May 28-29--Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast

Friday-May 28
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that there are no rooms available the next two nights, so we have to leave the “hostel”. The good news is that the hotel has set us up in an even nicer "sister hotel" which will be even closer to the train station when we leave on Sunday. So, we moved to the Hotel Antiche Mura, which means “The Old Wall” because the hotel is built right along one of the ancient city walls. Our room has a patio looking out on a swimming pool with a courtyard filled with flowers and lemon trees. The weather continues to be wonderful. Now this is what I had in mind when I dreamed of traveling to Italy!

After checking into our new room, Dick and I hopped on a local bus to see the Amalfi Coast. Past Sorrento, several smaller coastal cities cling to the cliffs along the Mediterranean. Buses take locals and tourists and forth between the towns on windy, narrow roads barely wide enough for two-way traffic which leads to some interesting negotiating when the bus meets up with oncoming cars, or even worse—-another bus!!! We took the bus to Positano, had more mussels than we could possibly eat for lunch and spent some time on the beach. Then we headed further up the coast to the town of Amalfi. Though picturesque, Amalfi was not much different than Positano or Sorrento and there didn't seem to be much going on. So after a brief walk, we got back on a bus for another thrilling ride back to Sorrento. At one stop, some American women got on the bus and we had a “Dakotativity” moment. In visiting with one of them, we found out that she was originally from Watertown, SD and her brother is an attorney still living in SD!

After dinner on the harbor, we returned to our room to sit on the patio and share a bottle of wine. The moon is full, but blocked from our view by the lemon trees!



Saturday-
We were really beat today, and Dick was coming down with a cold, so we decided to just relax in Sorrento and enjoy our beautiful room and the town. We did a little souvenir shopping but were limited by the lack of room in our backpacks. We enjoyed a little R & R around the pool. We had made reservations to return to "The Garden" Restaurant for another wonderful meal. We tried to get pretty well packed up, which is a lot like trying put toothpaste back into the tube, because tomorrow we need to get an early start on our last day of our two-month European trek.