Italy part III: the Amalfi Coast

After Rome, we drove to the beautiful, dramatic Amalfi Coast for the remainder of our honeymoon. It's a bit touristy and requires taking a downright terrifying road to get there, but it's difficult not to love any place with views like this.

We were lucky to have a room with a balcony overlooking the sea in the not-so-touristy town of Praiano. Situated between the towns of Amalfi and Positano, it was calm and quiet with a gelateria, a café, and a handful of restaurants.

We spent our days here hiking through the hills, wandering down to the beach, drinking copious amounts of limoncello, and eating, eating, eating. It's an incredibly beautiful area, with lemon groves tucked into the hillsides.

Our second day in Praiano was a bit cloudy, but we spent most of the day outside and even wandered down to the seaside where Marcus put his feet in the water. It took about 30 minutes to climb down the thousand small steps to get there, but we were the only ones on the path. We smelled the flowers, watched millipedes crawl past, and touched the numerous lemons hanging from the trees.

After we hiked back up from the seaside, we treated ourselves to an espresso and limoncello at the local café.

On our third day, we went to the town of Amalfi and toured the Cathedral and an old paper mill. We meandered through the backstreets and found a café in a cave, but left soon afterwards to see what Positano had to offer.

Gelato, clear skies, and blue water in Positano. Just down the coast from Amalfi, but somehow the skies parted during the 30-minute drive. We walked through the town, enjoyed a delicious seafood lunch on a terrace overlooking the sea, soaked up the sun's warmth, and walked to the waterside with gelato in hand. We left the next day, driving the rest of the coast towards Sorrento and through Naples, back to Rome for one last meal of cacio e pepe.

a road trip in Italy

In one month, I will marry my best friend. In one month and one day, he and I will board a plane to Rome. I can't wait to show Marcus the Eternal City, where I once had an apartment in Trastevere and spent my mornings visiting museums with my art history class and afternoons watching Italian films. Now I will be going with my husband, on our honeymoon. Excited? Yes.

After two days in Rome, we will head out on a road trip to the Amalfi Coast. National Geographic calls it the drive of a lifetime. I just hope it isn't too terrifying. Taking the infamously curvy road is the only way to reach the hillside villas tucked along the coastline. Well, then. We shall begin with an adventure!

Photo 1 by marin, photo 2 by julia