The Amalfi Coast

May 16

As soon as we woke up we just got dressed and headed out.  Salerno is along the coast so we got really excited when we saw the ocean and walked along it before heading to the train station.  We caught the first bus going to Amalfi.  We had to stay the night in Salerno, which is about an hour from Amalfi because there weren’t any hostels open in Amalfi.  The whole ride was along the coast and the road there was SUPER windy and I’m one of the people that get really carsick so I sort of panicked.  Luckily I was able to sleep for most of it but I was glad when it was over.  Amalfi is a really cute town and it had an awesome duomo and some little shops.  Apparantly the duomo holds some of the bones of the apostle Andrew.  We went in and looked around in the duomo.  Then we got some things to eat and at them on some rocks near the beach.  Since we had bought a day pass for the bus we just jumped back on and went to another little city up in the mountains near Amalfi called Ravello.  It was a lot smaller than Amalfi but it was really pretty because you could still see the ocean and the whole city was just built into the mountain.  There were lots of vinyards and little interesting shops.  After we were done looking around there we got back on the bus when down to Amalfi, then caught another bus to Positano. 

Positano was probably my favorite city out of all of them.  It was still along the coast and it had a bunch of little cute streets and shops.  We fell asleep on the bus so we didn’t get off at the right stop.  On the bus ride there was this group of English tourists.  One of the ladies talked really loudly the whole time.  She was really annoying and yelled at the other cars along the small windy road to “mind their distance” and “move over!”  Oh man, she was SO annoying!  They missed their stop also so when they saw that we were going past Positano they made the bus driver stop and let them out.  That’s when we got out too.  They were all confused and the lady said, “Well how are we supposed to get down there anyway, from a BALLON?!!”  They were complaining that they hadn’t seen the stop for Positano and then she said annoyingly, “Must be the ITALIAN WAY!”  She was like, “Is this POSITANO?!”  But she said it with a really annoying high tone and English accent.  Ass soon as we got off Hillary and I hurried off quickly because we were ready to kill her.  We had to hike down the mountain for about half an hour before we got there.  We made it down to the beach and had some food and ice cream.  I had this really good calzone with lots of cheese and ham.  It was so yummy!  Then we spent some time taking picture and looking at the little shops.  There was this one store that had REALLY cute hand made dresses.  They were expensive but they were SUPER trendy; like the sort of things that movie stars wear.  Don’t worry, I didn’t indulge!  That would have been a crime.  After that our feet were so tired!  We got on the bus to Sorrento where we were able to catch the train line circumvesuviana that would take us to Portici where our hostel was.  Portici is near Naples.  As soon as we got off the train we saw how dirty and smelly the streets were.  We were kind of scared because there was lots of traffic and there were lots of people out on the streets and it was getting dark.  We made it to the hostel safely, used the Internet for a bit, and then had a pizza before heading off to bed.  This hostel was a lot cleaner that the other one and it felt a bit safer too so that was good.  In our room there were a couple of girls from New Jersey, I think.  They were on vacation and it was their first time in Italy.  Since I had slept a lot on the bus it was a little hard for me to fall asleep.  Plus, there was this guy in the bunk above me who snored REALLY loudly the whole night and it wasn’t a normal snore either; he had a lot of phlem and it just sounded really gross.