Amalfi Adventures (Part 2): Exploring the Amalfi Coast

Tonight is the last night of our trip down south.  We're very sad to go (it was very nice just spending our evenings cooking together in our rental apartment and catching up on American TV), but we're looking forward to the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration with our friends and colleagues at the American Academy.

Of course, in addition to cooking and watching TV, we had some fun adventures exploring the area.  One of the highlights of our trip was just visiting and hanging out in some of the various towns along the Amalfi Coast. Even in the cloudy fall weather, the natural beauty of the area is simply stunning.  One could spend hours exploring the windy town streets, doing some serious people watching (of both tourists and locals), and, of course, soaking in all of the amazing views.  

View of Positano

We elected not to rent a car (not only would it be fairly intimidating to drive in Italy, but gas prices are something like $9/gallon), so we instead took a very long but scenic bus ride along the hilly and windy peninsula.  As someone who tends to get car-sick on windy roads and/or in buses (even on straight roads), this was not a great combination for me, but I managed to tough it out.

Fortunately, my efforts were hugely rewarded as soon as we got off the bus at our first stop, Positano.  We grabbed some delicious pastries for a second breakfast (our morning cereal had already worn off) and then walked down (and back up) the various stairways that connected the top of town to the beach. This town was built completely into the hill, and so it almost felt as if there were dozens of layers to explore. I'm sure we could have spent all day just here, but since the sun now sets quite early (around 4:40 PM), we stayed an hour or two and then moved on.  You can see some of the awesome views we had below:  

Positano Beach (from the hill)

Taking in the Views

More Positano

Amalfi

We then boarded another bus and headed to the town of Amalfi (which shares its name with the region).  Although this town was also built into a hill to some extent, it's much more level overall.  The bus dropped us off right at the coastline, and there were several boardwalks/piers that we were able to walk out on and enjoy.  There were a lot of seagulls around, and when I just looked out into the water I could almost imagine that we were at Lake Superior rather than Italy!

We had some delicious pizza for lunch, browsed in some shops selling (the town specialty was lemon products- lemon soaps, lemon flavored alcohol, lemon candies...), and then we took a short walk to the next town, Atrani (which was literally five minutes down the road).  Amalfi was already all decorated for Christmas, but we decided that was allowable, since Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here in Italy.

Amalfi Town Square

I was expecting the Amalfi Coast to be very similar to Cinque Terre, but they are actually quite a bit different.  For starters, the Amalfi Coast is much, much bigger. The towns are more spread out and most are larger than any of the five towns in Cinque Terre.  For example, in Amalfi many towns have their own large cathedral and central town square, while towns in Cinque Terre might only have a small church and lack any centralized meeting place.

Visually, the towns in each region have some similarities, since they are all built into the coastal hills, but they have very different looks to them.  While the buildings in Cinque Terre are generally small and very brightly colored (in hues of red, yellow, and pink), there are some much larger buildings/resorts in the Amalfi Coast, and the color scheme is much more subdued.  Of course, this is Italy, so there is still plenty of color, but many of the buildings are white washed, more like you'd see in Greece.

View  of Town From One of the Boardwalks

If this still doesn't paint a full picture, perhaps my broad stereotypical generalizations will.  Basically, young (possibly smelly) hippies take the train to Cinque Terre to fill up their backpacks with foccacia, hike between the five towns, and stay in cheap rooms they rent from locals along the way.  On the other hand, middle aged professionals, who booked their five star resorts months in advance, drive along the Amalif Coast and stop in various towns to shop for designer goods and dine on high end sea food.

Any guesses which area I like better?

It's actually a pretty hard choice.  Both areas are quite charming in their own way, but I think I'd give the edge to Cinque Terre (although, clearly, you really can't go wrong visiting either one).  Take a look at these Amalfi pictures below and let us know which area appeals to you more (if you want, you can compare to the Cinque Terre photos here):  

Lake Superior-like View (in Amalfi)

Amalfi Cathedral

Tom Enjoying Some Pizza (yes, we ate it all!)

Atrani

View of Atrani 

View from Amalfi

Christmas Decorations!

Shop Selling Lemon Soaps (and wine, and pasta, and.....)

Another 10 second timer success!  

Enjoying the Brief Appearance of the Sun!

If we had had more time (if it were summer and the sun set later), I would have loved to also hike up to Ravello, a town just north of Amalfi way up in the hills, but we still had a fantastic time in the towns that we did visit.  And now, I just have an excuse to come back sometime in the future!

Alright, sadly, it's time for me to start packing (or at least to start to think about starting to pack...)

Alla Prossima,
Erin

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Mon. Nov. 19:  We lucked out and had much less rain than expected, but still lots of clouds.   Temps were, as always, in the mid 60s.