Florence 2011: THE Amalfi Coast

This weekend I spent 4 solid days in the Amalfi Coast. The Amalfi coast is past Rome on the coast by about 3 hours. The bus ride took 7 hours to get down there but did not feel all that bad, we watched many movies to help pass the time. When we got there it was Thursday night around midnight so nearly Friday morning. We got checked into our hostel and went to bed. I was in a room with 10 girls, I only knew 4 of them and I was the 5th so there were 5 new girls to get to know! We hopped into bed only to be woken up at 5am with an Easter Parade. By far the creepiest thing to wake up to with the beating drums and people singing songs in Italian in a creepy voice. After all that happened, we woke up at 7am to go meet the ship that was going to take us to Capri.

We then transferred to a smaller boat (above) that took us around the island to see the many grottos and things that Capri has to offer. Below, its hard to see, but there is a small statue that has a little boy on it that waves to you as you enter the island.

This is the first grotto we went to which was the white grotto.

This is the famous set of rocks that you go under in a boat and are supposed to kiss the one you love for good luck.

Many coral reefs were found on our journey around Capri.

Inside the blue grotto! It was a very quick little tour but definitely something that had to be done. The water reflection is just the prettiest color blue.

The beach in Capri is not quite the typical beach. As you can see it is very rocky and the rocks are very large. We only spent a bit of time down there trying to pass the time to go home.

Me and Alyssa in our open cab that took us up to Anacapri! It was a convertible, how cool!!

The girls at teh top of Anacapri looking down on the beautiful blue ocean.

This man made our sandals! He has been doing this since 1964 and it is his only job that he has ever had. The sandals are expensive but very worth it. Below is my ravioli from lunchtime. Delicious!

On Saturday we traveled to Positano which is known for their dark sand beaches and lots of great shopping.

On Sunday of our trip we went to Mt. Vesuvius first. This is from the top of the volcano looking down onto Naples.

The crater inside! The center where all the action is.

I made it to the top!! WIth my walking stick which actually helped a lot, that volcano is steep!

Looking down on Naples from the very top of Mt. Vesuvius.

Later on in the afternoon we went to Pompeii. It was very surreal since we had studied the city for so many years in college and in high school. It is a beautiful place with a lot of history. It is different from Rome because this is an entire city instead of just ruins and palaces.

The columns were made from many bricks and a lot of the additional structures in the town were brick. Below are some of the findings that they have been finding and in the case there is a dead body that was covered in ash and this was how it was found. So creepy to think that people died in the position of covering their mouths or ducking for cover to avoid the ash and heat.

On our last day (Monday, we had the day off for an Italian independence holiday) we went to Naples. Naples is a very mafia run city. There has been a war between the government and the mafia and the people are rebelling and covering the streets in trash and I mean literally covering the streets... the piles could be 5 cars deep and extremely high. So I decided to only take pictures of Naples that would make it look like a beautiful place because I choose to not remember the trash and the mafia problems.