Amalfi Coast
For this leg, as a travel base, we're staying near Sorrento. This region, set on the cliffs of the Sorrentine Peninsula overlooking the Bay of Naples, features beautiful coastal scenery, lush lemon groves, and a history reaching back to Greek and Roman times. Sorrento is famous for its traditional limoncello, picturesque old town, and the myth of Sirens who, according to legend, lured sailors with their song. The town offers sweeping views of Mount Vesuvius and serves as an easy gateway to the Amalfi Coast.
Trip from Rome
Fri, Sept 19
The train ride started as the fastest of the trip, reaching 183 mph on the high-speed stretch from Rome to Naples, where comfortable leather seats and fast WiFi made the journey a pleasure. The hills were green and we moved from vast fields to occasional industrial areas. Very pretty.
Arriving at Naples' Garibaldi station, we joined other passengers to follow a representative through the station, eventually descending to a dim platform where we boarded an old, rickety carriage whose interior looked like a school bus from 20 years ago.
The ride was noisy, filled with the jarring sounds of metal on metal, and the only cooling came from open windows; stops were very abrupt, underscoring how different this part of the trip felt. But the attendants were courteous and the train delivered us right where we needed to go.
Along the route, we passed by Mount Vesuvius. We'll be back here tomorrow for a full tour. It's not a very impressive mountain, at present.
Mount Vesuvius
Our lodging is actually in Sant'Agnello. A quiet, smaller town next to Sorrento. So we found our place and started walking. Not as many people here, yay!!!
We found a great restaurant in Sorrento and grabbed dinner. Really good!
Then walked a bit more. This is not what we expected. SO MANY SHOPS. Oh, and there are still a lot of people here.
Thirty minute walk back to our room to rest up for tomorrow. Light day, 14k steps. ;-)
Pompeii
Sat, Sept 20
We walked down the hill and found a great breakfast place with a fantastic view—Terrazza Mediterraneo Italian Bistrot. From there, we could see the Sorrento harbor just down the coast and Mount Vesuvius in the opposite direction.
Our Pompeii tour started at 2pm, so we took the 1:26 train to the nearby Pompei Scavi Villa Dei Misteri station. Mount Vesuvius is only 7 miles away, still active, and is particularly unpredictable and dangerous the experts say. An eruption could happen at any time, although the last eruption was in 1944 and they think they can predict one two weeks prior to the next.
We found our guide and joined the group. It was hot. Each time he stopped to talk, we all looked for shade nearby within ear shot.
So, just a reminder about Pompeii.
In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted catastrophically, devastating Pompeii and other nearby cities. The eruption began around midday with powerful explosions, sending superheated gases and ash more than 20 miles into the sky. This occurred in several eruptive phases over 24 hours. Each time, volcanic debris, pumice, and toxic gases rained down, eventually burying Pompeii under up to 30 feet of ash. Flows of fast-moving, extremely hot gases called pyroclastic flows surged down at speeds reaching up to 300 mph, with temperatures as high as 1,800 °F, incinerating everything in their path. Pompeii had a population estimated between 10,000 and 20,000; although many residents fled to the countryside after the initial explosions, thousands perished.
This area is absolutely fascinating. We hadn’t done any research, so we both assumed the "exhibit" would only be some relics and a small sample plot. Instead, we were amazed to find an entire ancient city laid out before us, almost frozen in time since 79 AD. Over 100 acres have been excavated during the last 200 years, and most of this is accessible to the public. The guide mentioned it could take another 100 years to fully uncover the site. Spending a full day here is easy, especially for anyone interested in archaeology. Our guide, Mike, is actually a working archaeologist and shared a wealth of helpful information. We took plenty of photos of old houses and shops. These may not interest you, but I’m including them to remind us of the trip.
Fifty-six bakeries have been discovered so far, along with more than sixty brothels. It is easy to spot homes versus businesses based on the threshold. Restaurants are also easy to identify. We saw several cats among the ruins.
Even though we were there for over three hours, we ran out of time and didn't get to see the Amphitheater of Pompeii at the far end of the city. Apparently, an impressive site. Read about it here.
We left with a new appreciation for the area and reflected on the lives and deaths of its residents.
We were tired again this day. 15k steps. We took the creaky old train back to town, walked along the busy street, and finished with a local dinner of truffle pasta and gnocchi (plus a Sorrento Lemon Cake).
Capri
Sun, Sept 21
Up and out, walking 30 minutes to Sorrento, down 100 steps and into the confusing world of ferries. If you book ahead online, some scan the digital ticket while others still require you to stand in line at the correct ticket counter and get a paper ticket, which becomes the first challenge of this fun game. You are never exactly sure which one you have. We were running late, so we gambled on the digital barcode version working and arrived at the unspecified dock with six minutes to spare. Surprise! We had to backtrack five minutes to the ticket office for the paper version. Run, run, run. Find the right box office (world’s smallest signs, six of them scattered around one big plaza). Found it, got the paper, run run run, in the sun sun sun, back to the dock. It turns out they "might" hold the boat as long as they see people sprinting down the dock, since there were several even later than us. Ok, now the journey can begin. The ferry to Capri took about 30 minutes.
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Side Note on Ferries
The ferry captains here enter the crowded ports like sports car drivers. Fast speed, spin the wheel, slam it in reverse, and back quickly into concrete docks for boarding with other boats all around. Pretty impressive how all the boats work together, intermingled and zipping around each other, yielding and progressing.
