Other precious elements

Other precious elements

The testimonies of the building expertise of the old inhabitants of the Amalfi Coast are many. They show the necessity of them for adapting the territory in order to be able to survive. The limestone constructions are truncated cone shaped, in which the first stage of lime production took place. The so widespread presence of limestone in the whole area, has allowed to always avail oneself of the raw matter to produce the lime to be used for making mortar. These constructions, made of limestone, have kept themselves mostly intact for a long long time, so that it is not difficult to encounter them by walking along the paths of the Coast or simply by carefully looking around, along the hairpin bends of the coat road.
The careful visitor cannot but also notice some special constructions made mostly within the dry stone protective walls supporting the terraced lands. Their name in dialect, e’ revote, refers to the shape they had: real very wide tunnels within the dry stone protective walls, which served for storing agricultural tools and in the case of wider structures, to host the first stages of the wine making process.
Another element characterizing the landscape of the Coast is the pergola. Such structure, created by the help of young chestnut wooden poles tied to each other, has allowed, for centuries, the intensive cultivation of the little agricultural land available. The possibility, above all as regards vines, which during winter lose their leaves, of cultivating below the pergola hosting the first crop of vines, a second one often of a horticultural kind, has made it possible, to have more products available. The cultivation of lemons, instead, on the pergola, makes it easier to cover them, during the cold seasons, by plastic sheets, which replace the old twigs, used by farmers in the past, to repair the lemon trees and the early fruits from hailstorms.