The Amalfi Coast: Sorrento, Positano, Capri, and Pompeii

Well, it's been a while since I've been able to post. Sorry for the delay mom...and Jenny. haha. This past weekend I had the privilege of going to the Amalfi Coast through a student travel company called Bus2alps. I had the time of my life! These were some of the most amazing places I have ever been! Thursday night we left Florence for Sorrento. It was about a 7 hour bus ride but it was comfortable considering it was on a coach bus and time flew by with DVD's playing. Just as we were getting into Sorrento, we started driving on the sketchiest most terrifying cliffs I had ever seen. I have no idea how the bus maneuvered the narrow, and sharp corners, but somehow we made it alive. Little did I know that these were going to be the kinds of roads we would drive on the entire weekend. YIKES

When we arrived in Sorrento, we checked into the hostel and went straight to bed. About 5 hours later, 9am, we left the hostel and drove down to the docks. Once we got to the water, we loaded up 2 boats that held roughly 40 people each. There were about 85 of us students heading to the island of Capri. The coast of Italy is beautiful! Although it was a gloomy sort of day, everything around me was still able to leave me speechless. I swear the color of the water became more and more blue as we approached the island. We stopped and tried to take boats into the Blue Grotto- which was one of the main things I wanted  to do/see on the trip- but the water was too high and choppy for us to be able to even take a boat into the cave. The company said that the water tends to be too high a lot and rarely do people get to go into the Grotto. I was pretty bummed, but I was also unaware of the places I was about to discover that weekend.

When we docked at Capri we immediately started hiking up a long, stone path that led us to the top of Capri to Augusto's Garden. The garden was small, had a fountain and a few different flower beds, as well as a very beautiful tiled bench. But the view was getting better and better. The water extended literally "As far as the eye can see".
From there we took a shuttle bus to Anacapri, which is on the same island, but higher up. This was a more touristy area with lots of shops and places to eat along the mountainside. However, it still gave a very "island-y" and vacation-like feel. Kristina and I had a quick lunch and decided to take a 1 person chairlift to the top of Anacapri, also known as Monte Solaro. This was the best part of the whole island. The chairlift was cool! I mean, it seemed a little old, so a little sketchy, but nothing this Vermont girl couldn't handle (RIGHT DAD?). But the trip up the mountain was so pretty. There were small private homes on the side of the mountain with small grape vines in the yard. Not really enough to call them vineyards, small little grape gardens would characterize them well. Everything was so green and exotic, it was really fun. At the top was a 360 degree view of the entire island. It was magnificent! Off in the distance you could see Mt. Vesuvius which was neat.

Later we went back to the hostel, and went to dinner at a small restaurant in downtown Sorrento. Then we went to an outdoor bar but ended up just going back to the hostel to sleep because it began to rain and we were tired from the day.