Amalfi Coast

Furore is on the cliffs between Amalfi and Praiano and this was our home for a week as we explored the coast and hinterland.

The long weekend holiday made the narrow roads here very busy so the buses which understandably have right of way, was our preferred mode of travel into Amalfi.

Here we sampled the famous lemon dessert at the famous Andrea Pansa cafe which also has an infamous pricing structure. Thirty-eight euros fifty for three desserts and four coffees left the lemon dessert a little more sour than it was meant to be.

Glum faces as we scan the menu of Andrea Pansa cafe .

We celebrated two birthdays at a local restaurant in Furore and were delighted at the quality, service and price of our eight courses. We had no menu to choose from. The owner welcomed us by announcing they only served fresh seafood and what ever they had caught that day we would eat.

Bianca ZIta Ristorante, Furore.

No menu, of course, meant we had no idea of the cost,  so we were a little concerned at the possible damage to our holiday budget, especially when the first bottle of wine was so good we opted for a second. Would our frivolity mean we ate just olives and cheese for the next few weeks? The meal was excellent. We were served champagne to celebrate birthdays, finished off with limoncello and kisses on both cheeks from the whiskery owner and the waitress. A great night!

The Path of the Gods is the track where the Sirens used to tread to the water to lure the fishermen to their deaths.

Fishermen escaping the sirens!
Stone houses were perched in impossible places near the path.

We were wary not to follow in their steps downwards as the mountains here are impossibly steep so we were reasonably happy to traipse the six kilometres around the mountainside for a few hours in the heat up stairs and down steps.

An abandoned house overlooking Positano.

The path led all the way to Positano, however, we were content with the distant view from an abandoned stone house. Our knees told us to skip the 1000 steps down to the village.

Too many steps meant this was the point of our return.

The path, though very picturesque, is really only fit for a donkey which we saw twice on the track carrying a load for its master.

Still, the lure of Positano was too much to resist. The twenty minute ferry was faster than the bus and the way of the mountain path.

The rush for the exits on the Amalfi to Positano ferry.
It’s predicted there will be 7.5 billion people in the world in 2017, and about 5 billion of them will have a mobile phone. Let’s say roughly 80% of those phones have a built-in camera: around 4 billion people. And let’s say they take 10 photos per day – that’s 3,650 photos per year, per person. That adds up to more than 14 trillion photos annually (14,600,000,000,000). http://mylio.com/true-stories/tech-today

The town of course is very pretty and we four added to the multitudes of tourists.

We climbed the hills where only the hardy feared to walk so we needed to find some cold drinks which we drank overlooking the town and sea. 

Positano Beach

We joined a small group for a day trip to Capri.

Capri boat trip
The Amalfi Coast

A cloudy and sometimes showery morning kept us under cover as we visited the green, white and blue grotto on our speedboat trip around the island.

Ten euros plus four euro tax will get some a ride in a leaky row boat into the blue grotto.

Four hours on the island was enough time to wander the streets full of people like us and have lunch to again celebrate birthdays. 

Capri locals trying to avoid the tourists.
Marina Grande, Capri
Positano
Praiano sunbathers

Ravello is on the mountain behind Amalfi and we drove there to visit Cimbroni Gardens set in the grounds of a villa which is now a hotel.

Driving to Ravello
Cimbroni Villa entrance

The garden had much to offer but the view from the terrace was the highlight.

Ravello is another pretty town – this coast has those in abundance.

 

Driving the Amalfi Coast

The long weekend for Italy’s Independence just happened to coincide with the time we decided to drive into the Amalfi Coast. Ignorantly, we decided the short seventy-nine kilometre drive to the ancient Greek ruins of Paestum would be a doddle for us.

Just a few cliff side roads to negotiate, a couple a picturesque towns to admire on the way and beautiful blue-green ocean lapping to our right.

We did have a wonderful day. The mostly intact ruins were spectacular and the museum held some particularly fine tomb paintings.

We even visited a buffalo mozzarella farm and sampled the creamy buffalo gelato and bought some buffalo steaks for dinner.

For the driver, it was arduous. Buses have right of way on the twisting roads choked with tourists like us, and when they appear around blind corners they can set the nerves on edge. They squeezed past the brand new leased car, its shiny paint work in danger of having a SITA bus company logo transferred to its door or being gouged by the rock wall on the sea side of the road. Motorcyclists zipped suddenly in and out of the conga line and bold or foolish youngsters followed dangerously in small Italian cars. 

Lots of noise was made, we held on, and sudden and unsolicited advice was regularly given to the man behind the wheel. I don’t know how the driver survived the seven hour drive. Dave did well. I sat in the back like all good back seat drivers should.

 

 

Rome

 

I must be going soft. You see, there’s a sharp ridge under one of my little toes where the flesh folds over. It is not a recent thing. It’s always been there. It’s weird! But now, a  puffy little blister has developed on the ridge.

9.6, 8.7, 5.1, 9.5, 15.9 15.1, 4.2, 10.2

That’s not my account number so you can send money for us to extend our stay, but the daily number of kilometres we have walked since we were in Rabat, so that explains the blister. It’s easy to walk here in Rome. There is so much to see. The distance you might drive to visit your distant relative in a distant city is covered wearing out shoe leather. Five kilometres in St Peters, ten in the Vatican Museum, five on the food tour and joining the dots takes another twenty more.

St Peter’s
The Testaccio gelato shop, the owner, and Francesco explaining that some flavours do not go with others and if you order the incorrect combinations, they will not be served!
Testaccio Food Market and the bottle of pale ale we drank to wash down the arancini ball.
Guerrini’s Testaccio

Francesco, our food tour guide around Testaccio, asked us if anyone had been to Rome before.

“About ten years ago,” I said, “but the place seems to be falling apart now. There are ruins everywhere.”

Tastaccio, Rome

A new metro line station is being dug near the Colosseum and nearby ruins are trussed up in scaffolding preventing them from tumbling from this manmade earthquake. Columns are wrapped like braces on an adolescent’s teeth. 

The Forum is rising out of the ground as columns that were recently found buried are now standing in their original places. As trowels scrape away dirt, another set of stone steps appear. What has fallen apart is rising from the dead.

There is hope for us. We eat a lot and down the fluids. We need to, otherwise our bodies will end up like this photograph of the remains of my foot.

My foot at the Vatican Museum, Rome.