Pizza Making, Minori and Farewell to Italy

 

(Oct 2019) Our penultimate night in Italy turned out to be one of the best with a Pizza Making class in San Lazarro, a little town on the top of a hill with amazing views and the best pizza we’ve ever eaten. We booked the class through AirBnB and it was a challenge, yet again, to work out the public transport and more than once in the planning stages we questioned whether to go ahead. We pushed through though and so glad we did. The hosts were brilliant, the pizza was great, the views magnificent and the limoncello was divine. And they even drove us back to the bus stop to make sure we didn’t miss the last bus back down the hill.

We had hoped to get to either the Isle of Capri, which looked too touristy for my taste, or my preferred option of Ischia. Turned out we couldn’t get to either of them from Amalfi at that time of year as the ferries weren’t running direct. So we made a very wise choice and took a ferry in the other direction and found ourselves in the quaint, quiet little beachside town of Minori. Lonely Planet describes it as the scruffier cousin to Amalfi and Positano and if I had my time over I’d choose this as my base. Much more my style. It’s the Caloundra to the Sunshine Coasts Noosa. Much more relaxed, much less crowded, and much less touristy. Just as beautiful but seemed more genuine.

The next day we were lucky enough to score a lift with our Air BnB host to Naples, thereby avoiding the dreaded buses back over the hills and around the winding roads and mysteriously missing bus stops. The last day was not without stress as I caught the fast train back to Rome to try to get my dead phone resuscitated and the boys headed off to explore Hercule and Mount Vesuvius. Missed trains, accomodations dramas, no wifi and and hour each way on a bus to an Apple store, language mixups, and the usual travel traumas. I was extremely grateful to the Apple store for reviving my phone at no charge (data intact) and thereby saving me the expense of having to buy a new one. We had to be at the airport at sunrise so made a hasty decision to forfeit our last nights accomodation which we thought was close to the airport, for a last minute booking near the train station in Rome. Wise choice and an easy transition the next morning. The boys back to Australia and me a couple hours later to London.

Farewell Italy. It’s been a memorable trip.

Positano

 

Positano or Noosa? They seem pretty similar to me. Crowded, touristy, expensive. They were both probably amazing before everyone discovered how beautiful they were. One afternoon was enough for me.

Ok, ok, that might be a bit harsh. It’s a beautiful place, just not my style. I liked Portofino better. Mind you, we had walked the Path of the Gods in the morning plus the extra 1500 stairs to get to Positano. So maybe I was just a bit tired. There were plenty of interesting characters around the place.

Best decision was to have a break from the buses and catch the ferry back to Amalfi. Great scenic views of the oncoming storm.

Path of the Gods - Amalfi Coast, Italy

 

(Oct 2019)
It’s hard to get accurate information when you’re travelling. I knew I wanted to walk the Path of the Gods. I’d read everything from ‘it’s easy’ to ‘it’s a hard slog’. So what do you believe? As with so many things in life, I’d say the truth is, ‘It depends’. How fit are you? What walks are you comparing it to?
The walk is about 7kms long, between Bomerano and Nocelle. I’d say it’s moderate. Not easy, not hard. We started pretty early in the morning at Bomerano which was walking distance from where we were staying. Otherwise you’d have to factor in a bus to get there. We had a bit of confusion about where the walk started as there were two churches it could have been near. Once we got to the start it was pretty well sign posted but we still managed to take a wrong turn and head about 20 minutes off track. . The views were stunning and whilst the track was up and down it was particularly difficult or strenuous.

It’s a relief to get to Nocelle and we were hoping to have lunch there but nothing was open other than the Lemonade Stall and the toilets, which was a great relief, but another 1500 steps down to the road and a trek to Positano before lunch was an option. If you’re fit enough, you could hike back to where you started.

If you click on one photo it will open up bigger and then you can use the arrows on the side to scroll through the images. If you get to the one with the cement mixer and wheel barrow in it you might wonder what the heck that’s doing in there. Some photos are there for the memory or feeling or thought at that moment. Here I was on a hill side in Italy, having this amazing holiday, which not all that long ago I would never have dreamed possible. The cement mixer and wheelbarrow reminded me of my son back home in Queensland. Not a tradie like you think those things might remind you of, but he is a 30 year old autistic man who, apart from his main obsession of guitars, has a long and enduring fascination with both cement mixers and wheelbarrows. So I took this photo for him. I can see how his face lights up and and he flaps his hands and gets excited when he sees things like this. It’s been a challenging journey raising him and it still is. I’m grateful to be able to get away and have a holiday like this and I’m grateful for the joy he brings to others with his unadulterated pleasure with things that spin, like cement mixers and wheelbarrow wheels. (He likes clothes dryers and front loading washing machines too, so I also take photos of laundromats, just to let him know I’m thinking of him!)

