The next morning we woke up to find ourselves back in paradise on the Emerald Coast of Italy. The towns along this coast are all built right next to the water where a mountain just goes straight up from the ocean. That's where people decided to start building towns. The more touristy towns had a flat spot at the bottom that maybe had a canyon that made it easier to build on, but ours was basically on a sheer hillside. Justin rode his bike up to a gorgeous town of Ravello in the early morning hours after which we decided to head down to the beach. Our place was pretty high up so we decided to see how long it would take to walk down to the beach from there. Hundreds upon hundreds of rock steps and pathways separated us from the beach of this little town. There were plenty of interesting things to see along the way including a poster someone made illustrating how someone had bludgeoned their dog to death and left him to die. He showed how cute the dog was when he was alive and then put the bloodied dog head on a photo. The kids were really interested in that. Then we stopped at a fruit cart where a crazy old woman came out to admire the children and told me that she was one of 13 children. She told me her father used to say, "If a woman stops being able to have children, she's worthless and you should chop her head off!" What I can't believe is that her mother had 13 kids with a man like that!
We finally made it down to the beach and it was rocky and as crowded as a beach could be. The stones were nice and rounded but really hurt our feet. Everyone else but me had some sort of shoe they could wear in the water, but I only had flip flops so it was tough on my feet this entire week. As soon as we plopped the kids down, all eyes were on us and our blond kids. Violette, of course, immediately picked up rocks and started putting them in her mouth. Just about every Italian mother came up to me to inform me that my baby had rocks in her mouth. I know. I know. I ended up making a pile of large rocks that were too big to swallow for her to play with, but they still came up to me telling me she was eating rocks. When I didn't take them away from her and thanked them for their concern, they probably thought I was nuts. There is about one child for every 10 adults in Italy so they're overprotective of their children and each child has about 5 adults hovering over them at all times. We spent some time in the water and I sat there pretty annoyed and frustrated by the people on the beach, so we decided to take the bus over to the nicer town 10K up the road and hang out on the beach there.
First of all, I have to say something about these bus rides. The streets that connect these towns are NOT made for buses. These giant tour buses have to take up both sides of the street to round corners and all they do is honk before every corner to warn drivers coming the other way that there's a huge bus coming around the bend. A few times the bus got stuck next to another bus trying to pass in the other direction and it took 10 minutes to back the bus and everyone behind it to a point where the buses could pass each other, and with only centimeters to spare. It's like riding the Wild Mouse at Lagoon. If anyone has been on that ride, you know that because the wheels are on the rear section of that car, you feel as though you're going to fall over the edge every time you turn and that your life is at risk. Well, as I looked down the steep, rocky cliffs below us and saw huge buses coming in the other direction with only a one foot wall preventing our bus from being pushed off the mountain, I was reminded of that ride and constantly prayed for the safety of my family. The views of the towns, however, were all postcard worthy.
Positano is probably my new favorite city in Italy. It used to be Florence, but now I think I like Positano the best. We heard from Ivan that Americans discovered it in the 50s or something and built it up the the grandeur that it is today with five star hotels, mansions, and a lot nicer look than some of the old, tired and spray painted cities that are all over this country. This place was sparkling and fancy and well maintained. The bus dropped us off at the top of the hill so we had to walk all the way down these fun winding pathways lined with stores, much of which was covered by beautiful flowering vines that shielded people from the sun overhead. There were jewelry stores, modern art galleries, cute kitchen stores, children's clothing boutiques and nice restaurants to feast our eyes upon. We winded down to the main square and headed towards the beach. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and then ate pizza at an overpriced restaurant. The linguine with clams was excellent, but the pizza debatably had buffalo mozzarella on it like we ordered. Then we ate some delicious gelato and dragged our kids up the hill as fast as we could go so we could catch the bus. We were constantly having to drag the kids to the bus, running with pounds of gear, then usually waited for a half hour before it actually arrived. Piled onto the hot, crowded bus, got home and went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment