The last 6 days in Positano have been wonderful, and feeling so relaxed, as I look back the days have blended into each other. Some of the events that have stood out in my mind include:
– A day trip to Capri. This island is legendary and so I was with some excitement that we embarked on the ferry to Capri. When we arrived the island itself looked very much like many other places we have seen with an abundance of cafés and souvenir shops. While talking to a waiter at one of the cafés we were introduced to “a man with a boat” who agreed to take us on a tour to see the various grottos and landmarks. The trip turned into quite an adventure. We saw the cliff where Emperor Titus had his holiday villa and from which he used to throw off people he didn’t like. We learnt that Emperor Comedius’ sister Lucilla (from the movie Gladiator) was sent to this island as an exile and was executed some months later. We saw the huge mansion where Roosevelt and Churchill met to carve up Europe after the Second World War. We went into numerous caves where the sun hit the white limestone beneath the surface and turned the water a luminous turquoise colour. On the way back, our captain opened up the engine and sped along the waves, racing another boat full of Brazilians. Needless to say the kids adored it. When we returned to the main area the heavens had opens up and it was pouring, so instead of taking the Funicular to the top of the mountain, we caught another ferry back to Positano.
– On another day we walked for several kilometres up the hill to the top of Positano to see the balcony where Joanne and John had gotten married 16 years earlier. To celebrate their wedding they took us all to lunch at the lovely restaurant by the beach where they had celebrated after their marriage ceremony.
– One evening we took the ferry to Amalfi where we bought some cute Lemoncello cups (and Lemoncello of course) and saw the gorgeous Duomo.
– On our final, glorious afternoon, we had to return to Da Dalfo for a fabulous afternoon of swimming in the ocean, drinking peach wine and eating plates of tuna carpaccio, muscles and clam spaghetti.
Our final morning this morning was unbelievably glorious and it was very hard to say good bye. After watching our luggage being transported down the hill on a cable car we were picked up by our taxi bus and deposited at Pompeii. Chris and I have been dying to see Pompeii since we teenagers so we had great expectations. Because there were 8 of us we were able to secure our own tour guide for a whirled two hour tour (Pompeii is much, much bigger than I thought it was). It was such an interesting tour. Pompeii was full of shops and theatres and bath houses. It must have been a lovely place to live. One of the highlights was seeing a house still with lovely frescoes on the wall – it gave us a sense of how nice it would have been to live there as a noble person. We also saw bodies of victims, now cast in resin, still in the same poses that they died in. So much of that amazing town has been preserved, but I can see the impact that tourism is having on the city. Nick really enjoyed the tour, which is great, as I suspect that by the time he is our age, tourists won’t be allowed to go wandering through it anymore.
