Walking Italy's Amalfi Coast by Peasie

[Peasie]

I have nuff nuff pictures

[Diplomat]

Another day, another birra This one in the village of Nocelle



And the view from that table in Nocelle. I felt I was in heaven

Really nice ^5. Waiting for more.

[Peasie]

Really nice ^5. Waiting for more.

Thanks, Dude, more coming your way ... you'll be sorry!

The highlight of my trip was seeing friends, Sharon and Carla, from high school in Kingston. We had not seen each other in over 30 years! We found each other via Facebook about four years ago. I live in Washington and they live in Germany and England. Those two had not seen each other in 25 years but had remained in touch. In Summer I mentioned to Sharon that I was going to be in Sorrento for a couple of weeks and she said, “OMG! Carla and I were planning a trip around September but I haven’t booked anything yet. When will you be …”
Next thing you know we are meeting for dinner one rainy evening in Sorrento. Naturally, we shut the place down. DWL. We talked about old classmates, Usain Bolt, and the Summer Olympics. I gave them each a signed copy of Wendy’s book, A Soh We Do It, 50th Anniversary Edition. They were thrilled!

As it turns out, we are all young widows. I knew about Sharon's husband who had died 5 years ago, but I didn’t realize that Carla lost hers to cancer as well. We toasted our late husbands as we finished a bottle of wine. This was truly a moment of grace and we quietly acknowledged our spouses in our lives and how, after many years, our paths had crossed again.



The next day was bright and sunny and as I was strolling through the Sorrento, I met up with Sharon and Carla again. We decided on lunch together on the Marina Grande. (I posted photos above). As soon as we got to our table on the pier, they were playing Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me." We had a good laugh and we all knew the lyrics.
Here are the three of us after our lunch.

[Peasie]

So let's talk about the flowers and vegetation There were many familiar plants such as bougainvillea and oleander. And Morning Glories! Lots and lots of Morning Glories everywhere spilling wildly down hillsides to the Tyrrhenian Sea.

[Peasie]

Bougainvillea everywhere! Like San Francisco.



Bougainvillea framing a civic building in village near Marina della Lobra



Bougainvillea hedges everywhere

[Peasie]

Saw this on a walk through a village and thought it looked like callalloo.



I love these blue flowers from Jamaica and cannot remember the name. Anybody? The flower is attached to a long sticky stem (?) and we used to pick them and stick them on our ears pretending they were earrings. I even demonstrated to some other hikers

[Peasie]

I was so excited to see these wild daisies (or at least that's what we called them) on a stone wall. This was on a trail that took us through three small villages and a working farm. Sometimes I felt I was in rural Jamaica



Saw a lot of these wild banana (?) plants. Remember those 3-wheelers from earlier times in Ja? Well, I saw so many in the country with old farmers driving them.



Hibiscus everywhere too

[Pepper]

Loving the report. Touched by the dinner with old friends posts. The internet and facebook are wonderful...most times.

I hope you have more photos.

[seemiyah]

First post on the new board, loving your report! Hear what though, when me log in di picture dem disappear but me was seeing dem fine before? Hmm...anyway carry on, mi will just read it logged out so mi can see di pretty picture dem.

[Peasie]

Pepper and Seemiyah, thanks for joining me on coming with more pickcha soon soon

[Peasie]

I arrived in Napoli and stayed at the Renaissance hotel for three nights. Breakfast was on the top floor with an expansive patio. At breakfast I sat facing Mt. Vesuvius



Another view from the roof patio. The castle on top of the hill is Castel Sant' Elmo - from Wiki "Castel Sant'Elmo is a medieval fortress located on a hilltop near the Certosa di San Martino, overlooking Naples, Italy. The name "Sant'Elmo" derives from a former 10th-century church, Sant'Erasmo, shortened to "Ermo" and, finally altered to "Elmo". It presently serves as a museum, exhibition hall, and offices."



On my last morning at the hotel, clouds hung ominously over Mt. Vesuvius. I would later take a bus to the bottom of the mountain and hike to the top and walk around the crater of a still-active volcano

[Peasie]

So now we get to Mt. Vesuvius! After leaving Napoli that morning, I took a tour bus to the base of Mt. Vesuvius and walked up to the crater. It was about a two-mile hike up a steep hill. It was cloudy on the way up but we got above the clouds and could see the outskirts of Napoli. The following photos of Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii are from a fellow traveler who kindly shared his photos with me via SmugMug. I had inadvertently erased the photos from my camera card while uploading them on an PC at the hotel where everything was in Italian \0/ Thanks to David, I am able to have these memories to share with you.



Zoom from Mt. Vesuvius towards Napoli



The path up to the crater.

[Peasie]

Mt. Vesuvius was scary! It is still an active volcano and is very violent. From Wiki: Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Well Wiki is not correct. The guide told us that Pompeii was destroyed by another volcano. I was a little spooked looking into the crater and hearing that the last major eruption was in 1944 when it destroyed several villages. This is a photo of that eruption from Wiki

397px-Mt_Vesuvius_Erupting.jpg

Still climbing to the crater...






The crater!!!

[Peasie]

Steam coming out of the rocks in the crater



The crater is deep and wide. I'm an adventurous soul by nature but I was just spooked by Mt. Vesuvius and wanted to get the hell outta there!

The deep, deep crater

[Peasie]

Me (in Adidas striped white hat) listening to one of the guides at the crater. He tried to crack some joke about the smoke in the crater and Jamaicans smoking ganja. When I told him I was from Jamaica, he grinned and said, "Yeah, Mon" This was me ->