Living in the Now

We spent our last day trip from Naples by visiting the beautiful Amalfi coast. We took an early hydrofoil from Naples' downtown Beverello port. The ride was smooth, a lot more tolerable than the water taxis of Venice but little did I know what was in store for the day. We arrived in Sorrento's harbor and bought an all day bus ticket good for all buses a long the Amalfi coast up to Ravello. The SITA buses there seem to run on the drivers' agenda since the 10:30am bus left closer to 11am and we waited a long time just to get on. Luckily, we got on and got 2 seats rather than standing. We were told that the drive to Amalfi would be about 40minutes but it took closer to 2 hours! The narrow roads that weave via switch backs through the mountains and along the coast are meant for two way traffic but with all the parked cars, scooters squeezing by and mass amounts of tour buses.... You can see why it took so long. The ride was up and down, and very side to side so, clearly, an opportunity for me to get motion sickness AGAIN. We got to Amalfi and we realized that we had little time there. I was a cute town I wish we could have visited for longer. The drive out showed us a bit of Positano and some other small towns I wish we could have seen but the bus rides were not efficient enough in the day for us to stop at all of them.

So, Amalfi was absolutely gorgeous with this one church that overlooked the main piazza. We had pasta forn lunch, still sub-par for Italy we thought and then walked the main street looking in all the little shops. They were really big in hand-painted ceramic art so we purchased a few things from there. We finished up with a coffee break at the #1 recommended coffee shop/bakery in our Amalfi book called "Pansa" but it turned out to be s pricey. We asked about a good coffee and it was about 6€ and smaller than a shot. Oh well....

The long windy bus ride back t Sorrento made us late for the hydrofoil s we took the train back to Napoli. THat was another hour so although we saw the beautiful town of Amalfi, it was a long day of traveling. This coast of beautiful cities needs a whole other trip that's for sure.

We took the train early the next morning to Rome and arrived around noon. We had a bit of a hotel hunt but once we found our Casa D'Fiori we were so happy. Tis place is like a huge, renovated apartment and the rooms are beautiful and a girl prepares a fantastic breakfast for us. This place is perfect! We didn't know there were two locations. The main office would have been really ideal, right in Campo D'Fiori but this second location we are at is right by the bridge to Castel D'Angelo and 10 minutes by foot from the Vatican city. It's absolutely beautiful here.

Day one: we walked through Campo D'Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps and some of the shopping streets.

Day two: we got up early and went to see the Vatican and the Basilica. We didn't go to the museum or see e Sistine chapel because of waits but we continued the day seeing the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We bought a 25€ Roma Pass that let us beat the lines at our first two sites so we skipped a huge queue at the Colosseum. That piece of architecture is sure mind blowing! It was beautiful. The forum was great to walk through to but it was so ot we sort of had a short trip through there. After, we walked to a few other piazzas and came back to our hotel to beat the heat and wait for dinner. We went to a recommended restaurant near campo d'Fiori and tried dinner the Italian way. We had white wine to start. We had a traditional appetizer of croquettes and then had our pasta as our first course. The sauce was amazing and the pasta was cooked perfectly! We continued tona secondi: veal and chicory but we were getting pretty full by this point so we couldn't grab dessert or coffee. Instead we walked it off to Piazza Navona and to check up the lit up bridges leading to the Vatican.

today, we sauntered all around town and made a few purchases for ourselves and family. We took it easy this afternoon, trying the escape the heat and pack up all our things. We take off tomorrow morning for our flight home via Frankfurt and Vancouver.

I think I need to make another trip to Rome and spend a lot longer here :)

Is been a great trip but soon back to full time training and work :)