Ahhh... the Amalfi Coast the playground of the rich and famous and some of the most expensive real estate in the world, as there is so little of it. The towns and villages are crammed between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the cliffs that climb almost vertically up from the water. The towns that do exist are in the ravines between to the hills, with many others clinging to any flat sections they can find. Needless to say it’s a beautiful place to visit. And the roads, if we had driven on the Amalfi Coast before going to Croatia the drive to Dubrovnik would have seemed like a four lane highway. There is one road that winds along the coast, the majority of it is almost two cars wide, with plummeting cliffs dropping towards the sea on one side and shear walls on the other. On this road you share with mad local drivers, (the locals roar along it, overtaking all the time) local buses and tour buses. The tour buses only travel in one directions North to South to make it safer for the other drivers, as getting caught with two buses trying to wriggle past each other tends to create a massive traffic jam. The local buses that go everywhere are a pain to meet when going to other way but great to sit behind as they clear the road ahead for you, though they seem to use full size buses for the service instead of a smaller design. Needless to say it took us a while to get to Conca Del Marini where our apartment was located. Whether it was a large village or small town weren’t sure as it was spread over the side of a mountain, our apartment had one building below us and then it was nothing till the sea. Look at the photos and you see what we mean, but we did have a great view of Amalfi (the town) from every window in the house and could watch the boats come and go during the day and night including a few cruise liners and an amazing electrical storm on our second night. We were treated to a two-hour lightshow with multiple fork lighting strikes to be seen up and down the coast and numerous losses of power in the apartment, which we think are quite common as the apartment was equipped with emergency lighting, which kicked in each time.

The Amalfi Coast was our holiday within the holiday. The Amalfi Coast is great for that, nothing to see except the views. We did do two trips out, one to Positano, the most famous town on the coast and the most expensive (we caught the local bus there and ferry back) and up to Ravello which sits on the cliff above Amalfi, which we drove up to and traveled the fastest for our entire stay there, 70km/h when rolling down on one of the few straight sections of road, I think our average speed was 40 km/h during our entire stay. Though Kane’s driving was almost at local standard by the time we left.

In Ravello, we were treated to a close up a helicopter buzzing the villa overlooking the sea, this thrilled Isabella before it landed in the Villa grounds, from which a bridal couple got out and started to have wedding photo’s taken in the villa’s grounds, a great idea, much quicker than driving! It was pretty cool and the views from there were even more amazing, the villa is open to the public, there was also a very nice five star hotel so we grabbed a card and maybe one day we’ll splash out and stay there. The day we went up to Ravello, Emma and Kay went to the Isle of Capri, home to the rich and famous since the time of the Romans, we didn’t go this time as we visited Capri last time we were in this area and wanted to see more of the coast.

So a nice relaxing five nights and how quick it went, before one last windy drive over the coastal mountains to the Autostrada (Freeway) inland, which took us about 40 minutes to travel 14 km’s!!

The Amalfi Coast Web gallery