The Steep Amalfi Coast

It’s early Sunday morning and I’m setting on the terrace of our hotel perched on a cliff just finishing watching the sunrise. What a spot for our last night in Italy. Hotel Cetus sets between Vietri and Amalfi known as the Amalfi Coast with early middle age villages sprinkled along the steep coast line just south of Naples. Frankie’s descent in the elevator yesterday turned into a fairy book stay for us.

Last night we drove from the hotel 12 miles to the village of Amalfi for dinner. The narrow highway was our most exciting driving yet. One side of the road is steep upward cliffs and the other is a massive stone wall with barely room for two cars to pass. Now put a tight curvie road with hair pin curves. Now put heavy traffic, Now put motorcycles driving as fast as they possible can and finally put busses that require cars to clear curves for them to round and you have the most scenic and heart pumping stretch of road we’ve ever been on. Dinner in Amalfi was excellent but we only had a small bottle of wine anticipating the drive back to the hotel. Basically it’s “fold both side mirrors in” say a prayer and have your passenger close her eyes. Luckily every curve has a mirror on it,

< Our hotel terrace..

Frankie races across traffic with our raci little Fiat behind >

<Amalfi after sunset

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. This area was once a powerful maritime republic of Italy and has marinas in every village. As we left Amalfi there were 8-10 sailboats med-tied to the docks and lots of boats in the marina.

. .Amalfi Photos..

From the Amalfi coast we’re heading somewhere seaside south of the Rome airport.

.Sunday Evening… Okay tonight is really our last night in Italy but staying near the airport can not be considered a real night in Italy. Today we did some ceramic shopping in Veitri and then drove from Amalfi to a small town just south of the Rome airport called Lido di Ostia. It’s a beach town full with beach goers from Rome. The last 15 miles coming up the coast the road was lined with cars and motorcycles. Looks like lots of restaurants around so we should be able to make the best of our real last night. We couldn’t bear staying in an airport hotel.

We’ve noted over the past 2 days that there are more and more foreign tourists on the western shore. Being on the east coast where 99.9% of the people are Italians on vacation it was nice having Italy to ourselves without other foreign tourist. However, driving today we both decided that we have fallen in love with the Amalfi coast and would love to go back and spend more time.

Tomorrow (Monday) we fly back to Kansas City and on to Gallatin where family and our dog Neely waits. To quote our friend Brian, It’s been a “real slice of life” we won’t forget (or stop talking about for some time) but we’re ready to chill for a while after being on the run for the past weeks.

Next update – Sometime in the future..

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