last day in Rome, traveling, Amalfi Coast

BEACH DAY

Went to the beach with Luca and Phillipe today – arrived at our meeting point about 5 minutes late so I was worried they had left without us (we were told 9 am sharp because of traffic!) but turns out they had only been running a bit late as well because their mom made us some food for lunch. So they picked us up and we took a gorgeous, about an hour long drive south to a beach between Rome and Naples – no tourists! Luca had been here before and wanted to take Phillipe (used to live in Italy, now lives in Quebec, but travels constantly) but without us they couldn't really afford it – we ended up all paying about 7 euros for gas and had a great day at the beach! After swimming a bit we had a picnic around this cliff/ rocky area that Luca used to jump off (too rough or we would have done it in a heartbeat... I was still so tempted!) and got some really spectacular pictures. After climbing around on the rocks for a while, which was so enjoyable, we drove up to the top of the mountain (stumbled on a quaint little town which was such a welcome surprise – we all really enjoyed it) and then hiked to the top of the mountain to get some cool pics (all 3 boys are photographers). Wow. The hike was a little tough but so worth it! And definitely a workout. They got some pictures that are really incredible – it was just an all around fantastic day AND we didn't have to spend much money. :) After we got home and took quick showers and ate (Luca and Phillipe had a family dinner to attend) we met back up with them for drinks (which was actually only one because we were all so tired). Luca took us to one of his favorite bars called “lancelot” which was medieval themed (so I had to explain all my research in the area) and it was quite funny because they don't have sour mix here apparently so we tried to explain for an amaretto sour – not that I cared that much, just because we were all very curious if Italians had it, Luca had never heard of it before – so they ended up putting a bit of orange and lemon juice in it, which wasn't quite right but it was delicious! :) The boys walked us back to our hotel and we said our goodbyes in case we don't see them tomorrow at the station.

TRAVEL DAY

Today Zac and I checked out of our hotel and visited Santa Maria Maggiore before catching our train about 1:30 pm to Naples (to get to Sorrento). S. M. M. was even more spectacular than either of us had imagined from our classes, of course, it usually works like that. I'm not a religious person and would hesitate to call myself a Christian, but it did move me to tears which says a lot I think. It still amazes me that one man inspired so many people to create such incredible pieces of art... and convince so many people to invest so much money into a single church. And the sheer number of churches around the world... it was definitely awe-inspiring. Which I'm sure is part of the reason for its magnificence – to convert others to Christianity. Nonetheless, it was an incredible experience.

I wasn't feeling very well (we were both exhausted from yesterday) so we had some minestrone soup at one of the bars which was delicious! Afterwards we picked up our luggage from the hotel and ran into Luca and Phillipe at the train station – they came to say goodbye to us! Which ended up being a great thing because our carriage on the train seemed not to exist... turns out they had just switched trains so our car number was different than our ticket, but it was much easier to figure this out with native Italian speakers than it would have been for Zac and I to realize this. The train ride was uneventful, Naples train station was “ehh” which I expected, and we had some trouble finding our way around once there but we got to the correct train eventually and after a bit of a struggle with the bus we found our way to our “hostel”/ camping place – we are in a cabin but its only us so it has a private bathroom and is still super cheap – this doubles as the hostel of Sorrento, don't worry we knew what it would be like before we got here :) So far it seems like a decent place to stay for the price, I am very happy, plus we get the bonus of making new friends (the sugar ants are everywhere) but neither of us really mind – I'm used to ants that bite so these don't bother me in the least. There is a little restaurant/ cafeteria type place to eat here so we had some pizza there and plan to sleep in tomorrow and rejuvenate a bit,

Sorrento – Positano – Amalfi

So today Zac and I decided to sleep in – we were both just completely exhausted from traveling yesterday and really needed to be energized to enjoy ourselves. I was super excited about Sorrento and the Amalfi coast, and we had originally planned to just relax around here today, visit the beach and the town and such, but after we woke up (at 11) we were ready to go out and do something... so we checked out the guidebook and ended up deciding to take a boat to Positano and then Amalfi, and then take the traditional bus trip back. Wow this ended up being such a great idea!!! We strolled through Sorrento for about an hour and a half until our boat was ready to leave, then we took a beautiful ride to Positano, past Capri and around the tip of the penninsula. It was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, and it was just a fabulous way to spend the afternoon. At Positano we had a few hours to walk around, so we wandered through the shops, found a spectacular art galley, tried some limone slushie thing, Zac finally got to try gelato, and we took some great photographs from way up the mountain. After waiting around a bit, we caught the next boat to Amalfi, which was pretty, but we were both a little exhausted and it was getting to be dusk so we didn't stay too long – we did check out the cathedral though which apparently is the pride and joy of Amalfi – it was very cool, lots of moorish influence (the stripes were very cool, the art inside seemed to be all pre-renaissance which made sense since the town was rebuilt in the Middle Ages...). Saw one bas-relief with no foreshortening (I believe it was St. Andrew's funeral) but it was so cool to see something like that in real life! Stacked right on top of him was the background of the scene, mourners, etc. The whole time I kept thinking that they need to clean the doors though LOL it kinda ruined the effect they were going for with the impressive and gilded facade... probably why they charged 2,50 admission so they can afford to get it done (fortunately, Zac and I just quickly checked out the cathedral and skipped all the extra stuff and saved the 2,50 for gelato or something). Anyhow, so then we grabbed the 8 pm bus back to Sorrento which took way longer than I expected, probably over an hour, but was definitely worth it – the views from the boat and the bus were very different and a very well-rounded approach to seeing the coast, I was very pleased. I think we both kept falling asleep on the way home and of course got very confused when we had to transfer buses and wandered around Sorrento for a while before we figured out which bus to take home (I suspect this will be a common theme in the next few weeks!) but we DID manage to get home eventually LOL.

Tomorrow we plan on seeing Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius (I'm actually pretty excited about the volcano, I don't have super high expectations for Pompeii because I know most of the really cool stuff is in Naples now – but I am not going to struggle through all the dusty “dumpy” [according to the guidebook!!] stuff at the museum because it's not that important to Zac or me. Should definitely be an interesting day tomorrow, but we plan on starting very early so I think we will be pretty exhausted again. Monday should be pretty simple – maybe taking a walk through Sorrento before heading back to Naples to spend about half a day and then taking the train out to Palermo, Sicily that night.