Amalfi
For our last day along the Amalfi coast, we got back on the ol’ SITA bus and headed for Amalfi and Atrani.
Like our last bus ride, we headed into Sorrento to catch the bus early in hopes of getting seats. We did! Yay! This trip into Amalfi was faster than our previous trip, though we did hit a guard rail at one point. Which, btw, I would like points for not being the most panicked person on the bus when that happened. I barely even noticed - ask EDP! Soon, we were in Amalfi and heading up towards Cattedrale di Sant'Andrea. It was easy enough to find and we were soon in the cloisters, heading into the museum. Most cathedrals are just the church - but Cattedrale di Sant’Andrea has transformed itself into a museum, as well. So, we wound our way through the museum, down into the crypt (which was the most elaborate crypt I can remember seeing) and then through the church before heading back out into the sunshine.
The other thing we wanted to do today (okay, the other thing I wanted to do today) was head over to Atrani. It’s only about 500m or so away from Amalfi and you can walk there quite easily. We didn’t have much in the way of a map so we did the best we could with the little map from the guidebook, finding some tiny alleys that led us into the square where there is a tunnel that takes you most of the way. At the end of the tunnel, we went a bit further down the road and then down a number of steps to land on the coast. It took us all of 3 minutes to walk from one end to the other and given that it was still fairly early in the day, EDP declined lunch at a restaurant that came highly recommended (and frankly, was pretty much the main reason to head over to Atrani…) so we wandered into what seemed to be the main square and then heading back to Amalfi, following the signs that wound us through the residential alleys of Atrani, climbing tonnes of stairs but avoiding the bland tunnel and the Amalfi coast road. It took us about 15 minutes and we were soon right back at the Amalfi marina where we were then presented with an incredibly important choice.
Which beach to choose?
I had intended us to head to Duoglio, which is only about one km away but has about 400 steps you need to descend to get to the beach. It’s a bit sandier than most of the rather rocky beaches in the area and given that it’s not in the middle of major tourist towns, I presumed it would be a bit quieter. Well, the existence of the 400 steps was enough for me to be overruled and told we would be spending our beach time in Amalfi with the rocks and the children. So back to Amalfi we went when we then had to decide which of the various beaches we wanted to pick. Well, essentially, we chose based on umbrella. There were several different beaches with blue umbrellas, a beige-y one, a yellow & green striped one and a red & white striped one. We went with red & white and were soon settled in our loungers, sipping Prosecco and enjoying our last bit of downtime. We spent some time in the water, with me being brave and flailing out further than I usually do. There were no jellyfish stings this time around though there were many more potential victims in the water for them to pick on. We enjoyed a tasty lunch up in the restaurant - with one last Aperol spritz for me - and then lounged around on the beach for the afternoon. The sun was warm and the waves were crashing and I didn’t even fall asleep!
Around 5, we called it a day and headed back to Sorrento for one last dinner before packing up for the flight home. With a 2pm flight out of Rome and three trains needed to get there, we figured aiming for an 11am arrival would give us enough of a buffer to miss a quick connection and still make our flight. Early this morning, our cab picked us up for our last trip down into town, we got onto the Circumvesuviana (caught an express one this time, I think!) and soon were in the Naples station, booking tickets for the 2 hour trip into Rome. It was a quiet ride and we were in Rome just a few minutes too late to catch the Leonardo Express that was leaving shortly after our arrival so we got tickets for the next one and waited the half hour for it to arrive. It whisked us away to the airport where we had plenty of time to drop our bags, go through Rome’s incredibly speedy security and then settled ourselves for lunch before the flight. Before we knew it, we were back in Toronto, claiming our bags and heading home.
Now there is laundry to do, photos to sort through, a dog to pick up… Oh, and time to get on booking the next trip - Belgium & Luxembourg in October. It’s pretty much already planned, just gotta get things booked.
