Day 11 - Driving the Amalfi Coast

One of the best decisions we made was to rent a car for this last part of our vacation. The day dawned bright and we were happy that we didn't need to rush anywhere to make some appointment. The day was ours.

The hotel offers a wonderful breakfast spread made up of cheeses, salami, fresh fruit, fresh bread, juices, cereals, etc. so we took our time indulging out on the terrace overlooking the Med. The Caffe Americano was thick and rich and going down exactly the way that it should. What a grand start to the day!

Earlier, we had mentioned to the hotel staff that we were going to be driving the Amalfi Coast and they made the recommendation to drive straight through to Ravello, have lunch there then slowly make our way back. Once again, we didn't want to be time or destination bound so we just decided to head out and see where the road takes us. That's the way we roll sometimes!

The road from the hotel winds up into the hills a bit before it drops back down to the Sorrentine Coast. We were following the GPS and the "Nav Chick" wanted to take us down this little "road" that was little more than a path with grass overflowing the sides and grass growing in the middle of it. We've learned something about using GPS in a completely foreign context; use sparingly and with good judgement of your surroundings cuz it ain't always perfect. We turned around, went back down the hill and, before no time, we saw a sign that we had missed earlier. Yes, you guessed it, as soon as we were on the correct road, the GPS started working perfectly!

The vistas were truly stunning! Everywhere we looked was a potential picture opportunity but, alas, there was either nowhere to pull off or, where there was, it was already filled with cars and tour buses. The drive, itself, was nowhere near as frightening as the guidebooks and trips reports will have you believe - at least for me it wasn't. There were certainly times when I needed to concentrate on the road but that's what you're supposed to do when you're driving, right? We watched one entertaining encounter when two tour buses met right on a corner. They've obviously done this before because they inched by themselves with about a half inch to spare. Seriously, if two passengers had got up out of their seats and looked out the opposite window, the weight transfer would have caused the buses to hit.

The first town that we came to was Positano. My friend, Paul, has been to Positano quite a few times and told us quite a bit about it so it was definitely on our bucket-list for the day but we were still planning on heading towards Ravello first and visit Positano on the way back home so onward we drove.

The next town was the town of Praiano which, we were told by Sandra's friend, Nadia, has an amazing restaurant, Trattoria San Gennaro, that serves mussels in "crazy" sauce. Well, we love mussels and the time had flown by so a stop for lunch was made. Normally, we order something else with mussels because, once you finish digging the little buggers out of their shells, there's not much actual food so we ordered Insalate di Frutte di Mare with it. Oh...yeah, I forgot that we also ordered the obligatory bottle (half) of wine to go with it. Well, when the waitress started walking our way with these two huge platters, we were wondering what she was doing and why she was bringing us their entire days catch of seafood to our table! The plate of mussels was probably 2 feet in diameter and the seafood salad was almost as big and piled about 8 inches high!

Bear with me as I devote an entire paragraph to this gustatory delight. The mussels were super fresh with every single shell opened perfectly. They were swimming in a delicious tomato-based sauce with hints of wine and oregano that, I'm sure was made fresh that morning and had been simmering ever since. The meat of every mussel was this perfect orange/tan color with not a single hint of being rubbery or having a trace of seaweed. Pure elegance. The seafood salad was a bowl of calamari, octopus, snails, shrimp, fish, prawns, clams and mussels that was served warm by itself. Most of the time, restaurants, at least here in the States, will serve the seafood on a bed of lettuce. Not this time. The seafood stood alone - a bowl of nothing but perfectly cooked seafood and a couple of local lemons on the side for seasoning. A little dash of salt, pepper and drizzle of olive oil and lemon was all that was needed to bring out all the oceany goodness of what was before us. Just like the bowl of mussels, not a single piece of seafood had even the hint of being rubbery in texture. It's not easy to cook octopus that melts in your mouth like this did. It seems like octopus is either rubbery or a little mushy. Not this time! Never, ever, in my life have I ordered either of these dishes and not been able to finish them completely and eat a basket of bread as well. We could not eat a single bite more and ended up leaving some on the plate! We were stuffed and it was all we could do to finish the wine. (OK, so I'm kidding here a bit - we can ALWAYS finish the wine!)

The sun was out and we were excited to work off our lunch by navigating the 400 steps down to the little beach that Nadia also told us about. The path wasn't just 400 steps straight down, it was a meandering path past the front yards of small homes and little hotels perched on the cliff. Teeny little gardens with grapes, herbs, lemon trees and flowers everywhere. We made our way down the Medieval steps to find a minuscule little harbor with a commercial beach to the left, which was closed, and a small little beach to the right of the boat launch. There were only 4 people on this little beach soaking up the sunshine and doing a little swimming. We took off our shoes and socks and proceeded to let the crystal blue Med cool our feet while we digested lunch. It was such a wonderful little beach that we hung out for as long as we wanted because we were on nobody's schedule but our own.

Video of the walk to the beach.

Eventually, we dried off our feet and began the climb back up to the top. During the climb, we made the decision that Praiano would be our turn-around spot rather than continue on to Ravello, as originally planned. It was getting late in the afternoon and we still wanted to spend some time back in Positano. Yeah, we may have missed a bit but being relaxed trumped what we missed further down the road. Know what I mean? We bought some little goodies, hopped in the car and turned around to make our way back.

The highway passes Positano high above the town and there is a little one-way road that winds down towards the Centro. The tourists were definitely out in force as we made our way down. Luckily, Positano has a few nice public parking garages so we pulled in and made our way down into the town. Not 20 steps down the street, Sandra finds this amazing shop selling beautiful linen clothes. Maria Rosselli, was her over-energetic salesgirl who brought us into the back to see the factory where they made all the clothes. "No China!" she said! Beautiful clothes....and, yes, Sandra came home with a couple tops. Once in the centro of town, Positano looked quite similar to the other cliff-side towns that we'd seen except for having a great beach. We looked around a bit, dodged tourists and restaurant "hawkers" and decided to have a gelato and chill for a bit. The gelateria had a great view but it was just OK flavor and didn't even come close to comparing to the Venchi gelato we'd had in Rome.

We made our way back to the car and headed for home. In retrospect, we were very happy that we hadn't driven all the way to Ravello because we wouldn't have had any time to do any walking around. The drive back to the hotel was beautiful and uneventful, though with a bit more traffic. I could only imagine how bad the drive would be on a beautiful summer weekend. Once back at the hotel, Sandra decided that she wanted to go check out the pool. We took some cool pics, drank a few beers poolside and enjoyed the sunset.

After the pool, we cleaned up a bit and decided that we wanted to "go local" and find a pizzeria somewhere close. We drove about 3 minutes down the in the opposite direction and found Ristorante Nastro D’Oro. The restaurant was obviously family owned and decorated like someone's kitchen and had quite a few local patrons. Perfect! We ordered a couple beers, pizza and a salad - exactly what we wanted and, true to Italian cuisine, those simple foods were done perfectly with super fresh ingredients. While sitting there, Sandra and I were talking about how she saw a trip report by someone saying that there's a microbrew somewhere close to the hotel. I looked out the front window of the restaurant and there was a sign glowing across the street that said something like "Birrificio..." I looked out the other window and there is was; "Brewery" in big glowing letters. I asked Francesco, the owner, about the brewery and he asked if I wanted to try one of their beers. YES I DID!! He brought us a bottle of their Syrentum which is a craft-brew lager with hints of Sorrento lemons. Amazingly good beer!!! The brewery was closed for the evening but a plan was made to return!

Back to the hotel with full bellies and very sleepy.