Weekend on the Amalfi Coast

Ciao all,

This weekend was absolutely amazing. One fun thing after another for a solid 3 days! After an awful day of stressful tutoring on Thursday, our bus left the station at 6:30 pm for Amalfi. We watched a bunch of movies during the trip (there was a TV) and also discovered the hard way that there were no bathrooms on board. We stopped at an autogrill for a little dinner around 9:00 pm and then continued the journey. Around 1 am, we started to get into the Amalfi Coast area, as I awoke to the bus taking some ridiculous curves on this road which was dangerously placed on a cliff. It was a little scary, but the view was gorgeous.

Around 2 am, we finally arrived at our hotel in Sorrento, completely destroyed. We had traveled about 8 hours, so the second we were assigned our rooms, we crashed. At 7 am, we woke up for breakfast and had to be walking to the ferry for Capri at 8 am. Needless to say, it was a rough morning. Cassandra, our awesome tour guide, led us all the way down a windy highway (most certainly a very dangerous thing to do with 45 American kids in tow) and we made it to the marina within an hour. On the way, I was excited to pass The Bristol Hotel, where my parents had stayed on their honeymoon and where my Grandma had the same room every year that she visited. It was only a half mile down the road from our hotel! What a coincidence! Anyway, when we arrived at the marina, we waited for about 20 minutes and then hopped on the ferry over to Capri. The ferry took about 45 minutes and was filled with old people. I guess Capri is a pretty popular destination for the elderly. When we arrived, we were a little disappointed with the cloudy, ominous skies. It rained for about 10 minutes and then remained cloudy for quite a while.

During that time, we hopped on another smaller boat to take a tour around the island and see the Blue, Green and White Grottoes. For the entire duration of the journey, we had pretty significant cloud cover, but we dealt with it and I took about 100 pictures anyway. All of the cliffs were so different from one another, and all equally breathtaking. Our first stop was the Blue Grotto, which was indescribably awesome. In order to enter the Grotto, we had to get off the bigger tour boat and into small wooden rowboats, 4 or 5 at a time. Our tour guide was a riot, so he made the smooshed conditions within the rowboat exciting and fun. With me in my rowboat were Maggie Wright and Maggie Rossi, along with a couple in our group that would not stop hugging, kissing and touching each other. It was a little awkward, but I guess that's besides the point. Anyway, all the little rowboats lined up to get into the Grotto, whose entrance is a tiny hole about 3 feet high. We were lucky that the Grotto was open to the public because it appeared as if we were nearing high tide, when people can no longer enter. We were all instructed to lay as flat as possible in the rowboat while our guide pulled us into the hole with a chain that was attached to the Grotto rocks. The interior was absolutely breathtaking. I was amazed at how enormous it was, as the entrance hole was so unassuming that it would never be able to reveal the secrets inside the Grotto. The water was lit with a beautiful blue (hence the name) that naturally comes from the reflection of the sun on the sand. All of the tour guides in the different rowboats sang the typical songs of Napoli (O Sole Mio, etc). The whole experience inside the Grotto lasted all of 8 minutes, when we squeezed back out into the daylight. Needless to say, we were very satisfied customers. Words really cannot describe the uniqueness and beauty of this Grotto. I am just amazed that the whole thing is completely natural!

The rest of our boat ride consisted of visits to the Green and White Grottoes and a little snooping of the summer houses of Sophia Loren, the Gerber family (Mussolini's former residence), Donatella Versace, and Giorgio Armani. When we arrived back on land, we took one of Cassandra's lunch recommendations and found a great restaurant down an alleyway, pretty close to the main piazza in Capri. We were the only ones there for a good while, and we loved it that way. The place was very cozy and trendy, with white couches and green pillows, and beautiful wooden ceiling beams. We all ate very well. We shared fried calamari and prosciutto and melon. I had pasta with tomato sauce, mozzarella and eggplant for my main course.

