Known for:         Towns on cliff faces, Breath-taking scenery, Crazy drivers, Tasty food

This week sees me travel to Italy for the second time this year, but this time to the Amalfi Coast. For those not too familiar with the area, you may have heard of famous volcano – Mt Vesuvius and the nearby town of Pompeii which was covered in ash/molten rock in 79AD I believe? Basically the Amalfi coast is a spectacular coast line which starts in the quaint and friendly town of Positano, and stretches all the way passes several towns and finishes in the urban streets of Salerno.

Pompeii and Sorrento:

After catching the “red eye” flight, the first flight of the day that leaves London at 6am I arrived a few hours in the 3^rd largest Italian city in Naples. Unfortunately due to time constraints I chose to skip this town and head straight toward Pompeii. Traveling with my friend and his sister we backed our Asian driving skills and equipped ourselves with a car (The good ‘ol trusty fiat) and a gps in search of Pompeii.

Lesson learnt: Italian drivers are crrazzzzzy drivers!!

After pulling out from the rental hire car spot we were tasked with trying to turn left from the right hand lane. Sure this sounds simple enough for all those countries not in the commonwealth, but for us folk who are used to driving on the left hand side of the road and a right hand drive car, this was especially nerve racking. Let me illustrate

Ideally this is how you should turn left (on the left). In Naples it look more like this (right) lol. The blue car represents the car we were in. Chaos reigns and the bravest individual turns first lol. Eventually, we made it after about 10 minutes giving way to all the crazy Italian drivers and waiting for a clear passage (well as clear as it could be)

Having reached Pompeii about an hour later we explored the ruins of the city. The site itself is humongous and it’s hard to conceive that a prosperous town (it had its own amphitheatre! ) such as Pompeii was decimated in a matter of moments. I would have liked to explored more of the ruins and learnt about the history, but as fate would have it we were on a fairly tight schedule.  After a quick 1 hour tour of the site, off we went back toward the first night stop in Sorrento.

50 minutes later we arrived in the vibrant town of Sorrento. The town is predominantly all tourists, as this is the closest port to the popular island of Capri. It is very clean and in most stores you will see the word ‘limoncello’ throughout the town. Limoncello is a lemon liqueur famous throughout the region and the citrus fruit grown locally. The lemons look like they are on some “fructose steroids”! They are humongous.  It is consumed chilled and by chilled I mean the alcohol is stored in the freezer so it is very refreshing on a warm day. Since I have been in London for the past year, 19 degrees is hot in my books!

Unfortunately the hotel we were staying it is quite far away from Sorrento town centre. The GPS to this point had been in great getting us to where we needed to get to, however finding this hotel seemed to be an issue as the GPS would tell us that we had reached the hotel several times however we found ourselves outside abandoned churches and down little streets that just seemed odd.

With each turn the GPS told us to go down, the roads got progressively narrower and narrower until BOOOMMMM…HISSSSSSSSSSs…. “lucky we got the added insurance ey!” I commented at the busted tyre.

I suppose it was a blessing in disguise because after playing charades with a friendly Italian man he informed us that the roads would only get narrower meaning that we would have got stuck sooner or later!

10 mins later and a calm head my friend and I managed to change the tire in quick smart time.

A special shout out to Dad! Thanks for teaching me / forcing me to jack up the car for you on several occasions throughout my teens, it came in very useful this time.

After that hair raising encounter we returned back to the town centre in Sorrento, enjoyed the beautiful sunset, and tucked into some delicious seafood pasta. Not a bad way to end an eventful day.

The Isle of Capri. (Pronounced caar-pree)

Just as a side note I’ve noticed that there seems to be a love affair between Americans and the country of Italy, I haven’t figured out why, but I’ve been told it has something to do with Rick Steves. If anyone knows why please comment, I’m just curious :o)

But I digress, the second day was a full day tour to the island of Capri. The Island of Capri only has if I recall like 13,000 full time residents yet more than 2 million people pass through every year.

One of best known sites of Capri is the blue grotto, where it was said to be Julius Caesar and Tiberius private pool back ancient roman times. In fact they enjoyed living in Capri so much the Roman empire was ruled from Capri for a period of time. To get into the grotto itself you board a tiny row boat, duck your head and let your boat captain pull you through the entrance. Once you are in, the sunlight gives the water this luminous & emerald/sapphire glow which is quite special indeed. If you look carefully you can also see plenty of fish swimming about too.
There is a beautiful lookout point (Monte Solaro) at Anacapri where you take a scenic 15 min chairlift up to the summit and marvel at spectacular views. From the summit you can see the famous Faraglioni – three towering rocks that are on most Capri postcards and tourist campaigns.

The Augustus gardens are also worth checking out and yes there are more beautiful viewpoints to see when you get there. There are a few public beaches about too for those sun lovers. Be careful though as the beaches are pebble beaches! I’ve only listed a few of the places we checked out, but if want to get a little more detailed information about the place I’ve placed the link below. http://www.capri.com/

For such a small island there is so much on offer! A burning question which I forgot to ask was – do capricciosa pizza originate from Capri? I guess I’ll never know lol

Ravello/Positano

Next stop was the charming town of Positano with its every so friendly locals, and labyrinth like streets. This picturequese towns lies on a cliff face is a sight to behold on a clear day. As the sun sets over the mountains the town starts to light up and the panoramic view is simply stunning. The drive into the town is like something out of a movie.

The road is a one way street which takes you from the top of the mountain to the city centre, passing restaurants, shops, mechanics along the way. The road is wide enough for one small European car, and you are so close to the buildings you could quite easily steals someone’s lunch if you put your hand slightly out of the window!

The hotel we stayed at was a charming and welcoming family run establishment. When we arrived we greeted the lady at the desk with the standard “Ciao” and introduced ourselves and mentioned that we had a booking. She smiled warmly and commented “I know, I’ve been expecting you”. Talk about impressive customer service.

One of the towns we stopped off at was the quaint town of Ravello. The main attraction of this town are the two villa’s. We visited the larger of the two (villa Cimbrone) which sits atop yet another cliff face and overlooks the ocean. Apart from being slightly motion sick on the way to the town, from the sharp turns as a result of my friend thinking he was a rally car driver, it was a great way to start the morning. We stopped off for lunch at an ex-Michelin starred restaurant with a marvellous view. In the afternoon we took to the pebble beach in Positano and sleep the rest of the day away! The relaxing pace of this trip truly was fantastic Mt Vesuvius

Only the final day we decided to visit Mt Vesuvius. After an epic 3 hour drive (yes we got lost) traversing through impossible roads, cows and climbing the mountainous roads to the top of Vesuvius national park, we thought we had reached the summit. Until we realised we had only reached the entrance to park lol. We then embarked on a hike to the top of the volcano top glimpse into the crater. Apparently this is still the only active volcano in Europe, but is considered dormant, (otherwise we’d be toast!) so its active but not exploding I guess. It was a bit misty that day which was not ideal, but the crater was huge so it is hard to comprehend what the area would have been like when it was shooting out molten rock.

An action-packed 4 day weekend away to the Amalfi coast was exactly what just what the doctor ordered. There is so much variety and if you cannot find something you enjoy along the way, I’d be very surprise. Amazing food, breath-taking scenery, life threatening traffic, chapters and chapters of history. This could be a few of the reasons as to why the Americans love Italy so much!

JD