Amalfi

Taylor was happy to stop and see Pompei, but his real destination was the Amalfi Coast.  He and I are not lay on the beach or go to the spa kind of travelers.  We prefer to go and see the world and then rest at home.  But you almost can't go to Italy and not take a day to rest on the coast when it's this gorgeous.  So after Pompei Taylor drove us down to our hotel in the tiny town of Amalfi.  I was enthralled with the view.  I mean look at that.  5 minutes earlier we had been up on the top of that hill on the road you can see and now we're down on the coast.

And then there were terraces all along the hill sides covered in amazing amounts of fruits.

I was under strict orders to not scream.  I may have startled Taylor a few too many times when we visited London a few years ago and was terrified of his driving on the left side.  So this time Taylor agreed to drive IF I would just keep my noises to myself.  Harder said than done.

I'll let most of the photos speak for themselves.  It was a magnificent view everywhere I looked and I couldn't stop taking photos.

And I kept my mouth shut even with giant trucks coming right at us on a tiny road.  Thankfully, without planning it, we dropped down from Pompei to the bottom of the Amalfi coast and drove half way up Friday evening and then the rest Saturday.  This meant we were headed north the whole time and always on the side closest to the mountain and not the cliff.  I did appreciate this a lot.

Coming in to Amalfi.

When we arrived in Amalfi we pulled over and waited for our hotel owner to come drive our car into the parking garage cause we were a little freaked out to drive through these tiny streets.  And they also carried our bags through town and up to our room.  Apparently this is standard procedure in a town built on a hillside with lots of stairs, small streets, and not much parking.

Here's our view over the main drag through town.

This is the fruit I'm talking about.  Giant, and I mean GIANT lemons covered many of the terraces of fruit.

See? It's good we didn't try to drive here.

Taylor had been to Amalfi before and was excited to revisit the church in town.  It has a unique black and white checkered marble look.

And most of the frescoes and paintings have a nautical theme to them.  I'm sure the Bible stories of Christ walking on water and calming the storm hit home with the long ago inhabitants of Amalfi who earned their living out on the ocean.

Neat church.

Saturday we got up, had breakfast, and then headed out to take more pictures.  We could have walked up and down the mountain side and done hiking through the streets of this amazing city, but truthfully we were pretty beat.

We headed back to Rome around noon and the driving on Saturday was much more intense than it had been the previous night.  Apparently large tour buses drive this road on Saturdays and Sundays taking people to the beaches that don't have their own car and/or aren't brave enough to drive this road.  Let's just say it was intense.  And then add to it random cars parked on the side of the road like this white car and it got even dicier.

Amazingly even 2 giant tour buses figured out how to pass each other.

And of course if you need a little exercise why not ride your bike through this traffic insanity.  Good views.

I mean right?!?  The bus is literally inches from scraping the cliff wall and yet this seems to work.

Taylor was calm.  I was not.  But I was silent.  A fantastic last day of the trip.