"Madam is Very Romantic"

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Today we'll be taking a bus along the Amalfi Drive to Positano. We've heard that the road's steep and windy, and that the bus drivers are all maniacs, so Issy doses up on her trusty (?) travel sickness tablets. I wonder if she'll stay awake. She says she wants to sit near the front of so she can see what's going on, and that this helps with her motion sickness. I'm not quite sure how this works. I'm pretty sure I'd rather be up the back where I can't watch our lives constantly flashing before our eyes. The bus is packed, and fortunately there are no empty seats up the front next to Issy.

The stories we'd heard are all correct. The bus hares off as if there's no tomorrow, there's no slowing down on even the tightest of corners, and our driver's hand appears to be parked permanently on the horn. If there's anyone coming the other way it would seem to be in their best interests to move off to the side quickly and stay there until well after we've gone past. The views down over Sorrento are spectacular. We pass signs telling us that the road's slippery when it's covered in snow, which feels just slightly incongruous given the current weather. We cross the ridge onto the Amalfi Coast where the views are equally spectacular.

We arrive at our stop on the side of the road high above Positano. Issy looks like she's just spent an hour in a tumble drier, and tells me that she needs to sit down for a few minutes to recover. The path down into the village is a mixture of steep narrow streets interspersed with even steeper steps. It's a bit cooler today and the sun's struggling to peek through the clouds. Issy asks me if I think it'll rain. I tell her that of course it won't, but seconds later the heavens open. That'll teach me to open my big mouth. I suggest to my beloved that we should celebrate as this is the first rain we've experienced since we left home. She doesn't seem quite so enthusiastic. I think she knows that my suggestion is a thinly disguised attempt at distracting attention from my shortcomings as a weather forecaster. Fortunately the rain's shortlived.

As we get closer to the beach the shops become decidedly more upmarket. It seems that, like Capri, this is also a holiday destination for the rich and famous, and they clearly couldn't be expected to survive for a few days without access to designer clothes and jewellery.

We emerge onto the foreshore. The beach is mostly pebbles and dark sand, and is in two sections separated by a small picket fence. The section furthest from us is lined with multiple rows of rentable sun lounges and umbrellas. There don't seem to be a lot of people in the rentable section; nearly everyone's up our end. Maybe the rich and famous have all decided to do it on the cheap today; I wonder if that's how they got rich. The other possibility is that the rich and famous don't like to come to the beach on days when there's a possibility that the sun might be obscured for a few minutes by a stray cloud.

We stop at a cafe on the foreshore for lunch. Issy says that her tablets have kicked in and that she now needs to go to sleep. She really does look to be struggling to stay awake. She says that she'll rent a sun lounge and umbrella, and sleep on the beach while I go exploring. The lounges cost 20 Euro if you want one in the front row right next to the water. They're only 17.50 Euro in the second row, and a bargain basement 15 Euro for the third row or any row behind that. Issy says that she probably won't be taking a lot of notice of the view while she's in dreamland, so the 15 Euro option will be fine. The sun's coming through consistently now, so it's much hotter, and an umbrella is now looking like a necessity. On further enquiry we learn that they're not renting umbrellas today because it's too windy. Issy looks shattered, not to mention seeming to be in real danger of falling asleep standing up. We find a park bench under a sail cloth next to the ferry wharf, and she says she'll sleep there. I'm starting to suspect her pills might be starting to affect her cognitive function - as I'm about to leave she asks me very earnestly to please not forget to come back and wake her up before I head back to Sorrento.

There's only one one way road into and out of Positano - it joins the Amalfi Drive at opposite ends of the town - so it's a long steep hike. But it's certainly worth the effort - the views are stunning.

I get back to the park bench to wake Issy up, but she's nowhere to be seen. This is a bit worrying. It's quite close to the water's edge, so I hope she hasn't sleepwalked and fallen in. There are lots of people around, so surely someone would have seen her, and anyway, wouldn't hitting the water have woken her up. I suspect I'm probably overthinking things again; Issy's always telling me that I worry too much. I decide to prove her wrong, so I distract myself by heading down to the beach to take happy snaps of some bikini clad maidens eating ice creams.

We get back on the bus and Issy falls asleep yet again. I think this might be a good thing. Firstly she doesn't seem to feel quite so sick while she's asleep, and secondly it's interrupted the incessant flow of questions about why I was taking pictures of girls when I should have been out looking for her.

We have a late siesta and then head out for dinner. Our waiter is from the Punjab, and he tells Issy that he's given her an extra large shot of whiskey with lemon in it which he says is "Whiskey Punjabi Style". He then brings her out another one. She's now slurring her words and giggling a lot, and as we leave she gives him an enthusiastic hug. He tells me that I'm a very lucky man because "madam is very romantic". I'm not sure that madam's going to feel all that romantic in the morning.

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