Day 7- Ravello and Amalfi (Part 2)

Note: Apologies to all readers for the long delay between posts. As you may know, the folks just went to Italy themselves for the first time and we spent the time communicating with them via email. They had a great time. Now back to us . . . .

Day 7 was a great day as you may recall from the previous post. From the top of the Amalfi coast in the town of Ravello, we decided to hike down the mountain when our bus ended up being late, or lost, not sure. I was just a bit impatient, and I was tired of riding buses. So we did what we always do, find a local and follow them down the road. Which worked until our guide stopped at the next bus stop, not more than twenty feet into our adventure. We decided we could either go it alone or wait, and finally came to the conclusion that we couldn't get that lost walking...so off we went, headed down hill to Amalfi.

We wandered down the narrow one and a half lane road for about fifty yards or so when we found a little gate in the roadway with a small 4 x 4 inch painted tile that had a picture of the sea and said "Amalfi" with a arrow pointing down. So down the small cobblestone trail we headed. This is me at the start of the trail. Amalfi is down the valley there.

The trail was just wide enough to drive very small European cars down and wide enough to pile a whole bunch of junk along the walls. We were never really sure if we were in someones back yard or not.

Here we are in the orange and lemon grove, there are LOTS of lemons in Amalfi, look at the hillsides in all the pictures and you will see the trees. This was someones personal stash. Nice.

Getting closer to the city of Amalfi, it was like the backdoor of the town. A slightly less touristy view of the village.

Aaaahh yes, we look good. We had to set up and take this photo fast before our friend the cat jumped down on our heads and knocked over the camera on it's little stand.

Looking back up the pathway, we had started way up the hill there.

HI Molly!

We came upon this cool little church just built into the hillside. There was no way to get there but to walk down about a miles worth of steps or uphill for about 500 yards.

We were soon out off the hillside and in the heart of the city. It was a very strange, kind of erie feeling, and since we had just come out of Naples a few days before, I was worried about somebody jumping out and getting us. I let Molly led the way. Ha ha.

We did keep coming upon this little open spaces. How cool would it be to live in this madness!

At this point we started to get lost. We just kept heading down the stairs and towards the sea. Not that we knew where that was, but it was cool. (Molly note: I was never lost...Cody was just a baby! I knew we would eventually find the water if we kept heading down!)

And then there we were! In the local piazza where we were welcomed with open arms by a group of eight Italians. They were young guys about my age, all sitting around and drinking at 4 in the afternoon. Zoom in on the picture and you can see them waving to us. We had to sit and have a drink.

We took a bunch of pictures of the piazza as we left. You can see the sea out there.

As you passed through the gap this is what you saw. Amazing.

This is the view looking back up to the hills, where we came from.

There was an old anchor, just sitting in the rocks. It was taller than Molly.

That is the road we walked along to get to Alamfi. It turned out we were in the town right next to Amalfi called Atrani. It only took about 10 minutes to walk back to Amalfi.

A view of the water.

(Molly note: isn't Cody cute?)

There's Amalfi!

This was the Duomo in Amalfi. Somehow, we walked underneath it from the other side of town...it was a little creepy under the Church, but we found our way out and had a great bunch of concrete to look at. If you zoom in, you can see Molly at the top of the steps in the center.

Molly was enjoying lounging in the sun...she fit in with all the Italians.

This was the at the top of the stairs at the Duomo. It was very pretty in the afternoon sun.

We spent some time in the Duomo looking out into the piazza. Amalfi was a quiet, but pretty, town.

Look Ma, I'm skipping!

Back at the bus stop, we had about 45 minutes to kill before the bus. After barely making the buses all day, our luck had run out - we just missed one and they were only running once an hour. There was a really cool fountain covered in moss in the piazza.

We sat in the piazza and shared a beer for the 45 minutes, enjoying the dying sun.

We caught the bus back and had a great last dinner in Positano at a restaurant on the beach. (Molly note: There were a bunch of stray cats and dogs on the beach, and all of them came into this restaurant to stay warm. The dogs were a little crazy, but the cats just wanted to curl up next to people. However, Cody was easily frightened this evening...a cat purred next to his head and he jumped across the bench he was sitting on and screamed like a little girl. All the waiters in the restaurant came running out to check if we were okay. I couldn't answer I was laughing so hard...he claimed he was startled, but he's just a big baby. Ah, memories...). We had a great time in the Amalfi Coast, and it was hard to leave, especially since when we left, we were beginning our journey back to New York.

Day 7 - Ravello and Amalfi (Part 1)

Ravello and Amalfi is the part of the trip where the new camera was really broken in! I took about 200 pictures in four, maybe five hours, so I've decided to break this post up into two just so you can get the grand scale of the fun that we had on this day.

The plan was to get a quick breakfast at our hotel (delicious again), and then catch the SITA bus up to the town of Ravello which was about ten miles east and stright up a hillside. Ravello sits out on the edge of the mountain over looking the bay and the surrounding hilltop towns. Apparently in the summer, it is a huge hit with the tourists and rich and famous, which made it perfect for Molly and I. She of course is a tourist and I'm rich and infamous.

So, it was off to the SITA Fermatta for the long (45 min.) bus ride . . .

The views of the Mediterranean where amazing . . . Again! Once we got to Amalfi, we had to catch another bus that would take us up the mountain to Ravello.

This was a day of close calls for us, transportation-wise. We had to sprint to catch the bus in Positano and then again when we reached Amalfi. As we were enjoying our leisurely trip up the mountain side, the bus driver stopped and proceeded to kick all of us off the bus (some locals, us, and a French group). Molly and I followed the locals closely as they started walking up the hill and through a gas station and local tire repair shop. To our amazement, on the other side of the station were more stairs and another SITA bus wating for us?!?

