The Pace Family: Southern Italy

We've finally reached the last installment of the Italy trip. Thanks for sticking around - it's only taken me over a month to get around to this. Last stop was Southern Italy. We stayed in Sorrento - the gateway to the Amalfi Coast - for three nights. We rode the bus up the coast the first day, took a day trip to Naples and Pompeii, and took another day trip to the Isle of Capri. Then we hopped on the train for our final day in Rome before returning to the US of A. Let's get to it!

The drive down the Amalfi Coast is very picturesque. This is the final town, Amalfi from which the coast gets its name. In medieval times, this town actually was a maritime empire rivalling Pisa and Venice. A tidal wave destroyed much of the town and now it's a tourist stop.

One must ride the bus to really appreciate the skinny roads, and the skills of the bus drivers. Two mega-sized buses passing each other on these roads is comical - but somehow they manage to do it. Wonderful views up and down the coast.

Jess enjoying the sun in Amalfi.

More Amalfi.

Positano was our first stop. It rained a bit on us, but Jess and I enjoyed the finest sandwich of the trip in this town. Ham, tomato, and mozzarella di buffala. The cheese is made from the milk of water buffalo - and it has a very unique and tasty flavor. Yum. Mouth is watering...

This is the church in Amalfi. Its size shows how powerful the town once was. Plus it holds the bones of St. Andrew - another sign of it's power. The Crusaders brought St. Mark back to Venice, and St. Andrew to Amalfi.

Lemons are everywhere and a specialty of this region - the lemon liquor Limoncello is particularly popular. Although we don't drink, we still got to admire the gigantic lemons.

Walking around in Positano.

Day two was a trip to Naples. Crazy city, crazy drivers, crazy Italian accent. I lived here for 6 months, and I loved every second. Pizza comes from Napoli - more on that later. Here's Jess by the bay of Naples and its famous volcano - Vesuvius.

This is a street called Spacca Napoli - "Split Naples". This is the historic center of the city and here the original Greek layout still exists. As you can see, narrow streets, close together - we managed not to get clipped by any scooters.

I promised you pizza. This is me sitting at the table of the pizzeria. Here I am showing off the real Fanta - best soft drink in the world. Period. They use about 20% juice in their version. So much better than our version.

Jessica outside one of the best pizzeria's in Naples - Pizzeria da Michele. I'd been dreaming about this stop for 6 years.

Jessica is very excited to try the "real thing".

True Napoli pizza. Best around. In the 750 degree wood burning oven it only takes about a minute to cook. Awesome and just as good as I remembered. This is how we celebrated surviving our tour of Napoli. Oh and buying several Italian ties.

After our pizza we hopped on the train and headed to Pompeii. The city was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 leaving a very well preserved Roman settlement for us to tour. We saw many bakeries, shops, restaurants, the political forum and the theater. We forgot our guidebook back in Sorrento, so we wandered around a bit and dodged the raindrops. But we saw everything we wanted to see fortunately.

Jess in the forum of Pompeii. Vesuvius looms in the background.

Third day - a side trip to the island of Capri. During ancient times, this island was a vacation spot of the Roman Emperors. Emperor Tiberius had a large compound here and spent his last ten years in exile on this beautiful island. The main attraction is a cave called the Blue Grotto. It's the small hole you see in the middle left of the picture. We got on a large ferry to get to Capri - a 20 min ride from Sorrento. We then got on a 30 footer for a 10 minute ride to the entrance to the Blue Grotto. Here you can see the row boats waiting to take us inside.

This is the view of Capri as we were leaving the marina on the 30 footer.

Jess and I on the boat waiting to transfer into a smaller rowboat with a gregarious Napolitano as our oarsman.

After a wobbly but dry transfer, we were laying down in the rowboat. The entrance to the cave is only 3 feet wide, so you have to lay all the way down while the oarsman tugs on a rope to slide you into the cave.

Here's a video showing just that process...

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Once inside, the sunlight reflects off the limestone floor of the cave and the clear water becomes very blue. This picture is somewhat out of focus, but you can see how blue it is. Incredible being in there. It's so dark, and all you can see is the entrance to the cave, and the blue glow. Check out the video below that we took inside. The oarsmen were all singing traditional Napolitano songs like O Sole Mio, Funicoli Funicola, and Torna Surrienta. So. Cool. One of the neatest experiences we had in Italy for sure. Totally worth the expense.

After the Blue Grotto/Capri, we headed back to Rome the next morning. We didn't do too much, but took a trip to see the St. Paul Outside the Wall Basilica. The original church had been around since around 400 AD (Constantine built it) but it burned down in the 1800s and was rebuilt. The style is still as it was originally though - another chance to see what a Roman Basilica was like.

Paul standing watch over the courtyard.

This church is technically part of the Vatican City. On the walls are portraits of all the Popes. The most recent portrait was still not complete. Later that night we had our last gelato. Sigh.

Sunset in Sorrento, and sunset of our trip to Italy.

This video is from inside the Blue Grotto. It's a little lengthy, but gives you a really good idea of what it looked like inside, and you can hear everyone singing too.