09 - When life gives you lemons, make Limoncello

Apart from our day trip to Rome, the Amalfi coast was the first destination where we had a clearly defined to-do list of the tourist sights and attractions that we actually wanted to see and do. Walking the well trodden tourist path to see the sights is something we have tried to escape on our trip so far. Neither of us had been to this part of Italy before so we felt justified in acting the tourist for a few days.

We were able to “tick-off” a couple of the major sights on the way into Sorrento with our first stop at Mount Vesuvius. Named after the spicy Pizza Express pizza, Vesuvius is also famous for being the active volcano that looms over the nearby city of Napoli. We hiked up to the rim of the crater and took in the wonderful views to our destination of Sorrento and to the neighbouring historic towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum are both located at the foot of Vesuvius, proving both a blessing and curse as they were famously put on the map thanks to the volcanic eruption in 79 AD and now thrives in the booming tourism industry. We had planned on visiting both archeological sites and started with Herculaneum as the smaller town following our hike up and down the volcano. The eerie feeling of walking down the excellently preserved roman streets, walking into the old shops and baths, having just come from the crater that was responsible for wiping out the city made the experience more meaningful and relatable.

We spent longer than intended walking the streets that really capture the essence of Roman life and were running late for our check-in in Sorrento. We therefore decided to skip the more famous ruins of Pompeii so that when people ask us “Did you like Pompeii?” we can obnoxiously reply how we purposely avoided this “tourist trap” and explored the lesser known hidden gem that is Herculaneum. The Herculaneum guide book also took this stance, clearly tired of being compared to its more famous and more popular twin.

From the foot of Vesuvius, we embarked on the winding roads that took us onto the Amalfi coast. The region shares many of the characteristics that made the Cinque Terre a special place for us a few weeks ago. Dramatic cliffs fall into a crystal clear sea that is overlooked by colourful hillside towns with an atmosphere filled with the buzz of gelaterias and pizzerias. Sorrento is a beautiful town itself, positioned at the top of a cliff that drops down to lots of (privately owned and managed) beaches and marinas. Surprisingly flat, given its surrounding mountains, we were based just outside the main town and close to neighbouring Sant’Agnello. We enjoyed a few lazy days swimming in the bay of Naples and eating many scoops of gelato.

Just as with the Cinque Terre, we wanted to tour around the neighbouring towns, largely hoping that another list-type blog of the top towns in the Amalfi coast might again improve our SEO and a subsequent call from buzzfeed. Melissa’s gelato addiction means that we may require additional advertising funding in order to make it back to Alicante. Whereas the train in the Cinque Terre allows you to hop between towns in a matter of minutes, this is not the case in the Amalfi coast where tourists are at the mercy of the bus drivers.

We spent a day heading first out to Amalfi which, though only 30km away, is around a 2 hour journey by bus and then back to Positano before looping back to Sorrento. Driving Trevor around the towns was an option, however not wanting to follow any friend’s examples of driving into walls and risk losing a hubcap on the narrow roads, we decided to go on a bus journey that neither of us will forget. Sadly, the memory of this journey is largely of an overcrowded bus filled with sweaty tourists battling motion sickness, including an old lady that quickly lost her battle yet relentlessly refused to get off of the bus but chose instead continue to vomit into her husbands panama hat right behind us. The bus drivers are the kings of the road in Amalfi. Old ladies attempting to hail down the bus are promptly given the finger by the driver who utters Italian profanities at any and every passenger he meets as if we are interrupting his drive home. The drivers do expertly navigate roads that are not meant for such vehicles, reversing back along the sheer cliff edge when faced with a bus coming in the opposite direction, but they act a little above their station.

The other must-see destination, and final tourist check-box, is the Island of Capri that sits just off the coast in the bay of Naples. Here we took a semi-private boat tour around the island, stopping to gaze into the colourful grottos and jump in for a swim, before exploring the island with our wallets firmly in our pockets. The 2 towns on the island, Capri and Anacapri, are famed for the boutique and designer stores that don’t quite fit into our travelling budget. We skipped the main tourist spots of the Blue Grotto and the chair lift to the top in favour of a walk down the ancient Phoenician steps built by the ancient greeks to connect Anacapri to the main harbour.

The 5 days we had in the Amalfi coast flew by and we felt content that we’d balanced the tourist attractions with time to relax and swim. I was finally rewarded with a glass of Limoncello, the signature of the Amalfi coast, as our Capri boat tour returned back to Sorrento to nicely cap off our time here. Having spent another 5 days away from Trevor and experiencing what life is like at the mercy of Italian public transport, we are excited for the next leg of our journey down to the “heel of the boot” of the Italian coastline in Puglia.

J & M