2012 Italy - Day 7 - Amalfi Coast

Up early, Sharon and I went to a week day Mass at Santa Maria delle Grazie, a beautiful little Baroque close to the hotel. While the Rick Steve's guide book said that the nuns would be singing, there was very little singing in the Mass.

We arranged for a car and driver for the day. Our original plan was to drive down the coast all the way to Paestum, a Greek ruin. Over the last couple of days, we decided to adjust our original plan and stay close to the Amalfi Coast.

Sharon has been wanting to do some shopping for decorations for the new kitchen. One of the guidebooks listed a ceramics factory in Ravello that she was interested in visiting. We decided that we would make that our target destination for the day.

After breakfast in the hotel, we met the driver at 10 a.m. We made a number of stops for pictures heading south on the coast. After getting a chance to see the coast from the ferry yesterday, it was a nice complement to stop at a number of vista points as we wound our way south. We also stopped at one ceramics outlet.

The driver dropped us in Amalfi. One of the things that we didn't do on Wednesday was visit the cathedral. We took a quick tour of the church. The most interesting part of the church was the crypt of St. Andrew. The crypt contains a number of relics of St. Andrew brought to Amalfi in 1208.

Back in the car, we headed to Ravello. This is a hilltop town near Pontone where we hiked to yesterday. We had a cold drink on a terrace with a great view of the Mediterranean Sea; Ravello is about 1,000 feet about sea level.

While Sharon and Jack shopped, Morgan and I toured the Duomo (Cathedral) of Ravello and the Villa Rufolo.

Back in the car, we made a quick stop to buy some Limoncello. We then headed back north to Positano and had a very late lunch on the water at Chez Black. We were all starving by this point. I was surprised how big Positano was. Sharon had tried to get a room here, but couldn't find anything She liked. I would definitely come back to Positano at some point and then visit the Island of Capri; We skipped Capri on this trip.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost 6:45 p.m. Sharon wandered through the town to do a little more shopping, while the rest of us crashed in the room.

We finished the night watching the Italy versus Germany European Cup semi-final game in the restaurant at the hotel pool. Italy won by the score of 2 to 1. Afterwards, Sharon and I walked out into the central square of Sorrento. The town was going crazy. Sharon has a couple of videos that I will post later. It was another late night...