Amalfi Coastal Drive - Sorrento, Postino, Amalfi & Paestum

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Travelling in Italy is, at the same time, both extremely frustrating and hilarious.

Driving on the large freeways that connect the different parts of the Italy is like being a speedway driver in some sort of kamikaze death race. The easiest way that we found to deal with driving was to treat the speed limits as a bare minimum rather than a maximum.

On the motorway you can spot the born and bred Italian’s with ease: they will drive for miles straddling 2 lanes, then with indicators constantly on, faster cars will race up behind anyone slower in the fast lane, and sit literally 3ft from the bumper of the car in front.

It’s hilarious to watch until it happens to you.

The first day was spent driving from Rome to Sorrento, which we managed to achieve (after many detours and arguments over coastal route vs. highway) in a little less than 4.5 hours. That is, until we actually reached Sorrento and then crawled along at a snail’s pace for nearly an hour before getting to our hotel.

The hotel itself was a great find: http://www.ilnido.it/ set high up in the hills over Sorrento (rather than in it), our hotel room had a balcony that overlooked the bay of Naples and Mt Vesuvius, which was an amazing sight to wake up to each morning.

The second day we decided to make the most of our zippy little Alfa Romeo hire car and our beloved Sat-Nav, by doing the Amalfi coast drive.

Sorrento to Positano was roughly incident-free, except for a hairy moment or two involving our Alfa Romeo's side mirror and a line of scooters. Would have been interesting to see the domino effect, however, probably would have deemed our holiday insurance invalid. Not sure they would have covered us for being lynched by an angry mob of Italian teenage scooter hooligans.

Positano was a flurry of Italian beach-goer activity. Many of them taking advantage of the unseasonably hot weather (30 degrees) paying the 10 Euro to hire a towel, deck chair and umbrella for the privilege to roast in the sun.

The shops were bright, colourful and full of pottery and cheese-cloth, a winning combination, but given our allergies to holidays of late, all we wanted to find was a Pharmacia. And then to pay the exorbitant 35 Euros for cold and flu drugs the equivalent of speed (sorted out the runny nose a treat!)

After Postitano we thought we had the hang of the Cliffside driving until we met out nemesis on the long and winding 1 lane road: the tourist coach. We had no idea these monsters were even permitted to navigate the tiny perilous 'road' that clings to the cliff-tops nearly 100 metres straight above the ocean. The Italians have obviously been doing this for some time and have so devised a system whereby they have two traffic volunteers with walkie-talkies at different points along the road and they let certain buses or cars go at certain times, monitoring the traffic on the little roads. System or not, Adam's road rage (Adam says not road rage but necessary driving aggression) was certainly a sight to behold. Oh, and the view was tops!

After Lemonade and Pizza in the piazza at Amalfi (one of the most beautiful sun-drenched little towns on earth) we decided to make a bolt for it, taking advantage of the late sunlight hours (the sun wasn't going down until 9.45 at the earliest) and head down the coast to Paestum.

Funnily enough the temples at Paestum are Greek as Paestum was initially a Greek settlement before (at some point in the blurred moments of history) the Romans entered the scene and the two nations co-existed (until they didn't). At some point in the middle ages the town was deserted and remained hidden until it was discovered in the 18th Century, in a swamp, around the same time they re-discovered Pompeii.

There are lots of lizards in Italy, and many of them seem to get a discount from frequenting the tourist Mecca’s of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Paestum and Vesuvius.

A fun World War 2 fact: On September 9, 1943, Paestum was the location of the landing beaches of the U.S. 36th Infantry Division during the Allied invasion of Italy. German forces resisted the landings from the outset, causing heavy fighting within and around the town. Combat persisted around the town for nine days before the Germans withdrew to the north.

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