We arrived in Amalfi on Sunday, after a two hour train ride and one hour bus trip. We then walked up the main Street of Amalfi, which is beautiful. There is a lovely basilica at the top of a shortish flight of steps, all kinds of shops and restaurants, and lots of people walking around, even though the occasional scooter or taxi does make its way slowly through the crowds.
We reach our Airbnb apartment by climbing 227 steps that wind left and right, following a crazy path that our host, GianPiero, showed us on day one. We’re getting used to the climb, so that now, after three full days, we only get just slightly winded on the way up. We usually meet one or two elderly people along the way, who wish us a Buon Giorno as they climb, which makes us feel a little crummy. If they can do this every day, we can too!
Day one, we just had time to unpack our bags and go for dinner at Donna Stella, where, GianPiero insists, we’ll have the best pizza in Amalfi. We each order a different one (Rowan’s had french fries on it!), and all agree that it’s the best pizza we’ve ever had – anywhere.
On day two we walked further up the hill and over to the next town, Atrani, where we found another crazy-left-then-right path to the main piazza, punctuated by hanging laundry, bits of overheard conversations in the local dialect, which I can’t understand, and views of countless little boats bobbing on the calm, blue-green waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Once in the square, we get a gelato for Rowan and head back along the main road to Amalfi.
We spent day two at the beach. The water is clear, warm and clean, and Rowan had a blast playing by the rocks and even investigating a little cave he was just small enough to crawl through. We spent all day playing in the waves, climbing on the rocks and playing on the pebbly beach until it was time to go back home. Luckily, home is just a ten minute walk away (though all of it uphill).
For day three, we took an early morning ferry to the island of Capri. We immediately took a round-the-island boat ride, motoring past Capri’s famous Blue Grotto, which we couldn’t enter because of high waves (darn!). But Rowan was super happy to float past the Green Grotto, and get a close up look at the stalactites of the White Grotto, before we rode through a natural arch in a little rock island on the south side of Capri, which we all thought was pretty cool.
We took the funicular in the afternoon, up to the main city of Capri, with its uber fancy designer shops, mixed with winding pedestrian pathways that lead all around the island. Rowan had another gelato, and Kevin and I shared a lemon granita, which Capri is known for. By the time we got off the ferry and walked the 227 steps back to our room, we were ready to go straight to sleep! The church bells ringing and echoing across the entire city, though, are keeping us up. It’s only 8:30 after all!
Tomorrow it will be more beach, more pizza and, we’re pretty sure, more steps and church bells. We can’t wait.
One response to “Amazing Amalfi”
Beautiful Scenery.