2 Hours to Italy - How about that!

For the last holiday, Pinksteren, which stands for Pentecost (commemorating the decent of the holy spirit upon the disciples of Christ) we took a quick trip to the Almafi Coast, Italy.  We originally planned on driving around the Netherlands, but when someone pointed out that we do not have another national holiday until Christmas it was obvious that we better take advantage of the long weekend.  

Lucky for us tickets were fairly cheap and the flight was a little over 2 hours.  Our friends Amir and Ali joined us!  We flew into Naples on Friday, May 21st, and we're picked up by the hotel driver.  The drive to Positano is about an hour.  Naples is about what you expect - random trash dispersed, not much to see, a bit of a concrete jungle.  The drive to our hotel was extremely windy, but beautiful how high we were on the cliffs and seeing all the lovely homes scattered across the hillside.

We stayed at the lovely hotel Villa Rosa which was conveniently located by the city center, amongst restaurants, boutiques and the beach!  The view was breathtaking, the kind that you feel like you are dreaming and gives you butterflies.  Right away we walked down to the city center to scope out the town and found ourselves a small deli with various meats, cheeses, breads and wines!  After stocking up on food and drink, we headed back to our hotel, sat outside for our first meal and toasted to the weekend ahead!

That evening we had drinks at Sirenuse - one of the pricey hotels of Positano - known for its terrace views and champagne bar.  I will always remember the snacks at Sirenuse - almonds, olives and potato chips!  We headed down to the water, popped into a nice intimate restaurant with a garden terrace,  had yummy wine and pasta with shaved truffles.  We finished the night off at Music On The Rocks - a bar located off the beach inside an actual cave.

On Saturday we shopped around a bit and discovered the best Italian sub.  We asked the deli gal to make us their signature sandwich - 15 minutes later a masterpiece appeared - toasted bread, olive oil, salt, pepper, roasted peppers, mushrooms, prosciutto, mozzarella, the list goes on and on.  With our newly discovered sandwich we headed off to the beach to rent a boat for 3 hours.  We took the boat back and forth along the coast, searching for private beaches and breaks thru the clouds.  Rose', white wine, the sea breeze and smells, made this boat excursion very memorable.

For dinner we ate at Cafe Positano.  Guests are sat at either the inside of the cafe or on the side of the road.  Cars are inches away from you while you eat, you would think this would be nerve-racking, but I guess the meal and good conversation takes your eyes of the traffic!

The next morning we took the Positano Jet over to Capri.  Once on Capri we headed up towards the top for a nice lunch (octopus and bruschetta), more rose', shopping and wandering!  We hopped on the funicolare to get back to the bottom where we met up with Captain Lorenzo Catuogno, who we hired to boat us around the island - making stops at the Blue Grotto - Grotta Azzurra and also the Green Grotto.

The Blue Grotto is definitely an experience and a absolute must when in Capri.  It's hard to explain the feeling you have before going in - a lot factors stress you out - small row boat, crashing waves, other row boats bumping into yours, not really being instructed on anything but to keep your arms in and your head down, watching the timing as they pull the small boat in by a rope.  Inside you are instantly blown away by the bright blue water.  It was ill-advised to take a swim by our boats captain - our buddy called bull shit, but the water was in fact surrounded by hundreds of jellyfish.

The More To Adore in Positano:
Smells of Jasmine
The huge lemons and grapefruit (lemon everything - perfume, soaps, lotions, sprays)
Shopping
Limoncello
Salty air
Napping on the beach and boat
My first Italian gelatto - cafe and vanilla
Various sandals shops - bought my first pair!
Yummy-melt-in-your-mouth prosciutto

I adore Positano and Capri and would love to make my way back there again - like I said before, 2 hour flight to this beautiful place, can't beat that!!!