Amalfi. He went under protest. Still beautiful.

He called the Amalfi Coast a travel cliché before I’d finished the sentence. He said it was on every list, photographed by everyone, the light was good but the crowds cancelled it out, and if I wanted Italian coast with less context he could give me Puglia or Calabria or the Aeolian Islands.

I said I wanted the Amalfi Coast.

He said he would come under protest and that the protest would be noted.

Under protest

His protest consisted of: arriving at dawn every day without being asked, identifying the three least photographed sections of the coast road, finding a fishing village forty minutes south that doesn’t appear in travel guides, and getting the best table at a restaurant in Ravello by some method he won’t explain.

I’m not enjoying this. The light is good though.

The light is exceptionally good. Mediterranean morning light on white buildings above a blue sea is one of the more honest clichés in photography.

What he was right about

Dawn. He said dawn every day and I went at dawn every day and the difference between 6am and 10am on the Amalfi Coast in June is the difference between an empty road with the light coming in low from the east and a traffic jam with flat overhead light and tourists everywhere.

He was also right about the village. I’m not naming it because he asked me not to.

The photograph

There is a photograph from the third morning on a section of road above Praiano. The light was coming through a gap in the cliff and hitting the water in a way that lasted about four minutes. He told me exactly where to stand, which direction to face, and what to wait for.

The photograph is the best from the trip by a distance.

He looked at it and said: dawn. Then he walked away.

The score

He gave it an eight. I gave it an eight. He maintains this is not because he enjoyed it but because the light was objectively good and he is capable of fair assessment even when he disapproves of the destination.

I did not press this.