Amalfi Coast - Positano, Amalfi Town, and Ravello

April 26, 2014

When we finished our breakfast and packed up the room we set out for our last day in Italy. We were primarily driving the Amalfi coast and stopping at a few towns. 

The road that basically hugs the coast is breathtaking and nerve wrecking. You slip off this road and you are GONE! I definitely have a lot of respect for the Italian engineers who built this road and even more respect for the big bus drivers who drive it. 

This is looking back at what we just drove through. You can kind of see the
road in this picture if you look hard. 

We reached our first destination - Positano. This village was a breathtaking sight from a distance. Once we took all the roads winding down into the town we found a place to park. Positano was a really cute village with lots of cafes and expensive stores. Its famous for its fashions and 90% of its shops are women's clothing boutiques. The walkways are all narrow and you are constantly walking up or down stairs. There are not many sights here but many places to eat, shop, and enjoy the beach. 

Our view coming into the town

There were pretty flowers everywhere

The bell tower at the Church of Santa Maria Assunta

We got a big pizza and we ate it here for lunch

The view from the beach

lots of colorful shops

This is the view looking back at Positano when we were leaving

The next town we came to was Amalfi Town. In the 10th century this was a powerful trading area. In 1343, this was all destroyed by a tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake. Today this town lives off of tourism. Amalfi is not as pretty as Positano but definitely not as crowded as Positano or Sorrento. 

Right after this the weather started to turn and the clouds were getting really dark. We started driving to Ravello and it started to pour down...dont forget we are on these crazy windy roads. 

We did not get to stop in Ravello because the weather was just horrible. The town sits 1,000 feet above the sea and has an incredible view.

We then started our drive back to Rome which was about 2.5 hours. We drove over the mountain to get back to Naples and the main highway. The rain must have been so bad in the mountains because it even washed some of the road away...a little scary! 

driving through the dark clouds...spooky!

when we got to the other side of the mountain this was the first view of Naples

Mt. Vesuvius in the distance

I just had to take a picture of this mess and big blot of highlighted roads. This is what
a GPS looks like when you are coming down a mountain and going in every
direction to get down to the bottom. 

Once we finally figured out how to get on the big highway (after getting lost a few times and the GPS had no idea where we were) we started our journey back to Rome. We were spending the night at a hotel near the airport for our last night. Joe's flight was leaving early the next day and ours was not leaving until the evening. So the children and I still had one more day in Rome. The big question was do we go back into Rome for the Canonization or not? But before I went to bed I was reading online and looking at friends Facebook statuses that were showing them all camping out and sleeping outside in St Peter's square...there was no way we could even get in there in the morning. We just decided the next day we would stay in the hotel and watch the whole mass and ceremony on the television.