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).