Amalfi

July 24

My alarm always arrives too quickly. On Thursday, I awoke around 650ish and met Momoko for breakfast at 7:10, extremely sick but ready to go to Amalfi, a small town on the famous Amalfi coast. We had planned to go with two lifelong learners, Sue and Jim. One of the wonderful features of Semester at Sea is the diversity of ages on the ship. We have lots of little kids, even some babies on the ship who are children of the staff and faculty. They did the most adorable dance performance at our last talent show, to the song “Under the Sea” from the Little Mermaid. The poor things were just standing and dancing…too cute for
words. Anyhow, we also have Lifelong Learners, who are mostly comprised of senior citizens who have joined us on our voyage. They come to our classes and I try to bond with them as much as possible. Many have been on SAS trips before and almost all are extremely well traveled. It’s wonderful. There’s a program that brings students and Vintage Vagabonds (what they’ve remained themselves) even closer, where a student has “grandparents” and a SAS “family.” Momoko, my dear friend from Japan, is in this program and Sue and Jim are her “grandparents.” Together, we all decided to travel to Amalfi and it was awesome to change it up a bit and sightsee with the older folks. At 7:40 we met at the gangway and headed for the port to get tickets.

At 8:25, we boarded the “Metro del Mare” boat and it took two hours to finally arrive in Amalfi. Yet, it didn’t feel like that much time had passed. We did make three stops before our final destination, including the incredibly charming town of Positano, which is situated on cliffs. If there is one place I would wish to return to, Positano would be it. I regret not going there…it looked so beautiful!

But, I was just as happy seeing Amalfi. Once upon a time, Amalfi was a bustling place with a population of 70,000 residents. Unfortunately, in in the mid 14th century, an earthquake devastated the area, and now, Amalfi has only about 5,000 people. The boat dropped us off at Piazza Flavio Grande and the first thing I noticed was the large beach, Spiaggia Grande, to my right. The whole thing was covered with umbrellas and chairs. We headed to the main part of town, the Piazza del Duomo. We decided to split up for about 45 minutes so I took the opportunity to explore the main street, Via Lorenzo d’Amalfi, which was narrow but filled with restaurants, hotels, and shops. I stopped in only a few, and instead spent most of the time taking picture of the architecture. When the four of us met up again, we decided to have lunch at a place right in the Piazza del Duomo. Pizza was the obvious choice. I also ordered hot chocolate, to which the Italian waitress told me I was crazy to have such a combination. The pizza there was the absolute best I had in Italy. Just fantastic. After lunch, Momoko and I went to the main sight, the Cattedrale di Sant’Andrea. It is the dominating structure in Piazza del Duomo, which a huge flight of stairs leading to the Sicilian Arabic-Norman style structure. It was originally built in the 10th century and has three main parts, the cloister, the crypt, and the cathedral. Without a doubt, the crypt was the most beautiful part…it’s odd, it felt like the most sacred space I have been in!

After exploring the cathedral, we hit the beach! For 5 euros, we got into a private beach with our own lawn chair and umbrella, and interestingly enough, we found Jim and Sue there as well. The sea was amazing. Probably my best swim ever. The past few days were very warm so a swim was absolutely necessary! But the view from the sea back to the town of Amalfi was lovely. It felt like a dream world.

The water was the perfect temperature and after swimming we did some sunbathing.
Around 345, we caught the bus going back to Naples. For the first hour we continued traveling south, which struck us as odd, despite the amazing views of the sea. Sue and Jim thought we might have gotten on the wrong bus but I was sure we were going to turn around soon, which we did. At times the bus got quite crowded…there was even a dog that came on! But once we got on the highway and headed north there were fewer people and I did some daydreaming…
When we got back to Naples, we had dinner and then Momoko and I went in search of wi-fi. The McDonalds had weak signals (I didn’t get anything at all) so we tried to get wireless in a hotel but then were directed up Via Toledo. We came to a small piazza where throngs of teenagers seemed to be hanging out. “Parle inglese?” I asked a random couple, who were both about 16. They had the normal response, which was saying a little. Together we struggled to understand each other…we were looking for internet point…wi fi? When they realized what we wanted, the couple as well as several of their friends all motioned that they would show us…and so off we went! Suddenly there were about seven young Italians all around us, cheerfully (and very loudly) speaking in Italian about this and that…enthusiastic, they were! And so nice…even though we didn’t communicate much, there were times we clearly understood each other…so much smiling…it was wonderful! They took us down alleyways and walked through the streets like it was a playground (which was impossible for me to do with the traffic but what I expected a local to do) and it all felt like a maze…I had no idea where we were going but I trusted them. The first place we went to was closed so instead of leaving us there, they took us to another place! It was near Piazza Dante and also, unfortunately, closed. As we were talking and I was trying to ask how to get back to the port, there was a lot of confusion. An Italian at a restaurant right next to us came out to try to help, and then another Italian who spoke some better English came out to help more. Everyone was so nice, so willing to help! Mmm, life is beautiful.

We got back to the ship with no trouble and I went to sleep right away!