Amalfi Coast

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September 13th 2008

Published: October 2nd 2008

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Mr Leeds United

Start of the journey

Looking back down into Salerno

Next stop - the Amalfi Coast. As you can see from the photos, the reason the Amalfi Coast is famous, is for its coastline. We started our journey with a bus ride from Salerno to Atrani, where we spent our first night. The bus is the best way to explore the coastline, as the roads really hug the cliffs, and in some cases overhang, giving you jaw dropping views over 50+ metre drops. It is quite hard to describe the little towns that dot the coast, but they are basically built into the cliffs and provide a perfect getaway from the cities as for a lot of the towns, it is very difficult to get cars further to the centre than the outskirts where the larger roads are.

We made our way to Atrani, and after finding our hostel, we set about relaxing as quickly as possible with cocktails near the beach, before moving there to lay in the sun and cool off with some swimming. The temperatures were perfect - it wasn’t quite as hot as Sicily, and the water was cooler as well, so it was much more refreshing than the warm water further south. For dinner, we

Maiori

One of the small towns that we went back to because the beach was so impressive

decided to walk along the coast to the next town of Amalfi (only a 10 minute walk). It turned out to be a fantastic idea as we found a great little non-touristy restaurant and had one of the best meals of the trip. We finished up by taking a walk around the cliffs in the still warm conditions.

The next day we went back to one of the towns that had caught our eye, Maiori, half because the name was similar to Maori, and half because of the huge beach. We had a look around the town and Hannah perused the shops and made a couple of purchases, while I headed straight to the beach. After a lack of salt water for the past few months, I am rapidly becoming addicted again, especially with the knowledge that after this holiday, it will be at least 5 months before I get to swim in the sea again! After our time there, we made our way to Positano, where we spent the next couple of nights.

Positano was my favourite place of the whole trip. It is one of the bigger towns on the coast, and certainly one of the

The Coast

Looking North along the coast

most expensive, but the views and scenery were unparalleled. Hannah and I also lucked in with our accommodation. We managed to get our own room with ensuite, with our own terrace and sea-views! Also both mornings, we had breakfast delivered up to us so we could eat it on the terrace while gazing down over the town to the sea. Hannah loved Positano for the shopping, but because of the prices, didn’t buy much. Myself, I was content with just heading down to the beach and relaxing there with a good book, which is exactly what we did the following day for several hours. There isn’t a whole lot to describe of what we did, because it follows a similar pattern each day. Wake up, breakfast, beach, swim (repeat many times), home, shower, dinner, walk around, bed. A great way to relax after the lack of London’s summer.

After our great time in Positano, we jumped across to Sorrento, which was our base for a day trip to the island of Capri. It took a bit longer than expected to get ourselves sorted, but we eventually made our way over there and did a boat trip around the island,

Maiori

One of the little towns that we went back to because the beach looked so impressive

seeing the famous Green Grotto, and the outside of the Blue Grotto. Then, seeing as this was our last coastal stopover, we went for one last swim and I bid a tearful (well, almost) goodbye to the sea.

After our night in Sorrento, we made our way off the coast to Naples via a day trip to the ruins of Pompeii. But I will leave that story for the next blog.

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