When we exited the restaurant, we were pleasantly surprised to see bright sunshine. I guess Capri is a lot like the Vineyard in that it needs some time to burn off the morning haze and rain clouds. Carla and Grace split off from Jeff, Maggie, Maggie, Kevin and myself in search of Caprese sandals high on Anacapri. Our little group of five got some lemon granitas and then walked all over the island. We saw the beautiful gardens of Capri and from there, took a winding path down the side of a cliff, all the way to the bottom. There, we dipped our feet in the water and I collected a ton of sea glass. When we had finished there, we took the bus back up to the main area of Capri and stopped in a limoncello store for some souvenirs. Then, we coincidentally ran into Grace and Carla and together, went to a bar to drink some limoncello together.

Our whole group (all 45 of us Americans) met back at the port and took the ferry back to Sorrento around 6:30. We filled in the evening by showering and prepping for the nightlife. At 8:45, we had our included dinner at the hotel which consisted of bruschetta, pasta, salad, oranges and unlimited wine. It was pretty good. After dinner, we let Cassandra lead us into town for some drinks and fun. We hung around at this English bar for a while and then, around 12:30 headed right upstairs for some dancing. The discoteca part of the bar was soooo awesome because it was outside and the terrace was covered with trees and funky lights. It was a great atmosphere to dance. At this point, Grace, Jeff, and Maggie Wright had decided to go home. Kevin, Maggie Rossi, Carla, Cassandra and myself hung around and danced for a few more hours. We had a blast and took the long hike back to the hotel around 2 am.

We were able to sleep in about an hour longer on Saturday, and left for Positano around 10am. We took a 30 min bus ride that took us along the beautiful coastline road. We drove right along the cliffs for the whole way and it was a little scary, but absolutely gorgeous. Despite being exhausted, I couldn't close my eyes for even a second because I hated the idea of missing the view! When we arrived, the bus driver was in a sour mood, so he dropped us off at the very top of the cliffs, about an hour walk from where we wanted to be in Positano. But, va bene. The road we conquered on foot had a continuously beautiful view, so no one felt the need to complain too much. Before braving the walk, we stopped at a quaint fruit stand and bought some mega-lemons (I bought one for Maria Pia, and one to squeeze in my hair) and other fresh fruits. We walked down the winding road for about a half hour and then reached the famous stairs of Positano. However, when I say famous, I don't mean one special flight of stairs. I'm referring to the fact that Positano has no roads and that the townspeople and visitors get around using stairs to climb up and down the side of the cliffs. So, after finishing with the road that circled just above Positano, we took about 60 flights of stairs to make it to the bottom area and beach community. Our legs were completely destroyed when we finally made it. Who thought that walking down the stairs could be so difficult!? We sat on some benches to soothe our legs and they violently shook for as long as we put a little weight on the balls of our feet. So weird.

Once I was half-recovered, I re-traced my steps back to a cobbler that Cassandra (as a reminder, our tour guide) had pointed out. I fell in love with a pair of white leather sandals with gold grommets and good old Giovanni made them right there in front of me! He fitted my feet and everything! It was so cool and everything was so well and reasonably priced. My plan had been to buy a pair of sandals for my Caprese souvenir, so I'm glad I found what I was looking for. Even if I hadn't gone to Giovanni, I'm sure I would have found sandals at the hundreds of other places that I saw hammering and nailing the similar sandals, though. After my purchase, I met the rest of the HC gang on the beach. I set up camp and then hopped off the sand to get a personal pizza. All the good ones come from the Naples area, so I knew that I had to try one. I bought a margherita pizza with onions on top and ate it on the beach. My friends' mouths were watering, and this salivation was completely legitimate because the pizza was delicious. We did nothing all afternoon but relax and catch some rays. The temperature was perfect enough that I didn't break a sweat or have to jump in the water. Thank goodness for that because the ocean was pretty chilly.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we cleaned up camp and headed off the beach for some yummy granitas. Just for the record, they were better in Capri. Then, we walked up a few flights of the Positano steps and met the rest of the 45 Americans at the bus stop. The bus was able to drive us up the cliffs and closer towards where our tour bus had dropped us off that morning. Once we scaled the mountain road with the great view, we made it to the tour bus. We arrived at the hotel, showered up, and had dinner. While the dinner was alright, I would most certainly say that the first night's was better. Our second night consisted of pizza and then a weird fish that seemed a little too slimy to be fully cooked.

