Sarah was supposed to get up with Jay and do a little workout on the terrace, but she hopped in the shower instead. I finished up the blog for yesterday and posted it before getting dressed. As Sarah finished drying her hair we went across the street to grab coffees and then to the grocery store to get some bananas and water for breakfast.
The drive to Positano is only 16km from where we are in Sorrento, but it takes 47min to get there because all the roads look like this:
I'm navigating from the back seat and after a while Sarah says "You're a good navigator" which was more a dig at Anthony than a compliment of my navigating. Driving here stresses him out so he doesn't drive and doesn't navigate he just passengers.
Because the drive is so crazy I contact the cooking class we have tomorrow evening in Positano to see if we can cancel without any penalty and contact Max, who checked us into the apartment to see if we can arrange for one in Sorrento.
We find a parking garage about 600m above the beach and pier and park the car.
We are meeting the boat at the pier at 10am. We've arranged for a private boat tour of the Amalfi Coast and our skipper is picking us up here. I get an email back from the cooking class that say that he will arrange for our transportation to the class if that will help (we had asked Max and a taxi was 80 Eu each way) and back afterwards, so after much back and forth we ultimately decide to take a taxi there (so that we don't have to be picked up at 11am for a 6pm class when the chef happens to already be in Sorrento and have him drive us back after the class). We can't cancel the class, they have my credit card from when I booked it and will charge the full amount. It doesn't say anywhere in any of my correspondence that you need 3 days to cancel, but trying to cancel the day before is a bit of an asshole move we all agree so we will go and I'm sure have a lovely time!
We get out on the water at about 10:15am and the first thing we do it high speed it out to an archipelago off the coast.
The house was owned by a Russian ballet dancer who had a private dance school on the island but is now owned by a wealth Italian. It can also be rented out for only 40,000 Eu a week!
This hotel is very popular, you have to book a year in advance. My camera sucks but it’s beautiful! I’ll get some photos from Anthony. Samsung, best.
This hotel is called Tritan, it has an elevator down to the water if you don’t want to take the stairs!
These watch towers have been converted to villas and restaurants. Sarah and Anthony are staying in a watch tower B&B in Puglia when we leave them in 2 days to go to Sicily for Jay's conference.
Giovanni stops here and normally his passengers would take time to get in the water and swim in these caves. None of us brought our swim suits, the weather is nice, but not swimming weather. The water is 74 degrees - we opt to stay dry. He's amazing with the boat navigation and pulls right up to the maw of the cave in reverse.
Right beside the cave is the oldest disco in Amalfi, you can arrive by car or by boat.
This little cove is the dividing line between two Amalfi towns, Praiano on the right owns the pier and Furore owns the beach and restaurant.
11:30am, time for a beer!
This bridge is 100ft high and every year hosts a diving competition, we go under the bridge to see the cove beyond.
This is where mozzarella was invented...I almost asked him if that is Amalfi's version of the story or if its widely believed, but I didn't. But now, as I try to google the name of the town, which sounded like Algerella (found it, its Agerola) there is nothing that links it to mozzarella. Though he could also tell us whatever he wants!
This is the Bay of Mariners, Jacqueline Kennedy used to come with Caroline and John Jr and stay in the yellow house on the right and eat in the restaurant below, we'll be coming back here for lunch later, we'll have to tender in to the beach.
The hotel below, I asked if its smart to build your hotel below a rock outcropping like that and he said actually the hotel is closed to secure the mountain and make some improvements. Anthony said he's going to tell Maddy and the girls that it is the world's largest pizza oven. See, we can all make up our own facts!
The white house on top of this peninsula belongs to Sophia Lauren. Sarah and Anthony said "Who is Sophia Lauren?" Anthony is a huge movie buff, so I'm surprised he doesn't know who she is.
We are travelling down the coast slowly, its a beautiful day, the sun is shining and we're sitting at the back of the boat enjoying the view of the coast as we cruise by.
Giovanni stops here at the Arch of Love. Anthony says it looks like a wiener.
Again Giovanni reverses the 38' speed boat right up to the Arch.
You can't really see in this photo, but there are tiers of lemon trees all along the coast. They export their lemons across Europe but in recent years it has been declining because there is an area in Spain that now produces lemons and sells them for cheaper (I can't even imagine the logistics of harvesting all these lemons on the tiny, winding roads), but the quality is not so good (and mozzarella was invented in Agerola). They also use the lemons locally to make Lemoncello, which is EVERYWHERE here. He says even the lemons from Sorrento make different lemoncello than the lemons in Amalfi.
I took a photo here of the pier blocks because I thought they were interesting.
