Amalfi Coast

 Dear Gentle Readers

I have a survival story to tell you. We embarked on the trip to the Amalfi Coast without realising what we were heading for. Remember I told you we had a fairly large car, a Peugeot E-3008 and it not being designed for Italian roads in general? Well, strap yourselves in, because what I am about to describe is hair-raising to say the least.

I put our destination into trusty Google Maps and we departed Pompeii. Initially all seemed OK until we started to ascend into the mountains. When I say mountains, I mean real mountains, not the piddly little hills we call mountains back in Australia. These things are high! That's not the worst part though. It's a white-knuckle, grey hair inducing and downright scary ride across very narrow roads, with huge rock walls on one side, precipitous drops on the other side, centrelines which are only a suggestion to Italian drivers, hairpin bends and cars parked in impossible locations, making narrow roads even narrower. To make it worse, tourist buses taking up most of the road, scooters appearing out of nowhere and passing on blind corners and other seemingly impossible locations.  I was trying to make sure that a) I didn't hit an oncoming car b) scrape the wall or c) plunge to our deaths. 

Then we encountered a bus on a even narrower bit of road. I was almost frozen with fear as I had to back up slowly with that ever-present rock wall on my right to allow the bus to squeeze past. I still don't know how the driver managed it but he did. When we finally arrived at the Amalfi Coast, I was a nervous wreck. Victoria was so scared she just started laughing uncontrollably

There are no pictures! Why? Because I didn't dare take my hands off the wheel or look away for a second for fear of a disaster occurring. It was the most stressful drive of my life and I've done a lot of driving. It was not until I had turned off the engine at the Amalfi Coast did my heart rate and anxiety level return to normal.

We had to find our hotel and Google Maps told us to turn up this street. I said " this tiny street?". It was evening before we arrived and this street was crowded with tourists who didn't give a hoot that a car was driving up there. We inched our way up the street and found our hotel. They were right, there was no parking anywhere near the hotel. So it was a very slow 5 point turn to come back out of the street and we found a public carpark, the only one around for miles. €5 per hour 24 hours a day. We had no choice but to park there. It cost us a total of €75 once we left the next morning.

This is our hotel. Our room is on the second floor but to get to the hotel entrance, there was a long staircase to the side of the hotel. We had wisely decided not to bring our large suitcases, just our carryon ones. Then there was another flight of stairs from reception to our room. Why are there so many stairs in Italy?

This is the main square that we drove up but imagine it filled from wall to wall with people.

The obligatory church was opposite our hotel with another huge staircase!

Buildings upon buildings upon buildings. Tell me, why do they call them buildings when they are already built? And why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

Houses built on steep slopes.

Ruins on top of steep cliffs.

Monument to some explorer, who I have no idea. There was no plaque explaining who it was.

We only stayed one night here, that was enough. We dined in a restaurant, I had chicken and Victoria had calamari, followed by very delicious gelato at a nearby gelato shop.

Next, the drive to Siena in Tuscany