Amalfi

Trip Report Summary


Travel Dates	Oct 4-Oct 7
Highlights	Path of the Gods

Travel Notes

We took a train from Rome to Sorrento; the train to Naples was great, but the train to Sorrento was probably the oldest train that I've seen. Also for the number of people going to Sorrento, I'm surprised they didn't upgrade it to one of the newer high-speed trains. We ended up having to stand for the entire 1.5 hours with my hiking pack. Apparently, if we took the taxi, the ride would have cost 100eu. Only found out about this because our hotel concierge told us how the taxis take advantage of poorly planned tourists.
We stayed at the Unconventional Hotel. It's really nice and highly recommended. It's like a cross between a hostel and a hotel. The concierge was really helpful, the rooms were cleaned and sufficiently. They had a free, simple, and hot breakfast that's made to order, and it's right beside the train station
Sorrento is very nice, but also very touristy. The majority of the stores sold the same things, and it was hard to tell what was made in China vs what was made locally.
We got to try limoncellos from a few of the stores that still made it the traditional way. It was nice going around tasting it as different stores had their own variation; some were sweeter, some more tart, and some stronger in alcohol. I learned what made limoncello so fragrant is that they use the rind of the lemon, and soaked it in 90% alcohol, then added sugar to taste.
We ended up burning the majority of the day waiting in line. It was quite frustrating. We woke up at 6 am to see the sunrise. Breakfast was at 7:30 am. We waited for a train for almost an hour; it didn't show up until 9:45. We then had to wait for the ferry to Capri, then had to wait for the bus to go to Anacapri. When the bus finally arrived, I was told that I must first buy a ticket from the tobacco shop, then wait another hour until the next bus comes again. We finally go to Anacapri and took the lift up to Monte Clara. We got to the lift at 12, so we spent 6 hours before we got to see any real sights; very frustrating.
We didn't end up taking a boat tour from the port to go to the Blue Grotto because it was closed in the morning, which is a common occurrence this season. At Anacapri, we met a couple who mentioned that the Blue Grotto was open. So we took the bus to the other side of the island where you could go directly into the Blue Grotto. It was nice, and we got to deal with the ferrymen directly. I wasn't too sure what to expect, so it was only okay. I imagine if I read into the hype I'd be a bit disappointed.
We walked to Marina Grande for dinner. Originally we were told that it would be difficult to walk there and should take a taxi, but we found a nice walking path along the shore that wasn't too bad and was nice as a sunset walk.
We took the bus from Sant Angenlo to Bagni Regina Giovani. It's a small Grotto beside some old Roman villa. It's nice and secluded with a small swimming hole. It's a bit secluded so it didn't have a lot of tourists, which added to its ambiance.
Originally we were planning to take the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi (cheaper), but in the end we ended up taking the ferry everywhere. The ferry was only 17eu, so it wasn't too bad considering a hop-on and off ticket with the SITA bus costs 10eu. The view of Amalfi and Positano from the ferry is phenomenal.
We still ended up having to take the bus to get to our hotel and learned that taking the bus would have simply been nuts. The coastline is just filled with 1.5 lanes, and with tourists, there were constant traffic jams. Also, the bus schedules were not as frequent as you'd expect; the bus to our hotel came every 2 hours and made our arrival a bit stressful since we didn't know exactly where the bus left from, and it would be the last bus of the day.
Our hotel ended up being one of the highlights of the trip since it was a former Michelin-recognized restaurant. The meals killed our budget, but we ate there each evening and it was fantastic. We tried the deluxe tasting menu, with a wine pairing and it was probably one of the best meals I've ever had. We also tasted one of the best wines in Italy, the Fjodoro. We got free breakfast at the restaurant, which help off-balance the fancy dinners.
From our hotel, we were planning to walk up to the trailhead of the Path of Gods, but we got a ride from an off-duty tour guide. He originally wanted 20eu to go up, but when I refused he lowered it to 10eu. The trail was pretty much all downhill, and you're always facing the Amalfi peninsula, so it was a gorgeous trail. The trail ended at a small cafe, where we had local Lemonade and orange juice, and in-house bruschetta. It was really tasty, but a bit more expensive than I expected; the bruschetta was 9eu.
The original plan was to walk back to Amalfi, but there wasn't enough time and my plantar fasciitis made the walk uphill painful. So we continued down to Positno and took a ferry back to Almafi. There was another tour boat that talked to us at the beginning of the hike, that I thought was so sketchy, but it turned out they were legit and had a nice small boat, which would go closer along the coastline.
We ended up renting a scooter on the last day on the Amalfi coast. I had to do a test before I could rent it, and I guess I looked less confident than they wanted. We eventually got the scooter for the day and it was great. No more waiting, and got to zip through the switchback; it was a bit anxiety-inducing at the traffic jams where I'd follow other people go into the oncoming lane to pass the jam. It only took 5eu to fill the tank! It was such a great experience.
We biked to Ravello, which was a really nice sleepy town. There wasn't much to the town other than the quiet atmosphere.
Every day on the Amalfi coast, I woke up at sunrise; there was always a consistently nice sunrise and sunset while we were there
On our last day, we had to get back to Amalfi to get back to Naples. We tried waiting for the bus, but it never came, so we ended up walking all the way down to Djora Di Furora. The walk wasn't trivial and it seemed like the trail doesn't get used quite often. We eventually got down and hitched a ride on a packed bus to Amalfi where we got a ferry to Sorrento, then train back to Naples.
[Bagni Delfino][https://goo.gl/maps/jdv5udj4hk3ttedr6]: It was a bit expensive but was good; it's one of the fancier places but had nice seating at the port.