Le Frane on the Amalfi Coast

An important word to learn about life on the Amalfi Coast is la frana, or landslide. It is a word you hear very often, especially this time of year after the winter rainy season. Along the roads you will see minor frane, where a small section of the retaining wall of a terrace or the like has collapsed into the road. Sometimes you will see more serious frane, which block the road and cause a lot of trouble. Angelica in Positano posted some good shots here of a frana in Praiano about a month ago. The big news on the Amalfi Coast the past week is a series of frane that have caused sections of the Amalfi Coast road (aka “the only road”) to be blocked or closed off to bus or any official traffic. This, as you can imagine, is a big mess. The incredible amount of rain during the past several months has finally taken its toll on the Amalfi Coast, causing problems in Priano, Maiori, and on the road up to Agerola. Positano News has been reporting on the “chaos” these various landslides and problems have been causing along the coast. The real complications are west of Amalfi, and I have been trying to find out what exactly is going on. Since last Thursday, the road connecting Positano and Priano to Amalfi has been closed in the direction of Positano due to a large mass of rock just barely clinging to the cliff above the road near Marina di Praia. (The photo above.) Last Friday, Massimo Capodanno added some frightening photos of it to his blog Positano MY LIFE. Yikes! The problem is how to deal with that big rock hanging off the cliff, and so far it hasn’t been decided what to do. This time last year there was a similar problem on the road up to Ravello/ Scala, and it took months to fix. I hope this problem is resolved in a more timely manner. Right now there are also problems on the road to Agerola and in Maiori, but I am not sure exactly what they are yet. In Maiori, however, the road appears to be open at certain hours of the day. Positano News made me laugh today by including a quotation in their most recent update commenting on this strange phenomenon: during the day the stretch of road is dangerous and is closed to traffic, while after 5pm, magically, it is no longer dangerous and is open to drive on. Hum, very strange indeed!

If anyone has any updates or news about the frane and problems in Positano and Praiano, please leave a comment or send me an email. I will post any updates if I find out more information.