adventures on amalfi

OK, sure. That title was rather lame. But I would have to say that our time in Amalfi was, well, rather adventurous.

On the 13th, we regretfully said goodbye to Spello, and moved onward towards Sorrento, which was our base from which we explored the Amalfi coast. We stuck around Sorrento the first night, and toured their street market, searching always for the perfect souvenirs to take back to the family.

One part of Italian culture that really bothered me (and hey, maybe it goes on in America too) was that you would linger for just a moment of time in front of a restaurant, someone's booth, or a shop of some sort, and you would always be assaulted with a salesperson. "How many? Two?"/"We have many different delicious dishes to choose from. What looks good?" (restaurant) "Oh, you like this scarf? We have lots of different colors... [go on to name all the colors ;)]" (vendor) "Would you like a sample of our beautiful olives?" (shop) There's absolutely no peace and quiet for a tourist! Their demanding/assuming spirit really bugged both Mom and me, and it made us not want to buy from that restaurant/vendor/shop. The only time that we almost gave in was when we were in Rome. The most delicious looking pizza was being displayed, and we were about to go in and order, but the salesperson ruined it all. It's hard to explain why... you would've had to have been there to understand.

The next day, we took a bus as early in the morning as we could, and somehow managed to nab the very front seats - the absolute best! The whole ride is absolutely indescribable. The view was grand, but watching the road was even better. These bus drivers do their jobs well, but they have to be aggressive. The roads are extremely narrow and you have two lanes of traffic going opposite ways, of course; up and down the mountain. As is the nature of mountain roads, they're very windy and not for the faint of heart. ;) Mirrors were set on the corners so the driver could tell if his bus could go around the next corner, and at times, buses would meet, and there would be a mad honking, telling cars to back up to a spot wide enough for both buses to pass. What a show! I enjoyed it rather thoroughly. :)

When we made it safely up as far as we wished to go, we set out to explore.

                                     

One of our first views of the Amalfi coast!

 We stepped into this church to find that they were still holding their mass. We got in on the last part where they were promoting a magazine that would be "very helpful". :)

This church is kinda special. As we were riding along, I noticed the glistening top of the church and convinced Mom that we should get off and explore. She didn't look too sure, but she consented. Unfortunately, it was locked tighter than a drum, but it was still very quaint. And while we waited for our next bus to come along (after finishing our explorations), we met a nice Scottish couple who entertained us until our ride came. :)

Other than those harrying rides up and down the mountain, and our little branch-off trip to the church, we got a rip-off at the local gelato place. Not only did they not give us what we asked for, it tasted terrible. No good. By this time, we were getting pretty refined taste for the best sort of gelato (especially after our Florence experience),  and this was definitely a nasty rip off. All those tourist traps are such a pain...

We did a lot of walking here. We took stairs - about a billion of them - to get down, down, down...

Thankfully all those stairs did lead where we wanted them to...

...the beach! Unfortunately after seeing this gorgeous beach, however, we had to go back up, up, up all those steps again. What a workout!

I did buy my only souvenir from Amalfi. It's the white skirt that I wore in Rome. Interestingly enough, I didn't really see anything in Italy that I wanted to buy (except for the wood products I should've bought in Spello). I had to force myself to buy something because my grandma gave me strict instructions to take a certain amount of cash and buy something for myself. In my opinion, though, the best souvenirs are the ones you take home in your memory, not your suitcase.

The day was drawing to a close - we needed to find a bus, and quick! We heard that it can be rather iffy to get a bus back down to Sorrento, so I think we both worried a little inside when we couldn't find one! The details are rather sketchy in my memory now, but somehow we hailed a bus and stuffed ourselves in right up against the door. That was the most sickening and uncomfortable 45 minutes of my life - riding down the mountain (I'm a little prone to motion sickness), combined with being squished in with way too many other people, and having to stand while trying not to fall onto the person in front of you while going around the sharp corners (and your hands getting sore from gripping things in order to keep your balance)... needless to say, it was a most miserable ride and I couldn't wait to get off. Such relief came over me when we finally made it to our stop. I had to sit down on the sidewalk and recover for about 5 minutes afterwards because I felt so sick.

But as we all know so well by now, gelato makes lots of things much better. ;) We'd definitely earned a good gelato. So, thus the evening ended... gelato + a walk through the street market again = ?? I'm not sure. You'll have to fill in the blank for me. We sure slept well that night, though!