Positano

After Pompeii, we continued on the Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento and then took a bus to Positano. The bus ride offered some really great views of the coastline and cliffs as we went up and over the peninsula to the Amalfi Coast.

Positano is a chic little beach town nestled into the steep hillsides of the Amalfi Coast. Beyond the beaches, one could spend hours perusing the town's gourmet shops, limoncello makers, ceramics stores, and art galleries. The main focus for this part of the trip was relaxing with Jen on the beach, and with the exception of a couple issues with our hotel (mainly due to lack of maintenance or will to take take care of problems), this town was perfect for that.

There really isn't a whole lot to say about this area . . . the photos speak for themselves. We just relaxed and ate some fun meals including a dinner up on the hill with a view, a lunch at a great beach cafe, and a lunch of giant panini at a local deli. Also, missing fresh fruits and vegetables, we bought a lot of tomatoes and pears (and a bit of cheese, of course) and made vegetable-heavy dinners at our hotel a couple nights while sampling the region's wines from the Amalfi Coast and the volcanic soils of Mt. Vesuvius. I challenged Italy to make a bad bottle of wine by buying the random €5 bottle of Mt. Vesuvius rosso, but it seems almost impossible for them to make bad wine in this country (a man in the wine business in North America told me about an €0.85 bottle of Italian red in a Roman supermarket that ended up being phenomenal).

In short, Positano is very nice. I would visit Croatia and the Greek Isles (and Hawaii again) before I return, and I personally preferred the rusticity of Cinque Terre, but if you want to build some R&R into a future Italy trip, it's definitely worth a visit.

- R