Day 22

Buongiorno,

Today we explored more of the Amalfi Coast.

The heart of the coast is the town of Amalfi. Amalfi is a very busy little village, packed with tourists, shops and restaurants.

In its heyday, Amalfi was a city of 70,000 people, and was one of the maritime super powers of Italy, along with Venice and Genoa. Until one day a large earthquake tipped most of it into the sea. Today it has a population of just 5,500, excluding tourists.

We took a bus from Maiori to Amalfi. That was relatively easy. Once we reached Amalfi, we took a bus to the mountain village of Ravello.

This is a tiny hamlet at the end of a narrow, winding road, high in the hills. It is very pretty, but again it is all about tourists - souvenir shops and cafes.

Ceramics are everywhere in this area, and Ravello was no different. We checked out the prices of large pots that claimed “free shipping anywhere in the world”. €1,500 for the pot was too much, better to get one for $99 at The Warehouse.

The lady at the ceramics shop was telling us that she had a customer to whom she had shipped the same item three times, and every time

it had arrived broken. She was convinced the courier driver was throwing the packages into the van. Koro and the ceramics lady shared some stories about courier drivers. Clearly, courier drivers are the same breed all over the world.

Ravello is rumoured to be where pizza was invented. We’re not sure if this is true or not, but we thought we better have a pizza for lunch. Buzzy Bee enjoyed it as well.

After lunch we figured we had seen everything there was to see in Ravello, so we bussed back to Amalfi. There were some stunning views of the coast on the drive down.

Amalfi is another pretty little village. Of course, it has a cathedral, and this one has some of the remains of Andrew the Apostle. There is a tiny piece of bone on display that is said to be part of the back of Andrew’s skull.

You can‘t help but feel a bit sorry for some of the catholic saints and martyrs, because their remains are never left in peace. It is not unusual to walk into a cathedral and find part of the remains of someone on display. Sometimes a little bit creepy.

And that is about it for Amalfi and Ravello. We decided to go home via the ferry. It was something different, almost as cheap as the bus but far quicker (no traffic jams to deal with).

You come to the Amalfi Coast to enjoy the beach. If you get bored with that, you can enjoy a café or do some shopping. So the beach is what we intend to enjoy for the next couple of days.

Love to you all from Grandma and Koro and Buzzy Bee.