Amalfi, italy

The ferry followed along the Amalfi coast and gave breath taking views along the way to the town of Amalfi. When we arrived, we disembarked the ferry (along with the 50+ Italian teenagers) and walked over to our hotel Palazzo Don Salvatore which was just right up the street from the port. Our room wasn’t quite ready but the friendly receptionist brought us some snacks and an Aperol Spritz welcome drink while we waited. So sweet! The last time we had an Aperol Spritz was in Austria like 8 years ago and we both remember it tasting like cough syrup. But we gave it another shot and actually enjoyed it this time!

After resting a bit and coming up with a game plan for the day, we ventured into the town to check out the shops. Many of them had similar items as Positano, but one big difference…. nearly everything cost about half the price! I saw the same shirt I bought in Positano for €39 with a price tag of only €19 in Amalfi. Dang, I should have waited to do all my shopping in Amalfi!

In less than an hour, we felt like we’d seen the whole town and wanted to give our feet a rest so we found a cute café in the main square that was facing the beautiful church of Duomo di Amalfi. We shared some bruschetta and enjoyed people watching. I’d say at least 50% of the tourists along the Amalfi coast are from the US so we fit right in with so many people around us speaking English.
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We moseyed our way back through the town over to our hotel to check in. When we opened the door to our room, the first thing that caught our attention was the biggest bathtub we’d ever seen in our life sitting right in front of the window with an amazing ocean view. I swear like 6 people could fit in that tub!

That evening we weren’t super hungry for dinner so we found a café along the beach to have a light snack. I ordered another a mixed green salad and Marshall got a truffle pasta. He said it smelled like a chlorine pool but still tasted pretty descent, lol.

The next morning we woke up with no agenda. I had read about how much fun people have renting a moped and cruising along the Amalfi coast. Neither of us had driven a moped before but we’d figure we’d give it a shot. Why not? Marshall took it for a test drive down the street and then I hopped on the seat behind him and held on for dear life. Lets go!

We started cruising down the narrow winding roads along the cliffsides of Amalfi. For the most part we felt safe, although passing giant tour busses was a bit tricky when the lanes are just barely wider that one car width. The views and experiences we had that day were so worth a few bitten nails!

We came to the first little town not far and stopped to walk the town. It was still fairly early in the morning so most of the shops hadn’t yet opened. We quickly got back on the moped and decided to go all the way down the coast to the large city of Salerno and then check out all the little towns on the way back to allow time for shops to open. Unfortunately, when we got to Salerno we were expecting to see shops along the waterfront to explore. Instead, there were several factories and hundreds of shipping containers that felt very much like we drove to a working port. We still went for a nice walk along the waterfront before getting back on the road.

We were much more interested in strolling through the quaint charming towns, so we started making our way back up the coast. Somehow we just happened pull right behind a hearse in a funeral procession! Seriously? We didn’t want to be rude and zoom past them on our moped so we followed behind them at half speed for about 15 miles until they finally turned off. Hey, at least we got to soak in the scenery around as we're driving at a snails pace!

We sped off again until we came upon the next town, Maiori. By this point we were both hungry for lunch and this looked like a cute town that had lots of waterfront cafes. We pull off and found a café with a great view of a castle on the cliffside. While we were snacking on some bread as we waited for our lunch to arrive, a tiny bird landed on our table trying to sneak some crumbs. Marshall started to hand-feed the little fellow so he kept coming back for more. I’m sure the restaurant just loved us feeding bids on our table, lol.
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After wrapping up lunch, I took the moped for a quick test drive through the town to show Marshall my mad skills. He hopped on the back seat behind me and was going to let me drive for a bit, but I couldn't hold both of our weights and we were starting to fall over. We both agreed we wanted to survive the day, so I let him get back in the drivers seat. We followed the coast back up to our hotel in Amalfi and rested in the room to rejuvenate and charge our phones. Both our phones were nearly dead after taking so many videos and pictures along our drive and we needed to make sure we had plenty of battery to get us through the evening. You never know what you’ll see!

I worked on the blog for a bit while Marshall took a quick cat nap before venturing back out. This time we headed North toward the town of Priano. Along the way, we saw a bunch of people standing on the side of the road and wanted to stop and see what was attracting so many people. As we were looking for a parking spot, I noticed a guy squatting on the side of the road with his bare butt facing us while he was dropping a deuce. No way! His girlfriend was just standing along the road not doing a very good job covering for him. She smirked at us as we drove by laughing histerically. Once we parked, we walked over to the staircase and peeked down. It was a picturesque beach cove with several people swimming around. We debated going down there, but it would have required trekking down a zillion stairs so we decided take a quick picture and then get back on the road. 
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We navigated our way to a bar I had researched called Il Pirata that is tucked away in a little cove. The bar is actually built inside of a cave. So cool! There is also an outdoor patio that we sat on to enjoy the cliff side views. Two older couples sat down next to us that happened to also be from Seattle. How random! We chatted with them for awhile about our Amalfi coast adventures. At one point, the owner of the restaurant stopped by to greet us. She was an older lady that didn’t speak English but was overly friendly. In fact she even grabbed Marshall’s face and gave him a juicy kiss on his check. Now that's one way to get returning guests!

We scootered back to the hotel and took it easy before getting ready for a nice dinner. That evening we rode over to a restaurant called Baglio Amalfi Bistro. When we got there it looked closed and there was nobody around. The owner all of a sudden walked around a corner, opened the restaurant and told us he came to open “early” for us (at 7pm!) because we had booked our reservation so far in advance before he had changed his hours. So nice of him! This place had the most panoramic views of Amalfi. The owner recommended we start with his wife’s favorite red wine from the Amalfi region which was lovely. His wife was also the cook and she made us our delicious gnocchi and ravioli dishes. The sun was going down as were enjoying our dinner which made for a gorgeous backdrop on our last evening in Amalfi before heading up into the hills of Ravello tomorrow.

We hopped back on our moped to head back to our hotel. We were having so much fun cruising around and wanted share the joy with everyone, so I’d yell ‘woop woop’ and Marshall would honk ‘beep beep’ to all the passing mopeds and random people walking along the side of the road. We got lots of stares and occasionally would get a 'woop woop' or 'beep beep' back at us, lol. Just trying to liven things up! To top off the evening, I enjoyed another relaxing bubble bath while staring out at the city lights out of our balcony before heading to bed.

Next stop: Ravello, Italy