The Amalfi Coast is Paradise!

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This entry is long. You can do a lot in 5 days.

First of all, allow me to recommend the Amalfi Coast. Second, let me suggest the southern coast. As spectacular as the north coast is around Sorrento, the south side is somehow five times more spectacular, and the bus ride there is incredible! I'm looking forward to telling you all about it.

But first, a couple of adventures I forgot to mention about Rome:

During our second night in the hostel, I got up to go to the bathroom, but the power must have gone out, or maybe they shut it off, I don't know. Also the bathroom had no windows. I wasn't too concerned initially, and assumed that the small amount of light coming in from the main room would bleed through the crack under the door and I'd be able to see enough to use the bathroom.

Nope. I'm not sure I've ever dealt with total darkness like that before, but the problem was definitely compounded by how badly I had to pee. So I played Stevie Wonder and felt around in the dark based on my 24 hour memory of the hostel bathroom and eventually found all of the required bathroom fixtures... I think.

The other adventure: Trying to explain to non-Canadians in our hostel what a "hoser" is. It's not as easy as you'd think.

Time to leave Rome! And we were excited to move on to the Amalfi coast. I had five nights in Positano to look forward to, while Neil and Amy were planning to spend 3 in Positano and 2 on the famous island of Capri for a secret romantic getaway, but they wouldn't call it that even though I did.

Step 1: Leave Rome.

... Oh wait, we need to catch a train first.

Step 1: Catch a train.

... Oh wait, we need to figure out which trains we can take without making a reservation. Italy participates in the Eurail pass, but apparently they enjoy charging 15 euros for reservations PER PERSON (other countries charge 3 to 5 euros) which amounts to nearly a third of the total ticket price. So nuts to that. No reservations will be made.

Step 1: Check which trains do not require reservations

... Oh wait, we need to check at the information desk to do figure that out.

Step 1: Find information.

At a normal train station, this would often take under a minute. At Rome's Termini, this took us about 20 minutes. There are signs that point to information points, but they point in almost every direction, and often towards "information" we didn't want and would have had to pay for if we did, like car rentals, or travel agencies. For anyone who is curious (or needs to know), the railway information office happens to be beside platform 1, which IS easy to find, but it doesn't help that the information office doesn't really look like an information office until you walk right up to the door.

Enough about Rome. We left Rome. We changed trains in Naples and caught a regional train to Sorrento. The view was pretty amazing when the train wasn't going through tunnels. But the view paled in comparison to what we saw during the most spectacular bus ride I've ever been on in my entire life. I realise that the phrase "most spectacular bus ride" doesn't really say much, but you'll just have to take my word for it... or go on it yourself! The road is what we would call a one lane road back home, but they drive cars and buses both directions on it! The bus drivers just honk before they go around blind corners, and most of the corners are blind. When two buses meet, they sometimes have to crawl past each other, or one has to reverse until there is space to pass.

To call the Amalfi coast "absolutely breathtaking" would sell it short. It's somehow way beyond anything any of us imagined. We spent the bus ride amazed at the scenery, and the way the 1000m+ tall mountains fall sharply into the Mediterranean Sea. We were definitely looking forward to relaxing on the beach and just generally doing nothing in a beautiful place for a few days. Amy was feeling nauseated. Whether this was from the bus ride, or the fact that the scenery was so beautiful it made her sick, I'm not sure, but the bus seems the more likely suspect.

The first thing we did in Positano was: get off at the wrong bus stop. But we didn't know this initially because we didn't have a map. We knew that there were two bus stops in town, and we got off at the second one. But it kind of worked out because we ran into some travelers leaving the town who were kind enough to inform us that the tourist office was closed on account of it being Sunday... Things were going well. Luckily they had a photocopied map from a more thorough guidebook that indicated to us that of the three or four streets in town, our hostel was on the longest one. It was the house numbers that told us that we were on the wrong end of town.

Ok. So we decided not to walk along the main road since we thought we would have died if we did, and instead we headed through town, half looking for the hostel, half not caring if we ever found anything again ever and just had to spend the rest of our lives looking around this spectacular place.

