POSITANO WELCOMES THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING

POSITANO… Awakening to a dark and grey and frigid winter morning the likes of which we hadn’t seen all Winter made for a stunning first day of Spring. But the symbols of Winter turned into a harsh reality as the morning began to unfold first with distant sounds of thunder and unhappy rumblings in the sky nearby. The sporadic  blackouts in the area told of significant electrical storms way up high and indeed within a few hours the heavens gave forth with a show of unparallelled spectacle. Especially for those of us in Positano.

Hail! Not Hail as the Romans did. Hail.The white icy stuff ,lots of it . Pea size and lima bean size. Incessant and aggressive it battered Positano and much of the Amalfi Coast for almost 30 minutes. In a few seconds the densness of the fall made everything that was green, white and the black tarmac of our roads white and wild. Not used to this environmental change traffic either halted or snails paced tying up movement for an hour and more. Lots of slipping and sliding. In front of the Hostel Birkitte an auto slid into a side wall and thanks to quick thinking and on the scene Vigili and  Finanza the worst was avoided.

One of our citizens , Diana Folonari called quite excited to tell me of her adventure driving back from Piano di Sorrento along the coast road, as the this “gift from the gods” began to rain down on her making visibility and movement next to impossible. ” In 30 years in Positano I’ve never experienced anything like this. Driving up hill I was sure the car wasn’t going to make it, but it did and we did. I cancelled my lunch reservations, lost my appetite.”

It was a good day to read a good book at home. If you didn’t yesterday, today might do given the cold and the drizzle.