Amalfi Coast, Italy

Today we hired a guide to take us along the Amalfi coast. Giovanni is a crusty, gray-haired Italian who spent 20+ years living in the US. We got all kinds of opinions on the US and of this part of Italy, which he says is “old thinking.” He also doesn’t eat pizza or drink alcohol, so I imagine he’s a bit of an Italian anomaly.

We started out taking the ferry from Capri to Sorrento. A bit of a run-around as the board said dock 10, a dock worker said we were at the wrong dock area altogether, and it ended up being late and not far from where we started. There were 3 cruise ships on Sorrento, so the ferry coming to Capri was absolutely packed…we figured it was good to be off the island for the day!

We spent about 45 minutes walking through Sorrento. Much of the city is built into and around the cliffs and hillsides. We went into a pretty church Chiesa Cattredrale Porta Santa. There were nice frescoes and detailed wood inlay walls and ceilings. They also were setting up for a wedding later in the day. I wonder what the bride would think of the tourists I saw “petting” her wedding flower arrangements. From Sorrento we were take to a point on the peninsula where we could see the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi side at the same time. We also got a decent view of Vesuvius (which has been very hazy from Capri).

We drove to Positano and had time to walk around. Positano is much steeper than Capri! Lots of very narrow streets lined with shops and cafes. We went down to the beach. So far, the beaches we have seen here are mostly rocks…maybe some sand away from the waters edge. You’ll still find plenty of people laying in towels on the rocks. We also went into the Chiesa Cattredrale Porta Santa, a pretty church.

From there we stopped by the Green Grotto. Like the more famous Blue Grotto on Capri, this is a cave with and underwater opening that lets in light through the water. This gives it a pretty color. This grotto is small and only took a few minutes to go through, but it was pretty. We then had lunch at a small cafe on a cliff side. Really good and inexpensive pizza and wine!

We headed further down the coast to Amalfi. We walked around town (as in up and down) and went into another church, St Andrew. This is basically a museum now and there were various artifacts. My favorite was the bronze doors that are 1000 years old!

We ended up a bit south of Amalfi where we could get a view of Salerno and then headed back to Sorrento to catch the ferry back to Capri. By now it was starting to rain so we made our way back to the hotel and ate in at the restaurant there.