Day 5 was another "too tired of ruins" day so we girls took off for the Amalfi Coast which is on the south side of the peninsula (Sorrento is on the north side). Jay headed back to do a little more thorough tour of Herculaneum. Our bus ride was quite a thrilled. The coastal highway hugs the cliffs and we were warned not to even TRY to rent a car here. You'll see in the pictures that the roads are skinny, people park along the side and buses have to do some fancy footwork to pass each other. Sometimes it took several minutes to maneuver around a curve or a congested area. It's amazing that no one got car sick!! We made a friend on the bus. Her name was Augustina and she was a 28 year old Argentinian attorney traveling alone. She hung with us on our little adventure and we enjoyed lunch with her and learning about her life. It's so fun to meet people from all over and most everyone speaks some English. It makes me feel so stupid not to speak at least one language apart from English.
Our first hop off the bus was in Positano. The bus had been stopped and barely moving because of the congestion so we decided it was a good time. I small village that tumbles down the mountainside with a pebbly beach. The bus stops at the top of the village so we hiked down the little narrow paths toward signs that were painted tile that said Spagna Beach. Sounded good to us and Karissa managed to keep us from missing our little turns down stairways. As always the girls loved the beach. Since it wasn't high tourist season it was fun to wander through the streets, find the next bus stop and to wait with the locals for the next bus toward Amalfi. By the way, there are no real schedules on buses in Italy - they come when they come!
The Duomo and our lunch spot in Amalfi
We curved along the coast taking in some of the most spectacular cliffs I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the windows of the bus were fogged up so the pictures are a bit fuzzy! The bus drivers are absolutely amazing. It would be hard to drive it in a small car, let alone a bus! They must all aspire to be Grand Prix drivers!! Our next stop was Amalfi. Another beautiful coastal town, where we ate lunch at the bottom of the steps to the famous Romanesque style Duomo di Sant' Andrea church. Augustina and I shared a locally caught fish (brought to the table completely intact and the waiter cut it up for us) and the girls ate pizza (again) in the sunshine. No one eats inside unless it's raining I think! We said our goodbyes to Augustina and boarded an open air bus for a twenty minute ride up the mountain to the little town of Ravello.
The drive up to Ravello was fantastic. There were only two others on the bus with us so it felt like we had a giant convertible to ourselves!! Ravello was so quaint and charming. Very quiet but with incredible views. The girls managed to make friends with the local cats (what views these cats get!!) and find a playground with the locals. We bought some locally painted pottery and just savored the views (of course waiting for the bus back to Amalfi called for a gelato break!). We barely managed to make our connection for the bus back to Sorrento (the first two "scheduled" buses back to Amalfi from Ravello just never came!).
On the very long and circuitous route back to Sorrento (nearly 2 hours and we definitely got a tour of the whole peninsula - too bad it got dark!) we got some incredible sunset views up the coastline. Could the scenery get any better?
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