Amalfi

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Hello everybody.

Just about caught up with our blogs now...just a few more days to go.

Today we went down to the town of Amalfi. The guy that owns the B&B we're staying in, Pino, drove us down, which is very nice, and saved me from being sick on the bus! I don't know if you can see them properly, but if you looked up Amalfi on Google Earth, try to find the roads there. They're phenomenal. There's not a great amount to see down there to be honest, but there are a lot of shops selling souvenirs. Some of them are quite good, but of course there are a lot of dodgy ones. Susie bought a pair of earrings at one of them. The town of Amalfi is, apparently, quite famous for its ceramics. They're not really what I'm into, but they're quite nice for what they are. They're obsessed by lemons, and every house has a lemon grove attached to it, so that's what dominates the paintings on the ceramics.

Guys, I wish there was some way of expressing how spectacular the views are here. I can't imagine anything that could even come close. It is surreal. To think that people built their houses here without any modern tools, it just defies imagination. I've attached a few photos that try to get across what we can see, and also a video of our accommodation, which I deliberated over since every time I hear my voice I cringe.

When we finished up in the city, about 3:00PM, we went to head back. We couldn't get Pino to pick us up because we felt bad (although he would have in a second, he's such a cool guy), so we went to catch the bus. Which we did with surprising alacrity. But getting on a bus was only a small part of the public transport system. When you think about it, the most important part of public transport isn't so much getting on, as it is getting off, and this, unfortunately, was the part we found to be particularly difficult. Italian buses work in a strange fashion. I was very careful to watch everybody on the bus on the way back home because it was a fair way to get to our station, and people were bound to get off before us. And they did. The problem was that they apparently did nothing to let the driver know they were getting off, they just somehow were able to get off at their stop. The thought occurred to me that maybe the bus stops at every stop like a train, so there was nothing to worry about. But even still, there was a bell to push, so I thought just to be safe I'd push the bell when I got to my stop.

It was quite easy to recognise our stop too, there are a few flags out the top and from there it's about 200 metres to our accommodation. So when I saw the flags, I pushed the bell, excitedly, and waited to get off the train - which was sorely needed, because lunch was nice, but I only wanted to taste it once, and I'd been going around corners too many times. The bus driver kept on driving. So I stood up, but since there are constant hairpin turns all the way up the mountain, as soon as I stood up, I fell over, and then when I regained my composure, we went around another turn, so I fell the other way. So I thought maybe just our bell didn't work, so I tried another one. It too didn't work...

So in the end, I determined to wait, because I'm a coward with no equilibrium, until somebody else had to get off the bus, which was a long way away. The frustrating thing about the roads around here is that it takes about an hour to drive 10kms as the crow flies, and that is not an exaggeration, because the mountains are so steep that the road keeps doubling back on itself the whole way up. But we drove for about another 10 minutes before somebody eventually got off. So we got off too, and decided to walk back to the units.

That is virtually suicide.

The Italians are cranky and crazy, which is obviously a very bad combination. But we found a set of stairs that skipped a few of the zig-zags in the road, so we eventually made it back safe and sound.

Then we had dinner, and I'm not sure why, but the place is full of Aussies. There was one younger couple, but they were a bit quiet and they are going to Rome tomorrow, so we didn't talk to them very much, but there were two older ladies who said they were from Queensland, so we asked where, and one was from Hendra, about 2 streets up from where Susie's uncle & aunty live, and the other one lives in Mount Gravatt, believe it or not, hardly any distance from where we lived, and even more weird, goes to the doctor that one of our very close friends works at as a receptionist.

And they're really nice, except the lady that lives in Mount Gravatt got sick while she was there, so they're staying a few extra nights at Fico D'India (our B&B) to recuperate; can't think of anywhere better to get better!

Anyway, that's about it for today.

Hope everybody is well.

Bye bye

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Photos

Gemma's Restaurant
We didn't realise Gemma had her own restaurant in Amalfi. That's cool!

View of Amalfi
One of the views of Amalfi

Amalfi's Duomo
On the day we walked past this there was a wedding on. When they came out everybody in the street stopped and clapped as they walked down the stairs. It was kind of cool.