TRAVELING THE AMALFI COAST

Thursday, August 12^th, 2004 Sorrento & Positano

Long night; the American girls next door came home about midnight and their chatter until nearly 2 am was exhausting. Not loud just that everyone had their windows open and the sound carries so well at night. We had fireworks again for the second night at 9 pm. Then about midnight they set some more off but not as many as they had earlier. More noise from very loud firecrackers rather than the pretty burst of fire that we’re used to seeing. Some were so loud that they sounded like cannons being fired. At 9 pm we could also hear the church bells across the valley ringing for about five minutes. I don’t know about any special feast days so they must do it every night for fun! Reminds us of Disneyland in the summer back in California.

About 9:15 am we found the bus stop for the Positano bus; only waited about fifteen minutes before it arrived. Got aboard and found it already packed; we were lucky to find standing room near the front of the bus. At the next stop more people crammed in and everyone moved back as far as possible. From that point on the driver ignored everyone at bus stops, as we could not get another person on the bus. Jim said it felt like a three-hour ride but in reality it was probably about half an hour. But, if you’ve ever been on the Amalfi road you remember the hairpin turns around cliffs that are very steep. We swung from side to side as we careened up and down the mountain road. I watched a young woman in the seat to my right; (that’s on the steep side of the road) she was looking straight ahead and her knuckles were white as she gripped the handhold in front of her. We actually had a pretty good view from our standing position in the center of the bus; but no photos taken as we were all using both of our hands to hang on to the rack above our heads to keep from falling on each other and strangers!

We’d been told that the shortest route to the beach is from the second bus stop on the Amalfi side but when the bus stopped at the first stop we decided to get out and head down to the beach. We knew this trip was all down hill; we found the steps instead of the road that made hairpin curves all the way down to the beach. The steps wound in and out of residential areas and commercial areas crossing the road about every fifty or so steps. Probably took us about twenty minutes to get down to the beach. Lots of people had the same idea that we did today. In fact, on the bus Jim said to the young Italian man standing in front of him (after we realized he spoke English also) that we wondered why we were doing this…his answer was that, “it’s part of the Italian cultural experience, and we wouldn’t want to miss that, would we”.

It was about 11 am when we arrived at the beach. Found a nice space to spread out our bamboo mats and stripped to our bathing suits to enjoy the experience. Well, after about half an hour we were toasted and felt we’d had enough of this experience! Gave our mats to the Italian kids near us and decided to head for the bus as this would be our last beach trip before we leave for home. Another smart decision was to pay two euros and catch the Positano Intercity bus to the top of the hill where the bus stops were located. Once there we had about another half hour wait before we boarded the bus we thought was headed for Sorrento. Our plan was to get off at the bus stop near our hotel. Opps…we were going to Sorrento; but by a different route.

Arrived at the Sorrento bus terminal, fortunately they all end and begin at the train station/bus terminal. Purchased another ticket and boarded another bus that we knew was headed in the direction of our hotel. While we were there we also purchased our train ticket from Sorrento to Naples for tomorrow morning.

This afternoon we tried to fix Jim’s suitcase, he bent the pull out handle on the last set of stairs in Naples and although we got it down we are unable to pull it back out. He will have to pull it without the extension; so glad we are near the end of the trip. Don’t know why but when you’re a week from leaving for home no matter how long or short your trip has been; the days suddenly seem to be dragging and all thoughts are of home. Hasn’t helped that we’ve not been able to get online here and we miss the emails from home. Maybe in Ravenna tomorrow we’ll be able to sign on. Our trip starts early as we are catching the 6 am bus to the train station, then the “chugger train” to Naples. In Naples we are scheduled for the Eurostar that leaves at 9:30 am for the north. We may be going into rain per the weatherman. By the way, the weatherman on television is a general in full uniform, very distinguished looking with a white mustache and goatee. He has lots of medals and ribbons on his dress uniform.

I’m going to end this for now and set it up to sent in Ravenna; always the positive thinker! In fact, I think I’ll give it one more try here tonight in Sorrento.