Apologies in advance for not having any new pictures... We have taken hundreds, but we never remember to bring the cable to download photos the same day we're able to find an open internet cafe.
We have spend the last 3 nights in beautiful Sorrento, which is completely full at the moment with English, German, American, Canadian and Italian tourists. Likely 4 English speakers to every Italian - not exactly authentic! We discovered that today is a national holiday, so lots of Italian families have also descended on Sorrento for the first summer long weekend. Kind of like Invermere on May long. (And everything is SO expensive!!)
We visited Amalfi and Positano, small beach towns along the Amalfi coast, which were absolutely beautiful. The Amalfi coast is a rocky, cliff-dominated coastline, with little beach-lined coves. The drive seemed treacherous - we were in a big greyhound type coach, going around hairpin turn after hairpin turn, blindly (and generally at full speed). The road has absolutely no shoulder (cliffs on one side, rock face on the other side) and the lanes seem really narrow. People park their cars, motorcycles and buses along the road, which further complicates maneuvering. Because of the turns, there is no visibility around the corners, so other buses, cars and thousands of motorcycles simply honk their horns to let other cars know they are there, and proceed at full speed. It was especially interesting when we passed other buses on the curves. Our bus would literally be milimeters from the other vehicles and/or rock wall. Somehow we made it both directions without a scratch (or plummetting into the ocean below)!
Today we are heading into Naples to meet an Italian internet buddy (?) of Jamie's for pizza. Tomorrow morning we say goodbye to Sorrento and head North to Florence. We're hoping Florence will feel a bit more authentic, than Sorrento. Maybe we'll be able to find a menu without fish and chips on it.
If anybody back home has been following the garbage issues going on in Italy, here's an update: We have passed through Naples a number of times on the train, and noticed some small garbage piles on a few streets (maybe 2 or 3 piles on 2 streets total), but other than that we haven't seen or smelled any garbage issues whatsoever. We also heard prior to leaving for our trip that the military was moving into Naples to help address the problem. We have seen absolutely no evidence of this either... So basically, if there is a problem, it is very well hidden from the tourists!
We'll try to send one more update in a couple of days, and we'll do our best to add some more pictures. Ciao!
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