On our hostel finding adventure we ran into a Canadian tour group that thought we were out of our minds to be carrying backpacks around the town along the steep roads and up and down the steep staircases.... and there were a lot of stairs! Amy counted one day and found there were about as many stairs from our hostel to the beach as there were to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (600 something), and we took that trip a few times a day... It was cool running into the group, especially since they got their tour guide to ask a local (in Italian) where we could find our hostel. We were pretty much told to go up the hill. Thanks.

So we relied on our shoddy, free, donated, pity map and climbed a bunch of stairs before finally arriving at out hostel lightly soaked in our own sweat. But we were very very happy. And the view from our hostel is something to write home about. Apparently many people head to this hostel expecting to spend a few days and end up staying a month. I can see why. Waking up to that view every morning was not a hard thing to do, but you did have to subtract an hour from your day to allow for time to stare in awe.

That first evening, we went down to the beach and made sandwiches consisting of fresh bread, salami, and fresh mozzarella. I can honestly say that the fresh mozzarella was a life changing experience.

The next day was a beach day. We hiked down the 600 some-odd steps to the beach through a winding maze of streets and staircases, but this was not difficult to figure out because you know the beach is down, and any staircase that goes down will eventually lead you there.

It was pretty hot, in the high twenties plus sea related humidity, so lying on the beach even made you sweat, and you had to go into the water every hour or so just to cool off, which was not a punishment in the least. The water was very very nice! It was pretty salty, and I don't even think it was necessary to tread water really because the salt just made you float.

We had lunch at a pizzeria on the beach front and I'm pretty sure it was the best pizza of my life. The mushrooms were amazing, and I don't think I've ever said that about mushrooms before. They do food well in Italy...

Neil and Amy headed back to the beach while I chose to go explore the town. I discovered another smaller and secluded beach, and a whole lot more stairs. For dinner, I marched up the road past our hostel and sat at a point under a streetlight, ate a sandwich, and drank a bottle of wine... cheap delicious white wine. It was a fantastic evening.

The next day we made a trip out to Pompeii. I didn't realise this, but the archaeological site is massive! We walked around it for hours and didn't see it all. It was neat, but we only found one fossilized corpse.... it was fairly eerie so that may have been for the best. I think they've removed most of them and put them in the museum in... Naples? I'm not sure. Anyways, it was super hot, so we didn't last more than a few hours. We also got to take that crazy bus ride two more times, which made me happy, and we capped off the day in the Mediterranean Sea, which also made me happy. Generally, we were all very happy. And I had another sandwich and another bottle of wine at that point.

The next day, the travel trio divided, and Neil and Amy headed for Capri for a couple of nights while I chose to kick around the mainland. So at 6am I got up and started an adventure: I set out to climb a mountain. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

I was told to take a bus up above Positano and get off at Montepertuso, and there I would see a huge sign with maps of the trails. I managed to get the Italian bus driver to let me off in Montepertuso.... but huge map signs were scarce.... Since I'd gotten up so early in the morning, I wasn't about to turn back. So, I asked a local. And I used a lot of hand gestures in case he didn't speak English. My hunch was correct, but he understood when I pointed at the top of the mountain that that's where I wanted to go. He also seemed to have a lot of information about the hikes. I imagine most locals have spent there lives exploring the paths, and they are probably all in ridiculously good shape, since everything is either uphill or downhill from where they are.

Unfortunately, his information was in Italian, but I understood one of his words to mean stairs, and he gestured up the mountain, so that's where I set off. The directions of the friendly local were comforting, but I still didn't know which stairs to really take. But knowing that I wanted to go up the mountain, as long as I gained elevation I figured I was probably going to be ok.

I was half right.

I started trekking up a staircase that was roughly where I thought the friendly Italian local had pointed towards. Stairs in Italy are very long a steep. Falling down them could take hours.

Along this steep staircase I encountered an angry dog. Yay! He was barking, growling, showing his teeth, and standing on the stairs exactly where I needed to go. If animals can smell fear then all he got from me was mild concern and irritation. That's all I could really give him at 6:30 in the morning. So, I kept walking slowly, and he backed off and allowed me to pass. To my surprise, he did follow me for quite a distance, but eventually stopped and I was able to continue my journey dog free....

... maybe.

One thing I hadn't counted on was these stairs might end, but then they did. I was left with two choices:

1) Turn around and head past the agitated dog again
2) Open the gate to my left that led into a small hillside garden type farm and hope that the path eventually hooks up with the trail that I'm supposed to be on, because this one is definitely wrong.