Arrived in Capri
Capri is a very mountainous island. The rocky cliffs rise straight up from the ocean, barely leaving any room for towns and buildings, yet somehow humans have managed to build and thrive. The infrastructure climbs directly up the cliffs.
The harbor is lined with shops and restaurants, which we took advantage of quickly since we hadn’t eaten and it was almost noon. There are so many people in the main areas. Yes, you can escape those crowds and things eventually clear out, but at first you have to deal with the hordes. With so many people packed in, it’s easy to think of yourself as either a rock or a wave. When you’re the rock, you sit patiently, usually at a restaurant, and let the wave of people flow around you, like water ebbing and flowing nonstop. Sometimes you’re the wave, part of the slow-moving herd, shuffling along face to back in a procession from point A to point B.
I’m ok being the wave. It’s the price you pay to play, at least from 10 in the morning until 7 at night. But sometimes the heat, the people, and the whole scene just become too much. That’s when you drop anchor and become the rock.
We found a place right in front of the steady stream of people flowing in and out of the harbor.
After recovering from dehydration and heat fatigue, we rented a scooter to explore the island. Our little steed was a 10 year old, 50cc, Piaggio Liberty with a sluggish throttle, and squishy brakes. It was still a lot of fun.
Faro Beach
The scooter allowed us to reach the farthest point west, “Faro Beach,” which was not what we expected at all. No sand, no easy access to the water, just rocky cliffs where people dove in, plus a steep little concrete ramp between the rocks. Restaurants, beach clubs, and bars were tucked into the cliffside, music blasting. The place was packed. It was a cool scene, but not relaxing or beachy. We had only brought towels, and with the rock baking at what felt like 120 degrees, we decided to keep moving to see more of the island.
Back on the scooter, traffic was light except near village centers, where things got crazy with pedestrians crossing, buses loading, and tourists dragging suitcases in every direction.
Grotta Azzurra
We stopped at the Blue Grotto, which requires boarding a small wooden rowboat and lying flat to squeeze through the low overhead passage to enter. We just looked from the stairs above, then continued to Capri Town.
Capri Town
It was super packed and just more shops, but had great views.
Check, check, check. We hit all the main areas, then returned to the harbor and turned in the scooter. At 50 euros, it was a great value, even if we do eventually end up with head lice from the sweaty borrowed helmets.
Back in Sorrento, sat for a bit in the town square and cooled off again, then shopped a little and walked towards home and found an interesting pizza place. Like everyone here, we don't eat dinner until 8, 9 or sometimes 10pm. Great day. 15,429 steps.
Positano & Amalfi
Mon, Sept 22
Up and out for a long day in the sun and on two ferries. Another hurried 30 minute walk to Sorrento, then the hectic chaos of boarding.
Positano
First stop, Positano. The “30 minute” ride stretched to nearly an hour. Very picturesque, but the shops are really expensive. Two hundred and thirty dollar dresses, twenty euro salads. Everything is built straight up a wall of steep stairs. Already sweating, we grabbed a table at a Greek restaurant tucked in the shade with fans, right off one of the main thoroughfares. We are somewhat tired of Italian food. Done with pizza, done with pasta. Still eating the bread with olive oil and balsamic though. :)
The coastal sun is brutal. Feels much hotter here than at home, maybe the humidity has something to do with it. Whatever the reason, it’s not a place where you want to stand or wander for long stretches. We “shopped” a bit, then found a beach club down near the water and sat with cool drinks, looking out over the Amalfi Coast while we waited for our next ferry to Amalfi.
Amalfi
Only a 15 minute ride on the smaller, slower ferry to Amalfi. The hillsides are incredible, packed with villas and hotels clinging to the cliffs, roads connecting one little town to the next. Some of the roads zig zag straight up the cliffs, making the steepest streets in San Francisco seem like child’s play. Staircases also zig zag down the sheer drops to little ocean-side swimming spots and resorts. One of my favorite parts of the day was this ride, hugging close to the shore between Positano and Amalfi.
Once in Amalfi, it was more of the same. Shops and restaurants everywhere, hardly a free table even at 3 in the afternoon. People here (including us) clearly don’t care about normal eating times. By now it feels like once you’ve seen one coastal town, you’ve seen them all. Amalfi was at least flatter, but also less striking visually. We didn’t take many photos. It felt more like a working town with a huge tourism side hustle, while Positano was nearly 100 percent tourism.
After wandering a bit, we ended up back in the main square and grabbed a table across from the basilica with its hundred steps. We half-joked about climbing them but the stairs were baking in the sun, so that plan ended quickly. We sipped a cold drink instead, ate the worst tiramisu in Europe, and booked our train tickets for tomorrow’s trip back to Rome.
The ferry back to Sorrento was a long one, but this time, thankfully, air conditioned. Dinner in Sorrento at the Ristobiblioteramuseo L'Osteria del Buonconvento. Excellent food and beautiful interiors. Previously, it was a monastery built in 1567. We chatted with a fun couple from the U.K.
Back to Rome
Tues, Sept 23
Sad day. Headed back to Rome today. We fly out tomorrow. Started the day with cappuccino from our shop around the corner, then packed up. We wanted so badly to revisit the restaurant with the incredible view for breakfast, but it didn't work out. Started raining super hard with thunder and lightning. Can't really complain, it's our first rainy day of the entire trip! We waiting for the weather to break then made a dash for the train station. Quick train switch in Naples, then on to Roma Termini.
Ronnie