This is Amalfi, here is where they upgraded the compass to what it is today so that every boat can have navigation...sure they did.
This is the smallest town in Italy, it starts and ends in this photo.
Below is Ravello, the last stop before we turn around and head back for lunch and then up the coast back to Positano. This hotel you could dive from your balcony. A lot of these buildings are built right into the side of the cliff, which is stunning, but there would be no light on the entire back side of the building.
This is the best example of the building integration.
This natural waterfall used to be used by the paper mill when it was functioning. Local paper from Amalfi is famous. This is true, it can be googled. lol.
There is a large cave, just large enough to maneuver a 38' boat, that we go into.
Now we cruise back to lunch, its a little after 1pm.
Anthony convinced me to try an Anchovy with oil and chillis and said it wasn't fishy at all. Anthony is a liar.
There is skin on the other side. I had to fold it flesh side out to eat it.
I ordered salt and pepper shrimp, I figured it would come with eyeballs but I was hoping it wouldn't. lol.
And Sarah and I both had the spaghetti alla Jacqueline referenced in the story above. It was good but it was very salty, everything had a strong vinegar or salt flavour.
After lunch we cruised back to Positano, it probably took another hour to get back and we said goodbye to Giovani.
We did some shopping in Positano on the way back up to the car but haven't found anything for the girls yet. They're not easy to buy for at all because they're picky about clothes, etc. The drive back to Sorrento was just as bad as the drive there, but didn't seem to take as long. The driving here is crazy, especially because there are so many scooters driving all over the place.
In the car all of the sudden Jay goes "Ugh!" and we're all like "What?" He had looked over at a bus stop and an old lady was sitting Basic Instinct style and he caught some panty (he hopes).
We got back to the house and sat on the terrace enjoying a glass of wine before we went out for dinner. Jay commented that in Europe you just seem to be always eating, which is true - we don't have a big breakfast but a lot of the rest of the walking we've been doing is to find something to eat.
So we mosey back to the pedestrian district of Sorrento and do some shopping. We finally find something for the girls, (Mom, stop reading this to the girls) we get them robes with their initials embroidered on them. Mom was going to get Paige a new robe for Christmas but now she can't, sorry!
Anthony liked this shirt, so I figured we would see if it would look good on him, moved the fingers and said "Yup, looks good on you".
We walked around for a long while before we found a place we wanted to stop to eat, because we wanted to be outside.
We ordered zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella..so delicious.
Anthony had anchovies and stuck his hand in the picture just as I was snapping it, he's been trying to do this all trip but is a little off his game so this is the first time he's actually got it.
I got the mushroom risotto and had a little piece of Jay's T-Bone steak, which was tender and delicious. This little piece was thin but the rest of the cut was very thick.
Anthony got pizza and Sarah got a salad but had some of my risotto and some of Anth's pizza, she's a scavenger :) We shared a bottle of prosecco which was very nice, not too sweet and not too bubbly.
As we were eating dinner an older guy stopped beside Jay on the street and blew his nose but Jay said it was like trying to stop a tsunami with a paper towel, it just exploded everywhere. He's like "oh my God, I'm two for two, old lady snatch and now this" haha!
On the way back to the apartment I asked if they were going to get gelato, which they do every night (I'm not a huge fan, I've had it twice). Sarah said she didn't really feel like gelato, neither did anyone else but then we passed one and they headed in. Sarah said "I'm just going to ask for some taste tests but not order any" lol, so I said "Ok, I'm just going to wait outside" (better to have a head start if we need to run). Besides, I brought dessert from home. Oh yes I did.
We got home and finished off the bottle of wine with a few chocolates and sat chatting until about 12:30am when I called it a night. No idea what the plan is for tomorrow up until the cooking class, which I'm really looking forward to and I'm glad we are doing because its the only thing that Sarah said she wanted to do while we're here that we planned specifically for her.
I packed a cushion from the patio furniture into my pillow case and hope that its better than the decorative pillow I used last night to replace the horrible pillow that was on the bed that is about an inch thick and hard as a rock. I also asked Jay if we can push the beds together tonight because I kept feeling like I was going to fall off the bed, that's when we discovered that his bed is the same width as a normal twin but mine is the width of a cot!
I packed a cushion from the patio furniture into my pillow case and hope that its better than the decorative pillow I used last night to replace the horrible pillow that was on the bed that is about an inch thick and hard as a rock. I also asked Jay if we can push the beds together tonight because I kept feeling like I was going to fall off the bed, that's when we discovered that his bed is the same width as a normal twin but mine is the width of a cot!
No comments:
Post a Comment