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Published: June 25th 2007
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Positano
Check out that view! Taken from the balcony of our hostel on the Amalfi Coast. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore....
We couldn't help but have this song stuck in our heads the whole time we were in Southern Italy. It didn't help that every second restaurant in the small villages we stayed had strolling musicians singing this and other great Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra classics.
OK so where were we? After leaving the lovely city of Siena we ventured south through Rome (been there, done that) to the Amalfi Coast. We had heard great things about the area, and were very keen to see it for ourselves. It was a really long journey on the train (10 hours thanks to delays) to reach Salerno. From here we changed onto a local bus to navigate the steep and formidable cliff-hugging roads, driven by the craziest bus driver in Italy (or so we thought...). The Amalfi Coast is dotted with beautiful little villages, all built precariously on steep cliffs. It's certainly not the kind of place you would go if you don't like steps, but it is just gorgeous. We spent the next few days either swimming in the crystal clear waters, hanging out with the
Positano Balcony
We enjoyed pizza and wine every night with this gorgeous view, a better view than any restaurant in town hotel owners cats on the balcony, or eating lots of pizza. We liked this area so much we stayed for 4 nights, one of the longer stints in one place we've had so far.
As if wandering around the steep cliffs of Amalfi wasn't enough, we decided to climb a volcano and bake ourselves under 40 degree heat in a ruined city. So it was off to Vesuvius and Pompeii, where we met an even crazier bus driver. The local bus to Vesuvius was driven by your classic excitable Italian man. More interested in cracking jokes, throwing his arms up, beeping his horn at pretty girls and pretty much anything else besides driving. It would have been quite amusing had we not thought we were going to die! In all fairness, although it was quite tiring climbing the mountain, we only had to climb for 20 minutes as the bus took us most of the way. 40 degrees makes doing anything hard though, at least that's our excuse and we're sticking to it.
Actually, while we're on the subject of Italians and driving - it does seem to us that road rules are more like guidelines than hard
and fast rules in Italy. Most Italians are happy to obey the road rules, but only as long as they don't see a 'better' way.
Pompeii was more amazing than we could have ever imagined. When we think of ruins it's hard to picture anything more than a few large piles of rubble, and using your imagination to fill in the huge gaps. Pompeii is not like that at all. It's an entire city, frozen in time. An awful lot of the buildings are still almost complete, right down to the mosaics on the floors and frescoes on the walls. We suspect a lot of the damage actually done to the buildings was done by early archeologists (treasure hunters) because the newly excavated buildings are in very good nick, most still even have their roofs. We walked through the streets seeing a snapshot of a moment of destruction 2000 years ago. When recent archeologists dug through the ash, they found cavities in the shape of people. Realising that's exactly what they were (the actual bodies were long since gone) they took casts of them. These casts showed the final moments of the inhabitants of Pompeii, in startling detail.
The Forum at Pompeii
Looking out through the ruins to the Forum, or main square of Pompeii. In the distance you can see Vesuvius, the mountain that caused all the trouble While we were very impressed with Pompeii we had to move on, but this is one place we would love to come back to.
Our next stop was a bit of a wildcard. The city of Ascoli Piceno is located in Le Marche, on the eastern side of the mountains that go down the middle of Italy. We decided to go to Ascoli for two reasons - firstly because it's close to Ancona where we needed to catch our ferry, and secondly it came highly recommended from the pages of our guide book, and we were not disappointed. It's a lovely old town (it's older than most other cities in Italy), and well off the tourist trail. I think the entire time we were there we heard english being spoken only once or twice. As well as seeing the sights and exploring the town we also took the time to sample the local food and drinks, including the local specialty liquor, Anisetti Meletti (similar to Sambuca, but a bit smoother and a lot nicer).
After 3 weeks in Italy we were about ready to leave Western Europe, so we headed to the coast and the unappealing port city
Pompeii Street
Looking down one of the many city streets of Pompeii of Ancona. It is from here we boarded a sleeper ferry to Zadar, in Croatia.
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Pierre Marcotte
non-member comment
His real name is...
That is an image of the god Priapus. His large penis is a sign of fertility and manhood (who knew ?) His image was supposed to bring success and prosperity.