The Amalfi Coast

We arrived at the breathtaking Positano after an hour long steep, narrow and extremely hilly ride from Sorrento (about an hour south of Naples).

Our villa was really beautiful and traditionally Italian with iron gates and door, shutters on the windows and an expresso machine! And of course amazing views. Here is the view from our outside loo. (we also have an inside one but the outside one came in handy with living here with three boys and all!)

More photos will come later but at the moment I have used up my monthly quota.

Positano is quite wealthy and a place where alot of Italians with $ spend their summer holidays. Pople here are well0dressed, shops are expenive and flash Italian cars wind around the narrow and high clifftops with confidence. Our first bus ride from Sorrento to Positano was a nerve wrecking and nail biting experience. And not just for us. We heard heaps of people gasping whenever we came around a tiny tight bend and the front of the bus would peak out over the cliff. Scary!

Our view from the villa is of the houses and resorts on the oppisite hill, the duomo, beach and the meditteranian sea. tere is also a huge orange tree slightly blocking the view but the oranges are yum and we have even been making freshly squeezed orange juice.

On our second day the boys had the brilliant idea of going on a hike. The one we wanted to do was called "the path of the gods" (Sentiero degli dei) and was supposed to take around 5 hours. Well 7 hours later we were still walking. We were nearly prepared. Chris had taken a photo of the map. It was just time consuming having to zoom in when we needed to read it and work out where we were!! Yhe hike was very very steep and really scary at times. For about an hour we followed a herd of goats until they overtook us. the views were incredible though and we felt very proud of ourselves when we finally finished! There were a few times when we thought about turning around though especially when we realised we had walked "off" the map!
It all worked out in the end. We ended up in a little town called Aregola and there by the tourist info centre was a board with information about the path of the gods hike from Aregola to positano. Yay! We did it - just backwards.

Made our way to amalfi (definitely the scariest bus ride - ange even hd to change sides of the bus) and rewarded ourselves with a hearty Italian - eve tough we were nealy too tired to eat.

Next day Chris and I decided to have another look in Amalfi while the others stayed back in Positano to re-energize.
amalfi is the lagest town on the Amalfi coast but apparently used to much larger. In 1343 most of the poulation and land slid ino the sea during an earthquake! After looking around and buying some lemon soap we caught a open top tour bus to the hilltop village Ravello. Ravello is much greener compared to the other villages and towns of the Amalfi Coast with lots of geen trraced citrus groves that line the hill. There are a vouple of gardens that you can pay to visit. we went to Villa Cimbrone which had panaromic views of the amalfi coast. One viewpoint called "the terrace to infinity" because it extends from the cliff and has views right along the coastline.

On Wednesday It was Si's last day so we travelled half way to Naples with him and then all went to Pomeii. Pompeii was buried under a pile of ash when Mt Vesuvis errupted in Ad 79 and wan't even discovered until 1594 but still not explored properly until 1748.

The most interesting things we saw were the takeaway shops where people would come and choose their dishes, brothels (where pictures of positons are still preserved!) and the advanced engineering of their water system (piping still remains).