Thursday, July 12, 2012

A Day Along The Glorious Amalfi coast

We're just back aboard after a great day riding buses. Who could believe that?

Well, if you've ever visited the Amalfi Coast you would.

We hopped aboard one of the first "open" tenders to go ashore this morning. Despite a slightly annoying wait in the rocking lifeboat, and a quite annoying ten minutes sitting on the port's free shuttle bus with the engine off (beggars can't be choosers), we walked ten minutes to the stazione and bought all-day bus tickets for seven Euros each.

The first bus was full but we caught the second one 30 minutes later and enjoyed a breathtaking ride from Sorrento to Amalfi via Positano. We'll post photos once we've returned home.

We learned that our bus passes allowed us one ride on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus, an open-topped creation that took us up to Ravello, one of the most beautiful little spots in the world, one that we'd visited with Greg and June just a few years ago.

Lo and behold, it wasn't hard to find the same restaurant we'd eaten in that day, Il Figli di Papa, and Greg and June will be happy to learn it was just as good today. As well, they offered quick and free Internet so Kathy was able to download a couple of hundred e-mails to her iPod Touch.

Between lunch and a few minutes strolling around, it was time to board the bus back. We were lucky to get on quickly enough to have seats. We transferred again at Amalfi, once more finding seats (how the locals must hate tourist season). Brian is enough of an old-fashioned guy that he offered his seat to a young Italian woman who possibly first thought he was inviting her to sit on his lap. Fortunately for him, she wasn't insulted by his paternalism and sat next to Kathy. Riding around the curves and switchbacks on these buses while standing is the closest Brian has ever come to skateboarding.

We feel quite clever by getting off the bus down the near the port. We walked down the locally famous one hundred steps and reached the port on foot within a few minutes. A tender was boarding and we were back in Riviera's air-conditioned comfort just about 6:00 p.m.

Cooling showers and one gin-and-tonic later, we're feeling we accomplished a lot today, even if some folks would say all we did was ride buses.

Just wait 'til you see the photos.

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