italy...!

On Monday April 3rd, I left Oxford with two classmates (Homy and Vern) for a five day adventure in Italy. We flew to Lamezia, which is located on the top of the foot at the bottom of the country. We rented a car there and drove north, with Rome our final destination and where we were flying out of the following Saturday. We left Lamezia and realized that there really isn’t too much to see in that part of the country. Unfortunately, while we were still in the quiet part of the country, we stopped to get some lunch (about three hours after leaving the airport), and ended up in a car accident in which we were hit by a local! What a pain to deal with, as the man we were hit by and also the police did not speak English, and none of the three of us spoke any Italian. It was about two hours of hand signals before we got out of there and continued on our way. A big inconvenience to deal with, but on the bright side, nobody was injured.

We made it to Salerno by the evening and found an internet café so that we could search for a hotel for the evening (not a whole lot of pre-planning went into the trip!). We ended up booking a place in Positano, and I drove the stretch from Salerno to Positano that evening along the Amalfi coast. It was a thrilling ride, with hairpin turns and narrow roads, in the dark, for over an hour. We finally made it to Positano about 10pm, and then ventured out to a fabulous dinner at a restaurant overlooking the city and the sea.

Tuesday we spent the entire day driving back along the Amalfi coast and stopping in some of the towns scattered on the mountains along the seaside. Amalfi was beautiful, as were the smaller towns. The cathedral was lovely, as was wandering some random side streets. We made it back to Positano and had a dinner of wine, cheese, olives, and fresh bread on the balcony at our hotel. Just lovely.

Wednesday we drove away from Positano and around the tip of the Amalfi coast, with a destination of Sorrento. The weather was a bit chillier and started raining in the afternoon, but we still managed a good wander around the city and had some more good meals. Sorrento is really interesting in that all of the buildings along the coast just end into cliffs which drop about 50 feet down to the sea. Fascinating. From our hotel room, we could see all the way to Naples.

Thursday we made our way to Pompeii, where we spent about 4 hours walking around all of the excavated ruins. The city was huge! Apparently about 8-10,000 people lived there when it was buried in the ashes from Mt. Vesuvius. The buildings are really neat to see, and it was especially interesting to learn that they were already using things like sidewalks on the streets, and running water through lead pipes in the homes. It amazed me that the city was so advanced so long ago. A fascinating visit, even if it was quite crowded (it was cultural week in Italy, so all of the major attractions were free, and full of tours of school children! Afterwards, we drove a few hours to Rome, and found a hotel to stay in.

Friday we spent the day wandering around Rome. The weather was beautiful and we covered the entire city on foot throughout the whole afternoon. The city was also busy, but we managed to stop by most of the main attractions – the colloseum, the arch of Constantine, the Roman forum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona, the Vatican, and the Spanish Steps. We had dinner at an outdoor café in the square outside the Panteon, a good end to a fun trip. Saturday morning we took a 6am flight back to the UK…