In Napoli

A few weekends ago, Stephanie, Chris, Alex and myself, took a trip with a student travel agency to the Amalfi Coast. We left Thursday night at about 7:30pm and arrived in Sorrento at about 2:30am. After watching several movies, including “Under the Tuscan Sun,” I was ready to go to sleep. It was the three guys plus an umm, interesting roommate. But we won’t get into that.

Friday morning came quick, after only four hours of sleep. We had to be at breakfast at 7am and leave at 7:10 in order to catch the fairy to Capri. All 150 students from Florence, to Rome, and Barcelona to London and Paris boarded the hydrofoil that would take us to the Isle of Capri. After the half hour boat ride was over, we split up into smaller boats of about 20 and begun an island tour that started with a trip in the Blue Grotto. Smaller rowboats that tagged onto our boats were the only way to get inside this small place. In groups of five, we crammed in the tiny boat and had to lie flat on our backs on top of each other. Our captain laid right on top of us as we squeezed through the tiny hole, hoping a wave wouldn’t come making it even smaller or even crushing us. The blue light that radiated from the water was unbelievable. Our captain paddled us through to the back of the cave and came back, all while his voice echoed throughout the small space, singing a song in Italian. After almost getting crushed on the way out, we climbed back onboard our bigger boat and continued on around the entire island. The cliff faces were massive and we stopped at a few other smaller grottos and saw a few natural arches before docking in Marina Grande.

We had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, so we walked up to the town of Capri and enjoyed some lemon granita and the amazing view of the marina and Vesuvius in the distance. Our tour group provided transportation to the hilltop town of Anacapri where we spent the hot afternoon walking around the various limoncello shops and working on our tans. After buying a bottle of limoncello to take home, and a couple of lemons to take back to Florence to cook with, we took a convertible taxi back to Marina Grande to catch the hydrofoil back to Sorrento. We had a few hours before our bus took us out to a bar, so we ate at an all you can eat pasta buffet at one of the hostels that some other friends were staying at.

The next day was beach day in Positano, on the beautiful Amalfi Coast. Thankfully, we could sleep in a little longer this morning, and boarded the bus to drive along the winding roads hanging on the edges of the cliff. After a 40-minute drive, we arrived at the top of the city and walked all the way down to the black sand beach. We stopped at an amazing panino shop called Vini & Panini where you can build your own sandwich. I got salami, fresh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, pesto and lettuce on foccacia bread. It was so big, he had to cut it in half, and I could have eaten half for lunch and half for dinner. We took our panini with our towels to the beach and had a little picnic. It was the most amazing sandwich I have ever eaten. I usually cannot stand tomatoes –but he put them on without me asking- they were amazing!

We had a few hours to relax and catch up on the sun before another boat tour started. The boat, holding about 40 people, took us around the bend where it dropped us off on a private beach, unreachable by other tourists. The water was crystal clear several yards out into the open water. The whole purpose of this little side voyage, was cliff jumping. I had been waiting for this part of the trip for weeks and it was finally time! There were three different levels to jump from, a 10-foot jump, a 20-foot jump, and a 40-foot jump. We had to start out on one of the two smaller ones before jumping 40 feet off the cliff. Scaling the rock face to the outcropping of rock, I got to the edge of the nature-made platform and realized it was a little higher than it looks from below. But I realized that it was because the water was so clear, I could see the bottom and it looked much further than it really was. I put any little fear aside and jumped out away from the rock and hit the water with a much more surprising force than I thought I would. The water was ice cold since the afternoon sun hadn’t heated the water yet. I swam back to shore and was ready for the next step. I climbed up along the higher path to the 40-foot jump where I ran into a long line of girls waiting to jump. Well, I thought they were waiting to jump, but it turned out they were all arguing who would go first and whether or not they should go at all. I finally realized it wasn’t a line, so I cut to the front. Umm, it was a little higher than I thought it was, even with being able to see the ocean floor. I myself had to take a moment before I went for the jump to what could be a pretty painful impact. I wasn’t worried about the height or the water; it was how I was going to land. A girl who went a few jumps before me, landed partly on her back and a group leader had to help her back to shore because it went numb for a few seconds. This is one jump where you don’t want to do a cannon ball or a belly flop. I planned my jump before making the leap; I would hold my arms down at my side and enter straight as a pencil. I jumped and the force of the air made it surprisingly difficult to hold my arms down. I felt no control over my body as I was free falling into the water and entered with my legs apart, my arms out, and my body slightly tilted back. I hit the water with such a force, I could tell my body didn’t go in straight. My lower back felt numb from the sting for a few seconds before I started swimming back and got the feeling back. I swam back to shore feeling like I had accomplished a lot in the last two seconds.

