The Walls of the Cave: April 2007

Amalfi Pictures

Looking back on the walk from the center of town

Ready for a night out

The view from our hotel balcony

Bella Amalfi

Looking at our hotel (white building in lower left)

I should have done my senior pictures here!

Boats of all types, for tourism and for fishing

The Cathedral and steps

Center of town

Entrance to the cathedral

Garden in the cathedral

In town

One last look at Amalfi before we leave...

Amalfi

This is the general layout of Amalfi Coast, which gives you a pretty good idea of where we were for the later part of our trip. Salerno and Sorrento are the main hubs, with bus lines and ferries running to all other cities. We stayed in Amalfi itself, which is a small town dating back to the 6th century. The entire area is known for tourism and limoncello (lemon liqueur), and it was worth all the hype (especially since we had good weather). The landscape is very mountainous and rocky with little towns tucked away behind each ridge.

The train took us from Pompeii to Salerno, which is about Ft. Collins sized, but maybe a bit denser. From there, we got on a bus for Amalfi. The trip is only 25 km, but it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to trace the coastline. Still, the view made the 1.80 euro bus ticket one of the best purchases of the trip. Seeing the mountains, trees, and the water distracted us from the fact that the bus was negotiating through two-way traffic on a narrow road just a few feet and a short retaining wall away from the edge. The drivers were pros, stopping at every curve, honking their horns, and watching the mirrors for opposite traffic. Though it's probably more expensive, it'd be fun to go by ferry next time to see a different perspective and avoid the twisty roads.

We made it to the Amalfi town center by late afternoon and found our hotel, which was about a five minute walk away on the western edge of town. Our room had a view of the pier and the water, and a two-minute walk to the pier gave us an incredible view of the town. That night we had dinner at a restaurant on the water recommended by the hotel. I had gnocchi a la napoletana, which was good, though not as as good as the gnocchi I had in Florence. We also tried an interesting appetizer combination --prosciutto and cantaloupe, which was really good.
We spent the next day exploring the town. We sat on the pier, visited the town's cathedral, which supposedly has some of the bones of St. Andrew, had pizza sitting on the cathedral steps, found gelato (surprise!) and took the day at a relaxing pace, which was nice considering how much we had done the past week.

After checking out of the hotel Sunday morning, we had more time to explore. We did a little shopping in town, found bus tickets back to Salerno, and looked for postcards that would make the place look as good as it did to us. That afternoon, we caught the bus back to Salerno, enjoyed the views for the last time, and caught a train back to Rome for our flights back the next morning.

This is definitely at the top of my list of places to see again. Enjoy the photos and thanks for sticking it out to the end of this series. The next major trip for me will be at the end of the month, when Kara comes to Madrid. As part of that, we'll be spending some time in Granada (known as the last Moorish stronghold and home of the Alhambra) and Málaga (known as the most "quintessentially Spanish city" on the southern coast).

Pompeii Pictures

Photos courtesy of Kara:

Sanctuary in the main square

Garden in the ruins

Well-preserved frescoes

Ouch

Pompeii crosswalk

Ouch pt. 2

Building in Pompeii with the best preserved frescoes (not rated G, by the way), and the longest lines to get in...the red light district. This fresco is, how shall I put it, an informational guide for the client on the particular services offered.

Beautiful weather in the main square

Forum

Pompeii

Catching the train in Rome was another adventure. Our B&B had issues getting through on the phone to order a cab, and when they did finally order one it didn't show up. We waited as long as we could, then caught another cab, and made slow progress through the lovely Rome traffic toward Termini station. We were going at just a fast enough pace to make things interesting, but there was no way we were going to make it. We pulled into the station about the time the train was supposed to leave, but we had a stroke of good luck. We noticed on the board that it was delayed 5 minutes! We ran to the correct platform and one of the first cars we could, but it ended up being delayed by another 15 minutes so we had no trouble getting our seats.

The train ride down to Naples was beautiful, exactly the kind of mountainous countryside that Italy is known for. We were in Naples itself for a grand total of about 20 minutes to switch trains, but we really weren't missing anything as it's a really ugly city and petty crime is supposed to be terrible.

We made it to Pompeii about 3:00 pm, 30 minutes before the ruins closed, so we had all afternoon and evening to explore all that Pompeii has to offer......which is basically nothing. We ate pizza and gelato and spent a lot of our time sitting in the main square, walking around, or playing cards. Exploring the ruins Friday morning was worth the wait, though. The weather was excellent, and seeing the well preserved buildings, frescoes, and even bodies, was very interesting.

Still, after we thoroughly explored the ruins (and there not being anything else to do) we grabbed our bags from the hostel and caught the first train we could for Salerno.

Rome Pictures

So like I mentioned, all of my pictures are from the Vatican, but we have some actual film pictures from the other sites.

The line behind us

Mummy in the Vatican Museum

Trying to do a mummy impression

Plaza in the museum, with the dome of St. Peter's Basilica behind

Statue impressions part. 2

We were herded everywhere, basically

Example of the sculptures we saw (although note that all statues were either made "decent" like this one with the leaf, or crudely rendered anatomically lacking by chisel)

Hall of Maps

Everything was so ornate that it caused sensory overload.

St. Peter's Square

Can you find the Pope in this picture?

St. Peter's Basilica

Rome

We spent the next two nights in Rome, though we arrived late on Tuesday and had to leave Thursday morning, so that really left us Wednesday to explore the city. We knew going into it that Rome would be impossible to see in a day, but I think we did pretty well with the time we had. We woke up early and left our B&B at about 6:30 a.m., and by the time we figured out the correct direction on the bus, made it to the metro, and made it to the center of town, and got in line for the Vatican Museum, it was 8:30. When we arrived, the line already was very long, and was growing quickly. We ate breakfast in line and resisted the offers for 35 euro guided tours (the main perk being jumping to the front of the line) We made it inside at about 9:30 ish, and explored the museums, galleries, and the Sistine Chapel. Afterwards, we went over to St. Peter's Square, which was packed with people because the Pope was giving an address from the steps of the basilica. I think he's the first head of state that I've seen in person.

After the Vatican, we ate lunch and went to the Coliseum and the Forum, which were really cool and worth the wait in line. It's really cool that you can walk five blocks anywhere in Rome and come across ruins. In fact, Rome has such a limited subway because they keep running into ruins when they try to build new lines.

After the Forum, we went to the Trevy Fountain, spent some time at the Spanish Steps, walked through the Piazza Navona, and later met my roommate Greg for dinner. We took a scenic tram ride and walk past the Coliseum at night, took a couple of pictures (which I'll post as soon as Greg does) and took the metro back to our B&B at about 11:30. We crashed soon after that.

We had a stroke of bad luck in Rome with cameras. My camera broke in St. Peter's Square, and Kara's had been having problems the whole trip, so the rest of the pictures we have from Rome came from a disposable camera and the few that Greg took after dinner. Luckily Kara's camera started working for Pompeii and Amalfi, so between the two of us we have everything.

Pictures up soon!