November 4, 2018 - After a wild bus ride, we made it to Almafi. It has been overcast but still warm with occasional belts of light showers. We arrived to find the mayor and a brass band holding a local ceremony in the small piazza just outside our hotel. He was laying a wreath at a memorial for Almafi war dead from WWI & WWII. Coming upon this unexpected ceremony is one of the pleasuresof traveling. We really enjoyed the band.
Almafi is a town of about 5,000 that gets almost 100% of it’s money from tourism and lemons. It is very scenic and not as vertical as Postiano so more a accessible.
Despite, in my view, it’s remote location, in the 1200’s this place was a center of commerce, had it’s own fleet, and participated heavily in the Crusades. They even found the time to go and get their own Saint. While Rome had Peter and Venice had the bones of Mark, Almafi in 1206 brought back the remains of St Andrew from the sacked city of Constantinople. (They have his occipital bone to be precise).
However, in 1343 the whole thing came to an end. A tsunami hit the area after an undersea earthquake and destroyed Almafi. The city never recovered to the economic power it once enjoyed.
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