We got back on the boat and it took us down the coast a few miles and turned around. The rest of my afternoon consisted of staying out of the Mediterranean sun that had scorched my skin throughout the day. I visited the town’s church and bought a fresh orange and gelato and sat under a palm tree people watching until it was time to meet back up for the bus ride back to the hotel. We ate the pasta buffet again and enjoyed the rest of the night at the rooftop bar that the hostel had.

I had an early morning on Sunday, but by my choice. I got up at 7:45, went to breakfast, and then walked around Sorrento looking for a mass at 9am. After accomplishing this very important aspect of my Sunday, I walked about a half hour to the train station to catch a train to Mt. Vesuvius. While the rest of the 150 kids were going to Pompeii that day, I decided I had seen it once already and really wanted to climb the volcano that destroyed the city. The rest of my friends had never visited the remarkably preserved town, so they opted to stay with the rest of the tour. It was pretty chilly that day and I was hoping it would warm up. After arriving at my stop on the train, I hopped in a large van with three couples to take us to the starting point of the hike. This is where I met Joanne and Tom, a retired couple from Philly who were visiting Italy for the first time. They saw my CCM shirt and had to strike up a conversation with me. When we got to the parking lot, I bought my ticket and went to the gate, only to be greeted by a waiting Joanne and Tom. They waited for me to be their ‘guide’ up a mountain I had never climbed and take their picture every few hundred yards. I realized this little hike was about to take me twice as long as I planned. From where we were dropped off, it was about 800 meters to the rim. While it was overcast and chilly in the city below, we were literally above the clouds and could see nothing but open blue sky and the heat of the sun pounding on my already sunburned skin. The path was more of a dirt road, especially since we had to move at one point for a 4x4 SUV to come down. It was much more crowded than I thought it would be too, with families, joggers, and the retirees behind me. There was a souvenir stand half way up, and another two at the top, selling post cards, water, and wine that they make from the grapes they grow at the base of the volcano. I bought a small bottle of Lacrime Christo on the way down.

The view from the top was spectacular! The crater was massive and it was hard to believe it used to be bigger before massive pieces of rock the size of school buses were blown off from the force of countless explosions. It was naturally filled in with dirt and no remnants of molten lava were visible except for the cooled lava flow outside of the volcano from an eruption in 1944. I felt like I was on a floating island in the clouds because the overcast sky was now below me as far as the eye could see. It looked like I could just walk out on the carpet of clouds and walk over to one of the nearby mountains.

The three of us made our way down back to the bus where we were dropped off at the train station. Joanne and Tom asked me if I would like to grab lunch before meeting up with the rest of my tour, and I said yes. We walked over to a nearby cafè where I recommended the pizza margherita, which was created in Naples. I spent the rest of the lunchtime giving them tips and advice about traveling around Italy. They asked me whether they are supposed to tip if there is a cover charge at restaurants and I informed them that there is no tipping in Italy. They were shocked and wished I had been with them during their whole trip! They kept telling me how my mom would never believe that I spent my afternoon with a couple of old retirees. I told them that she absolutely would.

I said goodbye to Joanne and Tom and made my way to the Pompeii ruins to find my friends. Luckily I ran into them on the way out because my phone died! We drove the seven hours back to Florence where after another long weekend, passed out to rest up for the next weekend.