Day Twenty-Two

So the first stop of the day was Pompeii. There was an excursion to wander around the ruins of the ancient city that was decimated by the irruption of Mount Vesuvius. I decided not to go. Why? Well after the massive amount of walking from the day before I just couldn't face another day of walking. Plus to be perfectly honest I wasn't really that interested (shock horror). But really the day before I had marveled at the massive ruins of the Roman Colosseum and I had had my fill of ruins for a while.

Instead of the excursion I indulged in a gelato. Well actually I had 4 gelati. There is simply nothing like real Italian gelati.

I suppose now would be a great time to tell you about the gelati competition. You see our tour guide told us about a lady on one of his previous tours who had consumed 26 gelati while on the Italian leg of the tour (4 days). I saw that as a challenge. If I could beat the record the tour guide promised to buy me the 27th gelato. It was on!! I put my heart, soul, and bank balance into winning the competition. Unfortunately I only managed to have 19 gelato during the Italian leg of the tour... A respectable effort but no where near the mark!

After Pompeii we headed for Sorrento to start the next excursion - a drive on the Amalfi Coast heading to Positano.

The Amalfi Coast drive was spectacular!! It provided such narrow, winding roads that we had to leave our usual bus behind because it was just too big.

There were places where I would look out the window of the bus and see straight down! The amazing vistas this drive provided were stunning. Mountains raising majestically out of a crystal, clear blue sea - the pictures simply do not do it justice! I would have love to have taken my time and to have been able to set up the kind of shots I wanted. But there just wasn't the time.

Because we were in the bus most of my shots were taken through windows and just don't look good enough. Take a look at these photos and arch up the color even more and you'll get what it looks like. It is completely amazing and if you are a photography fan you have to go and try and capture it for yourself.

The town of Positano was completely fantastic. It's stuck on the side of a mountain and everything is so steep and on an angle. Ever wondered how Italians stay so thin even with all that beautiful food at their fingertips? They simply go for a walk in Positano! It's a stair-master and a shopping village all in one.

The definite highlight of the day was the wondrous Amalfi Coast. In one word it was stunning!!

Next we're off to Florence