Even in the age of the Global Positioning System, carrying a map is a good idea.
A recent trip to the Amalfi Coast near Naples, Italy, led to a huge spat between me and my Garmin 270, which had always been faithful elsewhere on that country’s frustratingly complicated roads.
First, a word about the Amalfi Coast. To call the main coastal highway serpentine would be a dreadful understatment. No such serpent was ever born. This very thin highway wiggles along the Mediterranean coast to such a ridiculous degree that even Lance Armstrong lost control on his bike. He fell on the road a day before I got there, reportedly because he misjudged the severity of a turn during the Tour of Italy. In a car, the road becomes an aerobic exercise for the driver. And for my GPS device, the area’s roads became an exercise in futility. I swear I heard it say, “Turn left … no, right!” Unfortunately, it kept doing this my whole time in the Naples area.
The final meltdown occurred in the aptly named city of Angri. I was trying to find a bypass for the wiggly Amalfi highway by taking a road over the mountain ridge that forms the spine of the Sorrento peninsula. I managed to do this at the evening rush, when Atlanta-like traffic jams into a village-size grid of narrow streets buffered only by human flesh in the form of overly trusting pedestrians.
Just when I thought the GPS had gotten me through the worst, it said, “Recalculating,” and told me to go back about a mile through that hellacious traffic. It hadn’t bothered to tell me to turn when I should have nor told me where to turn. In frustration, I turned the machine off and headed for the wiggly route I knew.
I wanted to throw my GPS device, but that’s too expensive. If I’d had a map, at least I could have ripped the thing to shreds as part of my Angri management. Yes, maps are still a good idea.
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rwerland@tribune.com
