The Amalfi Coast

Click here to check out all of my Almalfi photos for the day.



We rose at 5 AM. I was going on almost no sleep. I went to bed at about two and still laid in bed awake until 4 AM- just excited, I think. The train left Rome at 6:30 AM. A little more than an hour later we pulled into Napoli Central Station. Paolo, our driver and guide, met us there. Maya had found a company on the Internet after pricing much larger bus tours for twice as much money. This tour amounted to about 100 Euro each. Paulo, who lives in Positano, gives these tours on a regular basis and knows the area well. The scenery and size of the cliffs was stunning. I think that I was particularly shutter happy, because each view seemed to surpass the previous one.



We drove from Napoli under a cloudy sky and the shadow of Vesuvius as Paolo recited the details of that day in 79 AD in gory detail. We then drove South out on to the coast road. Positano was our first stop, famous for many reasons, but Under the Tuscan Sun location most recently. Now it seems filled with rich older American tourists instead of Germans. It resembles places like Carmel in California, spotlessly clean, well to do, up-scale shopping. So I always have mixed feeling in a town like this, playground of the super-rich as well as enormous beauty.


The high point of our tour was lunch outside of La Tagliata just south of Positano. Our meal began with L'antipasto of nine plates- most in delicious sauces: garbanzo beans, fava beans, potato salad, fresh ricotta and fresh mozzarella di buffalo, broccoli, zucchini and spinach. Il primo was a sample of four kinds of fresh pasta, cheese stuffed ravioli, fettuccine, manicotti and cannelloni- white and red wine (no limit). Dessert- tiramasou, chocolate torte, and a cream puff. To top off the meal we drank a glass of limoncello. The host said the place had become a favorite of Sarcozi of France. And the view???


to be continued