Addicted to the Amalfi Coast

I know I'm bouncing around about my trip but I have been having difficulty with wifi in a lot of areas and I want to share the best parts of my trip as soon as I am able to. But don't worry, I'll update about everything else as well once I get the down time and better internet connection.

Jeff (the boyfriend) met me in Italy, and we spent two weeks traveling through Tuscany, Rome and the Coast. Italy tops my charts at one of my favorite countries because of the vast amounts of history and beauty it offers. While each region of Italy had its advantages and disadvantages, my favorite part was the Amalfi Coast and the way there.



We decided on taking a tour that left from Naples and went to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. Pompeii was amazing, but we'll save that for another day. The guides came and picked us up from our hotel in Naples and we were off. After Pompeii, we began our journey and started off with beautiful views of the Sorrento Peninsula. It was stunning and was only going to get better from there. We passed beautiful beaches covered with people enjoying their weekend. Come prepared to pay, though, if you want to use the actual beaches here, as they cost about 20 to 25 euro to spend the day there.



The ride to the coastline after leaving the peninsula, is not for the faint of heart. While it's well worth the visit, you ride along windy roads on the edge of the cliffs, with steep slopes careening off into the water. The roads through the small towns along the way are so skinny, only one car can fit through at a time. If you're on a bus, I'm sure you'll love that. We saw two buses scrape by each other, causing a minor wreck and a little bit of waiting. Our driver was a bit nuts and took the turns at gut wrenching speeds. We finally had to let him know we weren't feeling well and he took it a little easier on us. Even then, if you're terrified of heights and get motion sickness, be prepared and take some motion sickness medicine before going through with this. The only way to get here is by car, bus or ferry in the high season.



I stumbled out of the van and wanted to kiss the ground for making it to our first stop, Positano. This village is one of the main stops along the coast and it's easy to see why. Positano sits among the cliffs with views of the sparkling blue waters of the sea. The purple flowers of bougainvillea hanging from the windows on the colorful buildings make for the perfect picturesque stop. People in this area tend to live very long lives. Their secret? It's wonderfully quite, has great food and to get where you want to go, you have to climb up or down stairs and steep hills.



There's a great quote that describes how amazing Positano is by John Steinbeck, "Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn't quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone. Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a cliff except that stairs are cut in it...The small curving bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only one narrow street and it does not come down to the water. Everything else is stairs, some of them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit a friend, you either climb or slide. Nearly always when you find a place as beautiful as Positano, your impulse is to conceal it."



After grudgingly leaving behind the beautiful village in front of me, we headed to our lunch destination to a gorgeous restaurant located on the other side of Praiano called Calajanara Restaurant. The food was magnificent. We were served bread with organically made olive oil from the olives of the coast, a salad and a pasta with eggplant and tomato sauce. My mouth is just watering from remembering the taste of the food. We were served on a gorgeous terrace with views of the sea, Praiano and an old tower that used to be a lookout point to spot pirates. It's quite a romantic spot and the service there is one of the best I've received since being in Italy.





We left the restaurant and made our way to our final destination, Amalfi. Amalfi is very small and impossible to get lost in. Jeff and I spent our time admiring the view from the pier. I could have stayed there all day sun bathing on the rocks near the water and admiring the scene before me. Our visit was all to short and we were soon ushered back into our van to head back to Naples through the Milk Mountains (which was just as motion sick inducing, if not more, than the ride there).





I won't say the name of the tour company I used because I did not like them, but to give you an idea of how much it was, the tour cost €85 per person. It was combined with Pompeii and we also had to pay €11 separately to get into the ruins. There is a sight seeing bus tour that leaves from Sorrento, which only costs €18 per person. It begins in Sorrento and stops at Positano and Amalfi. For me, it would have been a better deal and I probably would have enjoyed it more because we would have had time to enjoy the stops. I usually enjoy tours because they're well organized, allow you to do and see a lot, learn a lot and take the stress away from you from having to do all of the planning. But with this, I would have preferred something different.

At least I know I have something to come back to Italy for!



This is part of the #sundaytravlerseries with Chasing the Donkey and don't forget to support all of the other participants! :)