Amalfi Coast and Roman Villa

We were a little late arriving in Naples, but got away on our tour just about on time. The guide and driver was quite interesting. He was determined that we should know how Italy was when he was young and what happened when Mt. Vesuvius erupted.

The drive to the Amalfi Coast took about an hour. The guide then proceeded to drive us through the back streets of Sorrento. Some of the streets were so narrow, I was not sure our little van would get through. We did see how the people lived, their stores, markets, and living quarters. The stops we made were very interesting.

One of the stops was at a vegetable stand where we saw lemons as big as grapefruit. They were big, but did not have the flavor or smell of the smaller ones. The Orange zest that we smelled was very strong, but good.

 The Amalfi Coast is beautiful. The villages along the coast were founded in the 4th century AD by the Romans. The road is narrow and consists of many hairpin turns. Some of the road is cantilevered to get enough space for 2 lanes, and in some places it is only one lane.

We started in Sorrento and proceeded to Amalfi, which has it name connected to Flavio Gioia’s compass. The Chinese invented the compass, but it was not steady and Gioia stabilized it so that it was accurate. The “Tavole Amalfitane”, the first code of Marine Law was arranged here.

From Amalfi we drove to Atrani, a town where most of the Noble families lived. Next came Cetana and the Conca dei Marini. Both of these villages are quaint, picturest and hanging on the side of a cliff. The village of Corbana was next and it was founded in 79 AD by some Pompeian families who had escaped from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvio. ( Italian spelling.) We drove above Furore on the winding narrow little road. Next we passed Maiori and Minori, again small little villages nestled on the cliffs and on the sea shore. Try and keep those two straight after a couple glasses of wine. Anyway we continued on to Positano, which was a holiday resort for the noblest and wealthiest of the ancient Romans. Praiano was next and it was a sleepy little fishing village until the tourist began to arrive, but now it is a tourist attraction. Next we passed Ravello and Scala, both beautiful and hanging to the cliffs for dear life. The sea is so blue here, not the grey that we saw in the Atlantic. After passing San Egidio del Monte Albino, which was settled in the 7th century BC and Tramonti, we headed up the mountain to a small village for lunch. If I knew the name of the place I would tell you, but alas I do not.

The lunch was something else. Let’s see, of course we started with either red or white wine, which just seem to keep coming. The meal started with antipasti. This was loaded with olives, fresh tomatoes and Mozzarella cheese, good stuff I don’t even know the name of. Then came the pizza and more wine. Next were three different kinds of pasta. Of course we had to end with desert and different kinds of (cello)? shots. One couple was celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary and so out came the champagne. Waddling down to the van we started back toward the ship.

We made a stop in Naples to visit an archeological site. While most of the tourist go to Pompeii and fight the crowds and trinket stores, we had a private tour of a Roman Villa being excavated. It was most interesting. When the top blew off of Mt Vesuvius the magna caused the problem at Pompeii, but the rest of the area suffered from being buried under 25 feet of ash. The Villa walls still had color and frescos on them. The tile floor was there in spots. They had a pool that had been heated by a cauldron and steam ran under some of the rooms to heat them. They lived very well. The Villa is quite large and we were told that it is just one of many that lie under the area we were in. The layer of ash that we saw was layered, which indicated that they had tried to save the Villa by digging out but were over powered by the amount of ash that fell. The area below where we were was once a lagoon, but it was filled in by all the ash and now many towns are built on top of it.


After this interesting stop we headed back to the ship. We arrived after dinner had started, but it did not matter. We were so full from lunch we had no intentions of going. Tomorrow is a sea day. Yea!!!!! We can use the rest; it has been two days of running.


Our next stop is Santorini, it should be beautiful.