{Vacation ReCap} Amalfi Coast: Positano Bites Deep

After leaving our tour guide, we barely made it back to the apartment in time to grab our bags and get to the train station.  Our next stop was Positano which was an absolute dream.

We took the train to Naples and were greeted by our private driver, Tony from Sorrento 1st Choice which I highly recommend. Lemme tell you, that was a good call. As this somewhat macho looking guy seemed very nervous to be in this particular train station (he would later tell us that it wasn't the safest) we were very happy to have a nice safe Mercedes to hop into!  The station actually looked really clean and bright, but what do we know?  He's local to the area so we trust his judgement.

Another reason I was so glad we hired someone?  Sleep. Almost as soon as we got going, I zonked out and was happy to let someone who knew what they were doing take over.  I think Tom was most appreciative because let's be honest - he would have been the one driving.

Anyone who has been to the coast or even just researched getting to the Amalfi Coast, knows that the drive is NOT for the faint of heart.  These are extremely narrow roads that you sometimes find yourself sharing with large buses.  Plus, I have a feeling that if we were driving, we wouldn't have had a chance to enjoy the view.  Thankfully Tom woke me up so I didn't miss it!

(Not my pictures- I was too busy soaking it in to get the camera out! Source & Source)





Positano is such a dreamy place.  The driver took us the farthest we could go and then had to stop. The roads just do not make it all the way into the village.  You can hire porters to carry your luggage back and forth, but we decided to walk almost to very bottom of the hill to the Hotel Bucca di Bacco where we would be staying since we were ready to stretch our legs.

I had no idea what to expect with this hotel.  We scored an amazing deal - securing the last oceanview room at that rate! - but even so, it was a splurge.  However, we purposesly choose the apartments in the busier cities and used hotel points when possible to make this place work for us (hotels in Positano are not a part of any major hotel chain).  I really love having the "splurge" come at the very end of a trip!  I am realizing now that I failed to take pictures of our actual room!  I tried to find pictures online but couldn't find our particular suite.  Oh well.  The view is the star, so there you go :)

This was a popular destiniation for stars during the "Dolce Vita" years. Everyone from Grace Kelly to Elizabeth Taylor and every artist in between vacationed at this hotel.  I can see why they flocked here!

One of the things we would come to love about Positano is how many hand crafted goods there were throughout the village (it would make me regret not saving more funds for shopping!).  It's especially well known for its hand-painted tiles and they were featured all over the hotel.  From our floors to the tiles in our bathroom.  Because of this, every room is unique.   Beyond it being charming, clean and adorable though, we were stunned when we got a load of our view.

There was somewhat of dramatics involved in the unveiling of the balcony - you could tell they loved this part of tour and I don't blame them!  After entering a somewhat dark room, they throw open the heavy drapes, unlock the wooden doors, then the glass doors....


and your jaw hits the floor...I can't imagine that gets old for them!



We especially loved that they would bring the complimentary breakfast to our room in the morning so we could enjoy coffee on the balcony.


We also enjoyed drinks every evening here and left the doors open at night so we could listen to the waves. Magic.


I spent way too much time on that balcony taking photos.
To the right:


To the left:


As a welcome to the hotel, we were offered complimentary drinks on their terrace which we quickly accepted!  What a great start to the evening!  We were delighted to see that our Chicago friends from the Roman Restaurant were already here along with us!  Too fun!

After soaking in the views we relaxed in our room for a bit to enjoy sunset and take even more pics before dinner....sigh....

Pinch me...I still can't get over that this was the view from our room. It just doesn't get better than that!

Because there are no roads, we found oursleves walking everywhere which was lovely and a great way to work off all of that delicious Italian food and wine (and limincello)!  We received a recommendation from Tony for a good place to grab a bite so set out to find it, figuring that as a local, he'd have the inside scoop.  I say "local" loosely, because Positano is definitely a resort town (I believe he lived in Sorrento).

We definitely enjoyed the stroll.  It was just too beautiful and adorable to believe and the weather was gorgeous.


Still getting a kick about the lack of cars...


After walking a bit, we looked back and could make out our hotel at the very bottom of this cliff. We were pinching ourselves because it was just soooo gorgeous.  Is this real life?






We spent quite a lot of time stopping to soak in the views so didn't make it very far. We decided to try his recommendation the next night instead since we were hungry. We went into what seemed to be a hopping place: Caffe Positano.

We enjoyed dinner and dessert...




...and while the view was certainly nice, I don't know that we'd go out of our way to go back there.  The restaurants on the following evenings just hit it out of the park so I'd recommend them before anything else.

We called it a night, and made our way back down to our hotel.


We had such a great introduction into Positano and were beyond excited about our daytrip to Capri planned for the following day.  I can't wait to tell you about it!

I'll sign off with this beyond appropriate quote from John Steinbeck.  It comes from an Old Harper Bazaar interview and is featured in the hotel room book:

 “Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn't quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you are gone”.   

Yup. 

Ciao!
Meg

{Vacation ReCap} Rome, Italy: Colosseum & Roman Forum

I can't believe it's been several months since we went on this amazing trip and I'm still working through photos and recaps!  It's so fun re-living it all because it definitely brings both Tom and myself back to this incredible experience!   Today's recap covers our final day in Rome before heading onto Positano (aka, our favorite place on earth).
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We woke up packed and ready to get going.  Our host kindly let us leave our things in the apartment while we attended our last tour.  He needed us out by a certain time in order to get the place cleaned up for the next guests, and we needed to be out on time in order to make our train to Naples, so it worked well for everyone.

