Europe Day 2 - Amalfi Coast to Tivoli
We had a wonderful breakfast this morning at the Fattoria Terranova in Sorrento in the covered patio of the main farmhouse. It is so rustic and charming here, and the food is unbelievably delicious. Our hosts are friendly and courteous and have ensured we’ve had a wonderful time here. After packing up and checking out, we headed towards Positano, our original destination last night. Even though we ended up stopping here in Sorrento instead, I think it worked out better. The pace of life in Sorrento is wonderfully slow, and it was a great reminder to slow down and not try to take this trip too fast.
The Amalfi Coast from San Pietro to Amalfi is a driving experience like no other I’ve ever had. The road hugs the side of the cliffs, between 50 and 250 feet above the crashing waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the mountains soar hundreds of feet above you as you navigate hairpin turns, crazy Italian drivers, and jaw-dropping scenery. The desired speed by the rest of the drivers seems to be somewhere between unsafe and ludicrous, so we were frequently making use of the pull-offs when they showed up, not just to take pictures, but to let the gaggle of impatient Italians pass.
There are several towns along the road that we stopped in, and several view points between towns. Pretty much anywhere you stop along this road will make for an amazing photo. You really can’t go wrong. There’s a couple nice towns to stay, if you’re inclined to make it more than a day trip. Positano, Amalfi and Praiano, to name a few. We saw rooms around $70 per night when we were looking, so it’s not ridiculously expensive for the amazing location that it is. Check Airbnb and Kayak, and you should be able to get something good, although we were here in shoulder season, so it wasn’t as busy as during full-on tourist season.
The last part of the road, while still as steep and curvy, wasn’t as great scenery-wise. If you’re just doing a day trip from Napoli (Naples), you can safely turn around somewhere about Amalfi or Minori and say you’ve seen all the good parts. You’ve still got the drive back to look forward to, anyway, navigating all those turns the opposite direction!
We got to the end of the road around 1:00PM, and headed towards Rome. On the way, we decided to stay a bit outside of Rome instead for the first night and see if we could just take a train in to avoid driving and parking hassles. We chose a nice apartment in Tivoli that we found on Kayak, and it turned out to be wonderful. Alessandro is the owner, and he was very, very helpful in getting us settled in, making a great dinner recommendation (and reservation) for us, and giving us the low-down on which of the touristy areas are actually worth going to.
