Eat, Pray and LOVE

This was the first trip I planned back in January, and I was so excited for it to finally get here! Although it was weird how fast the time has gone by! Seriously, quickest semester of my life! It was also a nice surprise to realize that a bunch of TCU kids had signed up for the trip as well!  Anyway, heres all the details about my weekend at the Amalfi Coast (Sorrento, Positano, Naples, Capri, Pompeii).

We left for Sorrento on Thursday evening and got there around 2 in the morning. Since we did the trip with Euroadventures (the same company I went to the French Riveria with) they take care of hotels/travel which can definitely make things a little bit easier (but also less adventurous)!  Our hotel was absolutely amazing, the whole grounds were covered in lemon and orange trees and we stayed in a beautiful little villa with a balcony and rooftop terrace.  Definitely a welcome break from hostels! Also, Bruno, our guide was AWESOME (for those of yall who went on the Hawaii trip way back when, hes so much like Mr. Schwartz!) and made the trip so much fun. He knew everything about everything and took us to see a lot of things we wouldn't have known about otherwise!

The villa we stayed in

Lemon/orange trees in front of the villa

Friday morning we caught the bus to Positano, which is a coastal beach town.  Unfortunately it was kind of rainy on Friday, but we made it work! Positano is so picturesque and has beautiful blue water and cliffs with houses going all the way down to the beach.  We explored the beach some (and took a bunch of pictures!) and walked around the town/ had lunch.  The Amalfi coast is famous for Lemoncello and there were about 200 shops devoted strictly to selling it! Also, the lemons from this area are literally the size of your head and are pretty cool to see (but not touch, there are signs that tell you not to as I learned).

After spending a few hours in Positano, we took the bus farther down the coast to Amalfi (the town) and saw the beach/ poked around some more.  The area is so cute and different from other parts of Italy I've been to so far! Also, everything smells like flowers and fruit, a welcome change from the cigarette smoke and exhaust in Firenze! 

Amalfi

For dinner, Bruno took us to a really great pizza place (pizza was invented in this area of Italy) and bought us all wine and crostinis, seriously though LOVE HIM!  He used to be an art professor and likes to sketch so he also passed around his sketch book from that day and let us all pick one to keep! After dinner we went to an amazing gelato place that the pope actually has gelato sent to Rome from! I was definitely surprised though to walk in the shop and see floor to ceiling pictures of women in bikinis/ no bikinis.... guess the Pope hasn't actually been to there! Then it was early to bed so that we could be up at the break of dawn to get to Capri!

Dinner

Pope's Gelato

Saturday we were up super early (6:30!) to catch the 8 o'clock ferry to Capri (pronounced Cah-pri.... don't let Bruno hear you saying it differently!) Unfortunately the sea was pretty rough and sitting in the bottom of the ferry for the 1 hour ride didn't sit very well with me... you know its gonna be bad when they pass out plastic bags to everyone! After we got on dry land though, things definitely picked up! The weather was SO great, thank goodness, and I couldn't believe how beautiful everything was! 

Capri Harbor

Bruno told us that he was going to climb the 1000 steps up to AnaCapri, but for anyone that didn't want to do that, there was a bus that would take you there as well.  Stupidly, I thought that if a 65 (or more?) year old man could climb 1000 steps and with all of my step climbing experience in Florence that it would be a breeze.  Then after about 200 steps I realized that Strozzi (a building that has most of my classes in Florence) has 87 and kills me EVERY time... and the Duomo has about 500 and is complete death.  This was more than 2X the Duomo and 10X Strozzi, genius move I know.  40 minutes and 5 heart attacks later, we FINALLY made it to the top and the view was incredible! 

made it to the top!

We had lunch in AnaCapri and I got some anti-nausea medicine at the pharmacy (I didn't even have to tell him what I needed, guess its a big seller on Capri!) and then did some serious off road hiking down the the Blue Grotto which was closed due to the crazy waves that day! It was such a bummer because the Blue Grotto was part of the reason I wanted to go to the Amalfi Coast, but the rest of the weekend was still great! Then we went back down the the main beach and hung out for an hour or so until it was time to catch the ferry back to Sorrento! Such a great afternoon! 

Sunday we packed up and caught the train to Pompeii! I have been there before but again was such a brat and didn't realize how awesome it was at the time so I had to go back! Pompeii is seriously so so cool! It is crazy how preserved it is (due to being buried in ash for thousands of years) and kind of creepy at the same time.  The whore house was particularly interesting, especially the murals on the walls... don't remember seeing those when I came with my family (although Bruno was very keen on pointing it out to us!), as well as the body casts.  There is one of a 19 year old pregnant girl that was just kind of sad to see, especially because she's basically my age! Then we got back on the bus and headed back to Florence.

All in all it was a GREAT weekend, with great food, beautiful views and good (new) friends! So much fun! Hope all of yall in Texas are surviving starting to study for finals, I'm definitely enjoying my last easy semester before it gets crazy in the fall! Good luck! XOXOXO