist so I couldn't be sure if it was medieval or even Roman but it was clearly old. The Italians have for centuries built onto and over, existing buildings so this pillar has sat there for hundreds, if not thousands, of years with passers-by consuming all manner of products in it's shadow.

Salerno waterfront. Just the place for calamari and chips. 

We returned to our room for an afternoon siesta which was spoilt somewhat by another guest arguing loudly in Italian with his wife and adult son in the communal lounge area of the place. Later the owner and another chap came and he argued loudly with them as well.

By the time we thought to go out for tea, it was 5.45 and the cafes were all closing down so we bought some stuff at a nearby supermarket and had that for tea. Unlike stories from Australia the supermarket patrons were orderly and there were no apparent shortages of anything.