Travel: THE AMALFI COAST, ITALY (Positano & Maiori)

 

*check out my travels to Capri and Anacapri here first!*

After a few days exploring Sorrento, it was about time to head out and explore the Amalfi Coast. Day 1 was by car - you certainly wouldn't catch me driving along the coastal - way too skinny roads with fairly constant traffic and huge buses trying to squeeze past too! And that's all without mentioning the hundreds - nay, thousands - of cars parked along the road. It seemed like tourists would literally be walking miles into the towns, just so that they could find somewhere to park. It was insane! Needless to say, we didn't stop as we passed through the most popular towns of Positano, Praiano, and Amalfi, a pretty small section of coast which ended up taking us an hour and a half to drive through.

Indeed, it was only until after we'd lost most of the tourists that it was even possible to stop, at the small town of Maiori. We had coffee, a real ciocolatta calda, and a traditional Easter cake at Pasticceria Napoli di Nicola e Aniello, along with a little walk along the promenade, before hopping back into the car. Needless to say, none of us were keen to make the return journey back along the coastal road, so we found a much more central route towards Salerno and around by Pompei back to Sorrento. Much more tolerable. 

The following day, we decided to hop on the ferry from Sorrento, and an hour later found ourselves in the picture perfect town of Positano. Much nicer to take the boat there rather than brave those wiggly car park-like roads! First thing on the agenda? Well, coffee, of course. We headed up the hill, past the cathedral and fancy touristy shops, to Casa e Bottega. An upmarket cafe and bruncherie, this cafe takes full advantage of gullible tourists. €7 for a small glass of orange juice? I think not. A little caffe orzo it was, although to be fair, I suppose you were paying for the view as well. They seemed pretty keen to turn the tables after us, so we didn't stay long.

Like Capri, rather than spending our time in the main town, we headed up. A beautiful lemon-ceramiced balcony provided the perfect place to admire the tiered houses on the hill that are splashed all across Instagram (and now this blog). And then began the steps. There were a lot of them. I'm talking thousands, and it was tough - probably tougher than the hike we'd done the day before, and that's saying something! A solid hour of non stop climbing later, and we reached the town of Montepertuso. Honestly, there wasn't much to see up here - we'd gone around the corner from the views of Positano - but you could continue up to Buso di Montepertuso which I guessed would've offered some very pleasant vistas. We had to be back at the port for 2pm, so decided to skip it, but not before the world's most refreshing spremuta d'arancia (freshly squeezed orange juice) that was definitely well and truly needed. 

We walked down via an alternate route - still thousands of steps, but past an impressive natural rock formation full of stalactites. Pretty cool. It was crazy to see how far we'd gone up by the time we were back at sea level. Such a great feat deserved to be rewarded, and no better way that with a cup of ice cream. I'd read reviews about the lemon sorbet at Collina, which apparently came in a hollowed out lemon. They didn't seem to have them when we got there, but they did have lemon sorbet, which we got along with sfogliata, a puff pastry baked good that you can find in the pasticcerias in Italy. Tasty. Then it was back to the ferry and to Sorrento for some incredible food and scenery - coming soon to this blog! 

Bucket list item checked off! I hope you enjoyed reading about my time on The Amalfi Coast. I'm always in search of the most beautiful places on this planet - where should I aim for next? Let me know on Twitter @CiarasCountry, and stay tuned for my Sorrento blog, coming next! Thanks so much for reading!

Travel: CAPRI & ANACAPRI, ITALY

 

*check out my last Italy adventures - The Tuscany Diaries - here first!*

For this trip, we'd chosen to base ourselves in Sorrento, but that didn't mean we'd be staying there the whole time. Our first sejourn out of Sorrento was to Capri, which took about forty minutes by ferry. However, as soon as we arrived, we headed the opposite way to everyone else - away from the main town. Instead, we were headed to Anacapri, another of the towns on the island. The way there isn't for the faint of heart, with hundreds of steps and again, not great pavements, if at all. The route was pretty much devoid of tourists as those going to Anacapri tended to take the bus or taxis, but we enjoyed soaking up the views on the way. 

An hour later, we were in Anacapri. Little white shops lined the windy streets, and we walked down to Capri Cakes for coffee and, you guessed it, cake. I decided to get a cioccolata calda (hot chocolate), knowing that in Italy, they're usually better than most - so thick they're more like a dessert than a drink. Sadly, this was more a standard hot chocolate than what I'd wanted, but the caramel flavour was very pleasant. Being in Capri, of course we had to try the Caprese cakes, and got one chocolate, one lemon, both of which were very nice. 

Fully satiated, we decided we would hike up to Monte Solaro. Google Maps told us it would only take a little over half an hour, but that ended up only being to the start of the trail. We'd made it this far, so it seemed a shame to stop there, so we continued on, even though we were definitely not on anything you could call a real 'route', instead probably one carved by the mountain goats that made this area their home... We did eventually make it to the top, and it was definitely worth it. I felt a great sense of achievement looking down at how far we'd come, and there was an even better way of getting back down, at least to Anacapri - a single person chairlift! I don't think I'd even seen one of those before, but it was great fun to be scooped up in the chair and then float over the hills for a solid ten or so minutes. Super fun. 

Back in Anacapri, we could've taken the bus back to the harbour, but where would the fun in that have been. Instead, we walked via Capri to see what all the hype was about. In comparison to Anacapri, I didn't like Capri at all - so crowded, and basically just somewhere to shop. We didn't stay long, and walked down to the harbour to catch the boat back. We'd been told when buying our tickets that morning that the time printed on our ticket didn't really matter, and we could get on any of the boats leaving. The guys at the port disagreed. Well, they disagreed with those whose tickets they checked, which was probably only about half of the people heading to the boats. We watched numerous people with tickets after ours walk onto the earlier boat without being checked, but we just happened to be one of the unlucky ones so had to wait an hour in the sun before we could get on our alloted boat. A bit annoying, but thankfully we didn't have anything we were rushing back for except dinner back in Sorrento - yum! 

I loved being a tourist in Capri and Anacapri, and particularly the unexpected ride on the chairlift - something I'd definitely recommend for any visitors to the beautiful island. Have you visited Southern Italy? Where else should I go? Let me know on Twitter @CiarasCountry, where you'll also be the first to know when my next blog is posted - thanks for reading!