We jumped on and off we went again, up to the top of the mountain and to the doorstep of Ravello. It was one of those strange trips that you look back on and say, "How in the hell did we get up here?"

Ravello is a very small town, or a large village, not sure which, but it was definitely low tourist season. A lot of the time, Molly and I felt like we were intruding on the few days that the locals may have to themselves. We pressed on no matter and took a whole lotta pictures. Above is a picture of Church number one, in the only town square.

Some very old building with trees growing out of the roof.

Since most thing were closed we decided to take a walk. We chose a direction and went for it. My hope was to get some cool views of the bay from way up high. Molly bought some plates with lemons on them from the only tourista shop open. He was a nice guy though and was more than willing to sell us everything in his shop.

Who know what that is, but those trees are cool! It was kind of tough to walk around and not take pictures of everything.

This was somebody backyard vineyard.

Again, how could you not stop and take pictures. The tower in the background was right next to the first church in the main square.

Even though I was stopping every two steps to take a picture, Molly was patient with me. She just hung back and said "Yes Cody, that sure is cool, take a picture." And I did.

This was the interior of Church number two. Nice, cozy, and with a crazy statue of David (as in Goliath) at the doorway. He looked like Walt Disney had carved him.

Outside, I was checking out the front of the building while Molly was taking pictures. Damn, I'm a handsome man.

Molly decided that it would be a good idea to break into someone's house and wander around their yard. Acutally, it was some fancy wedding reception place. Molly's bright idea was to tell them that we were a couple looking for a place to have a wedding if we got caught. I wasn't sure how she planned to communicate this to the police when we were arrested, since no one in this small town spoke English, but what the hell. Getting arrested in Italy couldn't be that bad?

The place did have one great view of the coast!

We made it out of the place unbenonst to anyone, so we continued with our walk.

We were getting close to the end of our little walk when we came upon this huge garden carved into the hill side. The hard work that must have gone into building the village is amazing. Everything was chiseled out of the hill side.

The garden ended up having roosters. And that guy eating the melon was taunting me. I shook my fist furiously at him! Take that Rooster Boy!

Looking back up the hill. Imagine using that path everyday. No wonder Italians fit into their funny looking pants.

We soon reached a dead end and were forced to walk the road back without my grand picture of the Sea that I was hoping for. No big deal though, I guess we will have to go back to the Amalfi Coast. Back at the main piazza, there was a cafe open for lunch. We had a bite and planned our next move...

Day Six: Capri and Cody's Birthday

(Molly Post)

Day six we woke up in the most beautiful city in Southern Italy. We opened the curtains and were able to look out at this view:

We woke up around 8 AM and had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. One of the owners manages the breakfast and as we walked in, he asked us what kind of coffee we would like. He made us a fresh pot with some steamed milk - absolutely delicious. It was great service for a free breakfast! We decided to go to Capri for day six. In the summer, this is much easier since the ferries leave directly from Positano. However, in low tourist season, we had to take the bus to Sorrento and get the ferry there. Below is a view looking back at Positano from the bus stop.

The bus to Sorrento was easy, but once there, we had no idea where the ferry left from or which direction the port was. The people at the bus stop were very non-descript, but we started off in the direction they pointed. We stumbled upon a street festival and discovered that Sorrento celebrates the Festival de San Valentino (aka, Valentine's Day). There were the traditional festival booths (i.e. games, food, and clothes/fashion items), but there were also vendors selling pots & pans, lightbulbs, and other assorted household items. It was very eclectic and strange. Finally, after wandering around for 15 minutes, I asked an old women standing outside her shop for directions. She was very friendly and pointed us to some steps that led to the port.

We had about an hour to kill before the ferry so we wandered around the port and took some pictures. The sun was just climbing over the cliffs and it looked beautiful shining on the water. We grabbed a cup of Cafe Americana from the cafe - Cody's birthday coffee.

As we walked around the port, we realized there were cats everywhere! We must have seen 7-8 cats in a 10ft area. We found a bench in the sunlight and took a park nap before the ferry.

Unfortunately, we arrived in Capri about 11:30, and the ferries back left at 1:30 or 6:30. We decided to try to make the 1:30, since 6:30 would get us back to Positano very late, so we only had 2 hours in Capri. When we got off the ferry, we immediately hopped on a bus that took us to AniCapri, one of the small towns in the hills.

We wandered down the only street in the town and stumbled upon a local wedding. There was a crowd of about 50 people throwing confetti and sounding air horns. It was really cool to see.

We stopped and had a quick bite to eat at a cafe with some of the wedding guests and then went to wait for the bus back to the ferry. We had to wait for about 30 minutes and barely made the ferry - we had to sprint to the ferry when the bus dropped us off. However, we did get a great photo of the main port in Capri from the bus.

When we got back to Sorrento, we took a leisurely stroll back to the bus stop. Below is a picture of the water - one of the most amazing thing about the Amalfi Coast (at least to me) was how clear the water was.

We got back to Positano by about 4 PM and took a nap before dinner. For dinner, we walked down to the beach and surprise!, we had two restaurants to choose from. We went to Chez Black, next door to the one we ate lunch at the day before. We wanted to try someplace new. However, the food was not good. Cody ordered the local lobster - it was the first time had lobster, and unfortunately the local fair was very small. I taught him how to get every inch of meat out of the shell, and in true Cody-fashion, he looked funny doing it.

After dinner, we made friends with an Australian couple who ate at the same restaurant as us for two nights in a row (pure coincidence). We chatted with them for a little while - they were in Italy on a cooking tour, which sounded like a lot of fun. We think Cody's dad may be taking a class with them in Florence next week...we told him to look out for them.