I was really not about to turn back since I'd already gone to the trouble to get up early in the morning, catch a bus, get directions form a local, and climb a whole bunch of stairs.... so I opened the gate.

Trespassing? What? Yeah maybe, but so far Italians (especially aroud here) seem to be pretty friendly and laid back. So I figured I'd have no problem playing the lost Canadian tourist card.

But I didn't have to, and instead I was able to pick my way through the terraced farm and eventually found myself on a path through the trees. I had no idea if I was on the right path or not, but it went uphill, so that was good. I wanted to record survivorman-esque videos to chronicle my adventure, but my memory card and camera battery wouldn't allow it. Too bad, becasue it would have been funny.

Eventually the path through the trees did hook up with a much larger path that I probably should have been on from the start. Things made sense now, so I just kept following the path up the mountain. Wherever it split up I just took the path that went most directly up the mountain, and a good portion of it was made of steep rocky stairs. You gain a lot of elevation quickly on such steep mountains.

It worked out, and I had stunning views the whole way up. I ate a nice picnic lunch at the top by a sign post marked "1396m" and a giant metal cross. I also scrounged up some loose flat rocks and built an Inukshuk to proclaim my triumph.

The whole way up the mountain and the whole way down the mountain, I didn't see a single other person on the trail. It truly was a solo adventure that I capped off by walking all the way down the the sea for a swim. It's pretty cool to have gone from sea level to nearly 1400m and back down to sea level in a few hours by myself. The water was quite a bit rougher than it had been, so that made things even more fun.

You always hear that traveling alone makes it easy to meet more people, and back at the hostel I met up with a couple other solo travelers right away.

One of them, Daniel, had been volunteering on a farm in Tuscany for the past three months in exchange for room and board. It's called WWOOFing (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) and apparently there are organizations in almost every country in the world! IT sounds like a real cool experience, and a cheap way to travel. He said he only spent 700 dollars to go traveling on weekends over three months! I'll have to look into it.... He also worked for HBO films before he went traveling, so that's pretty cool.

We went for dinner at a pizzeria recommended by our hostel. Thanks to the Italian that Daniel had picked up on the farm, the owner offered us free Limoncello which was delicious.

Oh, and the view from the restaurant was amazing! An unobstructed sea view from high up the hill in Positano... I need to go back there soon.

The next day I went to the town of Amalfi with Joey, the other solo traveler I met up with. Joey works part time for an IT company WHILE he travels! Lucky guy...

Amalfi is not as steep up the cliff as Positano, and it's quite a bit bigger, but it's still really cool. We mostly just relaxed and did nothing in town until we felt like going back to the hostel.

I went for one last swim before dinner, and it was even rougher than the day before! Very very fun.

The huge dinner I had at the hostel is kind of a cool story. The hostel we stayed at offered 5 euro home-cooked dinners to its guests, which is very reasonable for food in Positano. But only Joey, Daniel, and myself ordered it, so they weren't sure they were going to make it for only three people. So the cook/hostelier (if I may invent a word) offered us a deal. She said if we promised to eat the whole 1kg of pasta, she would cook it for us.

It was daunting, no doubt about it. That is a lot of food, even for three young males on backpacking budgets/diets. It was a challenge, but we agreed to do it and we slowly worked our way through it. It was a lot of fun, and our hostelier kept razzing us every time she walked by and we weren't done yet. It was like we had a temporary Italian aunt, or something.

And the wine was good. The wine was really good.

I intend to return to Positano as soon as reasonably possible. It's very likely the best place we've been!

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Photos

Positano
The view... from the wrong bus stop.

The beach
Ah yes, we spent some time together...

The view from our hostel
Waking up to this every morning was definitely a plus.

This is the life, right here.
A bottle of wine, a big sandwich, and a beautiful place to picnic

A touch of Canada in southern Italy
I built this Inukshuk for kicks. I'll be back to check on it soon, I hope...

Sorrento
We thought it couldn't get much better than this. We were wrong.

Pizza
This was probably the best pizza I've ever eaten. The mushrooms were amazing, and you wouldn't normally even acknowledge mushrooms on a pizza.

Stairs
So many stairs in so many places. The residents must be in seriously good shape.

Ummm, creepy...
Neil notices the portraits on our books are identical.

Vesuvius, you monster!
Pompeii