Ravello - Italy - Gorgeous Gardens!

 

5 Oct 2019. Put Ravello as a must see on your list. It was well worth the treacherous bus ride on a wet day up steep and windy roads on a bus with foggy windows and no de-mister. The town itself is delightful and the ‘Wine & Drugs’ stores make you do a double take. But the gardens are the jewel in the crown. I was pretty impressed with the garden right in the historic centre, Villa Rufolo, despite the wet and dull morning. This is the one that pops up in most of the tourist brochures. And then I checked the map and decided it was worth a ten minute walk to see if Villa Cimbrone was any good. I thought it might be a bit of a let down after the grandeur of Villa Rufolo. But, Oh My God, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Photos simply don’t do it justice. And the photos on Google really don’t don’t do it any favours. Book your flights now and go and see it for yourself. Stunning! Stunning! Stunning! Every which way you turn, there’s so much to delight the eyes from curved cottage style gardens to great sweeping views to manicured lawns and urn adorned walkways and hidden gardens and gorgeous gazebos and so much more. I could have spent days there taking photos! As it was I flattened three batteries.
Click on a photo to enlarge and then use arrows to scroll through.

Moody Amalfi -

I was warned about the steps in Dubrovnik, but they’re nothing compared to just about everywhere I’ve been in Italy (wait til we get to the Path of the Gods!).
I was warned about the roads on the Amalfi Coast and by jingo, they weren’t exaggerating.
After 3 hours of steps on our first day out we made bloody sure we didn’t miss the bus the next day. But I gotta tell ya, if you don’t like roller coasters, you won’t like the roads of Amalfi, especially in a crowded bus. And let’s not get started about the mystery of trying to find the right bus to get back home. We had several goes at it and it never got any easier to figure out. And if you didn’t get to your bus quick enough it meant you’re standing up all the way home and it’s not much fun standing up in a roller coaster.
Amalfi is a town situated along the Amalfi Coast. Most people have probably heard of Positano which is a bit further along the Amalfi Coast and a bit more expensive.
Amalfi was our central point to get to from where we were staying and then we decanted to other places before returning to do the bus shuffle to get home.

At least the view when we got home to Furore was tranquil. (That’s if we managed to figure out where our bus stop was in time)
These photos are from the misty morning in Amalfi before we headed up more treacherous roads to reach Ravello and a rainy start to the day. When we headed back to Amalfi in the afternoon the weather was glorious. (I’ll have photos of Ravello and the most gorgeous garden in the next post)

Amalfi Coast - Furore - Italy

After Rome we headed for the hills above the Amalfi Coast to a little place called Furore. It was a hell of an adventure in itself just getting to the place. (Some people may not remember it as adventurous so much as tumultuous!). The fast train to Naples was the easy part. The two buses to a town near Furore proved to be a bit more challenging, with a detour that found us dropped off in the middle of god knows where , where no one spoke English and there was very little wifi and Google maps was as confused as we were. With a walk up a steep, windy, cobblestone road with suitcases in tow, we perched ourselves nervously by the side of the road and hoped like hell there’d be a bus come by at some point, and luckily it did. Then the bus trip of horror movies through narrow, winding and breathtakingly steep roads, we were at least headed in the right direction, but had no idea where to get off. Eventually we took a punt and luckily were only one bus stop shy of where we were to meet our Air BnB host. Then we had another long walk along winding roads and endless steps and supposedly amazing views that we couldn’t see for the storm clouds closing in. Our knees were about to give way by the time we arrived and we were too stuffed and somewhat traumatised to do anything. We were treated to a fantastic lightning show over the Tyrrhenian Sea and that somehow made it all worth while.

We had a recovery day and the next day tried to catch a bus into town. That didn’t work out so we checked Google Maps and decided to walk down to another bus stop rather than wait for ages for the next bus on this route. Sometimes Google Maps has been invaluable in getting us out of a tight spot, sometimes it’s led us right down the garden path. Or in this case, right down thousands of steep and uneven steps for a 3 hour trek to the next bus stop to Amalfi.
Luckily for us, it was an absolutely gorgeous day and a wonderful glimpse into the Italian lifestyle living on the side of a hill. Our knees haven’t really recovered and fortunately we figured out how to catch the closest bus the next day. And we are eternally gratefully we didn’t have to walk back up to get home!