Amalfi coast by Vespa

 For our second last day in Italy we decided a little adventure was called for. After our really fun Vespa tour in Rome we decided that we would like to do it again and where better than along the Amalfi coast. Originally we had decided to go by car but we are so glad we changed our minds.

This was our first stop a beautiful lookout, before we reached Positano. Below at the base of the cliffs are tiny fishing villages. Our guide Vincenzo explained that no body really lives there anymore, sometimes the fisherman will stay overnight in one of the old cottages. What a heavenly place to stay . . . . 

This is where I started getting a bit confident and snapped a few shots from the back of the Vespa, You can see Vincenzo in front of us, and Gadgets grin in the side mirror. He loved every moment of being on the Vespa. We actually owned one up until about 4 years ago, but sold it. I have a strong feeling we are about to acquire another one.

The beautiful town of Positano. 

The beaches of Positano looking up to the hill. Vincenzo explained to us that Positano was built from the beach up, with donkeys carrying stones and building supplies. When we were there it was incredibly busy. Hundreds of shops all selling lots of different wares. We had an hour to explore before we headed off again. As you can see we had dark skies over us and with threatening rain we packed Nicky ( the Nikon camera) away in the bike box and I m glad we did, about 5 mins out of Positano the rain started. It wasn't heavy, really just annoying we continued on to Amalfi, sadly we didn't get any photos along the way.

We arrived at Amalfi in time for lunch and as you can see blue skies.This is the Bay Area , Vincenzo explained that where we were standing used to be ocean and that they had slowly built out and out into the ocean.

This is the town square of Amalfi

We had a great lunch of fish, calamari and prawns with chips in a cone. They were really good.

Lemons , lemons everywhere.  Everywhere you look around the Sorrento and Amalfi coast are lemon groves, these are just normal size lemons some of them are the size of a babies head and we are told the large ones are quite sweet.

The beach at Amalfi as we headed towards Ravello

The road to Ravello,

Ravello, set high in the hills up a long and winding road.

The view from a look out. 

Ravello is reknowned for a annual musical festival where they create a stage and have an orchestra playing classical music, particularly Wagner as he used to frequent Ravello many years ago.

And this is the view behind the orchestra, pretty amazing isn't it.

After a short visit to Ravello we headed home, again we were unlucky enough to encounter rain, but this time it really rained on us. Lucky for me I was behind gadget so he got the brunt of it. The car traffic was pretty congested so we weaved in and out trying to get to the tunnels to get a break from the rain . . . . Just before we reached Positano the rain eased and by the time we reached Sorrento I was totally dried out. It was so much fun and to be honest the rain really didn't even worry us that much. Vincenzo announced that Gadget qualified to receive his Italian Vespa license, because he did so well weaving in and out of the traffic . . . . Lol

Our last day in Italy was a bit of a non - event. We stayed in our room for a while in the morning packing up our belongings and then at 11 we caught the train to Pompeii station where we were collected and taken to a winery. The idea was we were supposed to have lunch, do some wine tasting have a tour of the vineyard and have the various type of grapes explained. We got a meal and four wines to taste. It was pretty unimpressive and way overpriced. 

Anyway we had a lovely afternoon when we returned to Sorrento, we sipped our drinks as we watched the sunset on the town square and talked about our time in Italy.

So that s it , I'm up to date . . . We are now in Istanbul, staying at a airport motel. Tomorrow we head to Gallipoli and then the next day Cappadocia.

CIAO

Googy Girl