Amalfi Coast

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Our week on the Amalfi coast has been one of the top weeks of the trip. Definately what we needed after the troubles in Milan and the hectic life in Rome. It's not necessarily cheap so we camped the entire time. The first stop was a little village called Minori. We hiked up into the hills and camped at a lemon grove at the top of the hill. This was a significant hill mind you with over a thousand steps to get to the top (more than we climbed on the Eiffel Tower). There was a road that took you about half the way but the actual farm was only accessible by these steps. The lemon farmers there were pretty low key and let us do our own thing. The facilities included everything we needed for the 5 nights we were there. The only downside was there were a few malnourished ponies, goats and kittens that Jay wasn't about to let go hungry. We were constantly buying milk for the kittens until they were convinced Jay was their mom.

Being in a lemon farm and surrounded by ripening lemons inspired us in our cuisine and drink for the week. When life gives you lemons you make lemonade, and did we ever. We had fresh squeezed lemon juice every day and always had a touch of lemon in our water when we went for walks. There was also an orange tree where we foraged for breakfast. It was a great time, everyday we hiked down into the village and bought fresh vegetables and fruits for dirt cheap and came back to the grove and made fantastic pasta dinners. The view from where we were was absolutely stunning and was probably the best panorama our tent had ever seen.

We had one day where it was warm enough to swim and lay on the beach. Jay was attacked by a rogue Mediterranean wave but survived to tell the tale. Another day we hiked east to the next village over, Maiori, but mostly we took it easy and chilled in the sun.

After leaving Minori we took a super scary bus ride on a skinny coastal highway to our next campsite in Sorrento. This time we camped in an olive grove but the site could not compare to the lemon grove. Sorrento was a larger centre and we only spent two nights there. We did make it out to Pompeii which was surprisingly massive. It really is the size of a proper city, but unfortunately we bought our new camera after our visit so no pictures to offer. Pompeii was amazingly preserved and we were surprised what they allowed tourists to walk over and touch. I guess when you have an archeological site that's twice the size of the Vatican you can lose a few ancient roman mosaics.

We had heard about a cool hostel in Florence and hadn't heard anything from the embassy yet so we reluctantly packed up and headed towards the big city of Florence.

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