Spent a fabulous sunshine-filled 5 days at the Amalfi coast with Ivan and Fumiko. Escaping the wet, cold English summer was very high on my list of priorities and southern Italy certainly did not disappoint. I have come back gloriously (by my standards!) tanned and itching to go back for the best Italian food of my life. Ok, a little backtracking is in order here...
We stayed at the Sorrento Palace, taken over by the Hilton, with a lovely view across the water to Mt. Vesuvius. Unfortunately that was not the view from our hotel room but it was the view from the buffet breakfast area, and oh what a buffet spread it was!
For the first day there, we managed to walk up the trail to Mt Vesuvius after a rather hair-raising van ride up the mountain. I believe the only way we avoided any accidents was by the timely tooting of the driver around hairpin curves to let cars driving in the opposite direction know we were taking no prisoners and they better stop for us or they would be pushed off the side! Serious game of chicken there.
Vesuvius was cool, nice walk up. We peered into the crater, lots of dirt around. Took obligatory photos. Luckily Ivan is an avid photographer so got lots of photos of myself walking up the path....how vain am I?
After Vesuvius, we took the train to Pompeii. That was one of the highlights for me. I didn't realise the scale of the town and how much tragedy the blow-up caused. I kept walking the empty ruins imagining what it must have been like teeming with people, carts, market stalls. There were so many buildings intact, we even went into the brothel and there were still fairly fresh looking frescos of erotic acts....
That night we went to a fantastic Italian restaurant and had the best Italian meal of my life. Seriously it was the best pasta I have ever had, and the dessert...my mouth is watering just remembering it right now. So after an unforgettable meal, we walked back to the hotel and passed a group of senior citizens dancing the night away in a makeshift outdoor dance hall. They invited us along and we thought, why not? I had an absolute ball dancing with these octogenarians (well they looked it....) they sure knew some cool moves! I did the tango and some fun Italian numbers. I couldn't stop laughing as I got twirled around the floor. More fun than the clubs in London I reckon!
Next day we did some island hopping to Capri. We hired a little boat and powered around the gorgeous island and saw an amazing coastline. The highlight here was sailing to the green grotto and being able to swim in the crystal clear, cool, green water. It felt so serene inside the cave, I was on my own for a priceless few minutes and found myself treading water and admiring the beautiful green walls of the cave. Then a bunch of brazillians swam by and we proceeded to conduct a conversation about how great Sao Paolo and Sydney beaches are! Ahhh my patriotism surprises me sometimes.
Unfortunately I got quite seasick halfway through our sailing trip, our little boat got bullied on the seas by all the ferries and big boats and I felt icky for the rest of the day. Might be the reason why I was in such a pissy mood when we visited the Blue Grotto, what a tourist trap! We had to cough up 9 euros to be rowed into the grotto, was in there for 2 minutes. Ok so the blue blue water was cool to see, but after being able to swim in the green grotto, this was just disappointing. Then the oarsmen had the decency to demand a tip! He wouldn't let us out the boat until we gave him something. Gah! I hate tourist traps!
Following day was more island hopping, over to Positano, my favourite town of the coast! I loved it! Every step I took I wanted to stop and take a photo. It was all so picturesque! We caught a ferry over to Amalfi town and then caught a bus up to Ravello, a little town perched high up the side of the mountain. We made it to Villa Cimbrone where they had a lovely garden with gorgeous marble statues lining the view to the sea. Lovely.
On the last day we went to Naples, the big dangerous city with the mafia! It was a city alright, a little dirty and rough around the edges but typical city to me. I'm not a city girl as you can probably tell. So we spent the entire day just walking the streets, watching our bags and trying to find a place to rest our weary feet and sample pizza in the city where pizza was born. The pizza was certainly divine, and so cheap too after the expensive coastal towns of Amalfi!
So my five days in glorious sunshine came to an end. But, the beauty of London is its close proximity to more sunshine! Going across the channel to Paris this weekend!
