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.
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.
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.
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 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.



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