After dinner, the HC kids and myself went downstairs to our rooms for a few glasses of wine and a hangout session. I tried to learn how to juggle, and almost had it when I lost the 3rd orange. Oops. That was the end of that, but it didn't matter because we headed off to the club for a little dancing and fun! The rest of the interested Americans had already left the hotel, so the 7 of us met everyone in downtown Sorrento at the same place that we had been the night before. The dance terrace was pretty dead when we arrived and people were wallflowering it like crazy. Since 7 was a pretty ample number of people and we really didn't care what other people thought, we were the first to step on the floor and start dancing. We weren't there alone for more than 15 minutes when everyone else in the club felt comfortable enough to join us in the disco festivities. A few hours later we, the very own party-starters, were inadvertently kicked off the dancefloor as a result of lack of space. At that point, we called it a night.

On Sunday morning, we checked out around 10am and then walked around downtown Sorrento and bought amazing sandwiches for the trip. We left Sorrento at noon and succeeded in getting the 8 bus seats right up front, which was a huge feat. People were literally pushing for them (because it's easiest to see the TV from those spots). Grace wouldn't have let those seats slip out of her way. She's good like that. So, we settled into our comfy seats and ate our enormous sandwiches. We were happy as clams. I passed out on the bus and about an hour and a half later, we arrived in Pompeii, the stop that I had been awaiting the entire weekend. The usual 11.00 euro entrance fee was waived that day because it had been La Settimana di Cultura, so we were thrilled about that. We only paid 5.00 euro for an optional tour guide that came with our travel package. Great deal!

As soon as the tour started, it began to downpour. I stayed as optimistic as possible and really enjoyed seeing everything that I had learned about so thoroughly in my Archaeology of Pompeii class sophomore year. We saw the Pompeian restaurants, one of the theaters, wealthy and poor homes, brothels, temples, the baths, the bodies, and the forum. I loved it! I would have loved to have been able to explore more on my own because the House of the Faun and the large Amphitheater were on the other side of the town and I had really been hoping to see them. But, by the end of the 2 hour tour, I was thoroughly soaked and, though optimistic, I couldn't bring myself to walk all the way to the other side. I guess it just means I'll have to go back! I was a little disappointed because my friends didn't seem very thrilled to be there. It would have been nice if the sun had been out. I know they would have enjoyed it more had they not been soaking.

Either way, it was awesome to be able to recognize everything in Pompeii that I had learned about. Capri, Positano and Sorrento were breathtaking, so this trip was most certainly worth the money. We only paid 200 euro and got a hotel, 2 dinners, 3 breakfasts, transportation to Capri, reduced transportation to Positano, and reduced boat tours. When I come back to Italy, this area is the first place I'll be returning to.

Today, I received the good news that I have been chosen as a Fall Orientation Leader for incoming transfer students. I am so excited! Class registration was this afternoon, and I got everything that I had wanted (with a little extra pleading on one of the them). I'll be taking Dante, Italian Women's Autobiography (in Italian), Kids Today: Perspectives on Development, and Psychology of Adolescence. My adviser says that I may even be able to count the Women's Autobiography towards my Childhood Studies minor, because it discusses mother-daughter relationships and growing up. That would be AWESOME!

Chelsea is coming on Saturday and I will be meeting her in Pisa, where she flies in. I'm really looking forward to it and I have lots of plans for her!

I'll update the next time I have a spare moment.

A dopo!