We met up with our guide, Roberta, outside of the Colosseum  who was a super nice lady with a PhD in Art History.  She was actually a little late, but made up for it and then some!   She cracked us up a bit because she totally geek-ed out while showing us around.  I loved how she incorporated a lot of pictures of what life was like in Ancient Rome on her iPad (you'll see in some of the pics below) as she explained what we were viewing.

Once again, we cannot say enough good things about going with a private tour (we used Best of Rome Tours as described here, but she has since broken off and created her own company: Stones of Rome) because there were no lines, and we learned so much in the 3+hours!







I won't take you through every detail, but what follows are some observations and random factoids along with just a "few" pictures :)

Can't go all the way to Rome, without the requisite Colosseum selfie, am I right?


We walked away from the experience floored by how much of our day to day life and traditions trace back to Ancient Rome.   I was also impressed by how "progressive" they were in terms of women's rights:  they could own property, divorce, etc.  Crazy to think that it took so long for more recent civilizations to give women similar rights (with some still dragging their feet).

Contrary to popular belief, tailgating was not invented to better enjoy American Football ;)  Look closely at the below pic and find the grills!  Looks like things got rowdy - just like today, ha.


Snapshot of the animals and the lower level (dungeons)

Beautiful mosaic tile which is still intact:


Ancient Graffiti:


Snacks:


Souvenirs handed out to attendees:


They were obviously engineering and architectural geniuses. Every stone was cut to a specific measurement and angle miles away from the build site...as each piece was brought in, they knew exactly where it was to go. Every stone had a purpose.

These bricks and the arches distributed weight better and withstood earthquakes.  They were originally covered by cement/plaster/marble which made it much prettier to look at. What we see today is just the shell of the Colosseum


Original Herringbone floor:


With the way the Colosseum was designed, it could be quickly filled or evacuated in minutes.  Pretty amazing.


The exotic Animals for the games took months to arrive to the Colosseum.  They were kept underfed and the children attending to them would oftentimes mysteriously disappear.  Screams were not uncommon sounds to hear from below...gulp.  They used a complex pulley system to lift the animals to the Colosseum floor.

Sand covered the ground to absorb blood which oftentimes didn't do the job - in that case sponges were used (the word "arena" has Latin roots meaning "sand" believe it or not)  Below shots show the exposed lower floor with a partial sand-covered floor on top.


The sand on the wooden floor above would have extended over the length of the stadium covering the dungeons below.




The games and spectator sports were free to the people of Rome and sponsored by various politicians hoping to gain favor.  They were considered a necessity to civilization as it kept the masses occupied and therefore crime low.  The executions where obviously a gruesome reminder to them of what would happen if they stepped out of line. Yay for negative reinforcements!

I guess there is always someone who has to keep the party going.  Caesar was known to have his soldiers randomly grab people (from the poor section of course) out of the crowd, have their tongues cut-off so they couldn't protest, and then executed if they ran out of prisoners too soon. All in the name of peace.  What a guy.

I'm used to thinking of the Colosseum the way it looks below, but was reminded that the original outter shell of the Colosseum is now missing due to exposure and earthquakes.  Also, I like that this pic nicely shows the 3 layers of the building


Here's a glimpse of how it used to appear way back when (Source):



Much like today's events, there was even shade provided when needed almost like a retractable roof (sailors worked together to open and close them).


Again, I loved how she used pictures to help us better imagine what life was like back then as you are literally looking at ruins. 

Here's a glimpse of Ancient Rome.  Do you see the large bronze statue towards the upper right of the second pic and in the pic above?  That's Nero's. He was an egomaniac and fancied himself the god of the sun.

We were so impressed by how they were able to figure out clever ways to produce things which I always considered to be "modern" amenities such as heated floors and walls. Check out the furnace used to heat the stone floor in the baths below.  It's funny to think about how long heated floors have been a "thing" and yet they are still considered a luxury and not a common feature in today's homes.

The Roman baths cost next to nothing to use and many of the middle and upper class people spent their days there. They'd workout, hand over their clothes to be laundered, get a massage and hang out at the spas.  At the end of the day, they were presented with fresh clothes and would proceed to get into debates and listen to the philosophers of the time well into the evenings.  Not a bad days work!   I don't want to think about what it was like for Roman slaves however...


Emperor's Grounds and Forum Pictures follow. Below, The Arch of Constantine leading to the Palatine Hills

We could have spent hours at the Roman Forum!


How the Forum used to look:







Caesar's Grave


2,000+ year old Brass Door - they don't make them like they used to, eh?


At one point, we were surprised to hear a cannon fire off across the Tiber. It apparently happens at noon every day!

I'm fairly certain our tour guide could have taken us around all day if we'd let her! We went a good 45 minutes over our allotted time before we had to beg off in order to make our train.  

We were blown away by the tour and agreed that we need to go back and do something similar - but give ourselves an entire day next time!

We absolutely adored Rome and I cannot wait to take another Roman Holiday in the future!

I will be back with our Positano Recap :)

Ciao!
Meg