Positano, Italy, Day 4

7:30am Early start this morning.

8:30am Checked out and paid off the hotel bill which took forever. Cost was 360 Euros and an additional 12 euros for city tax, 4 euros a night... I had a really bad feeling we were not going to make it in time for the train.

8:35am We rushed off to Termini station and had to queue up to get our tickets validated, that took about 5 minutes. We then rushed off to the platform to catch the train to Naples. Made it in time with 2 minutes to spare. We were really lucky not to miss the train.

9am till 10:10am Sat in the comfort of our seats and watched the scenery go by....

10:10am Arrived at Naples station. There was an man there who we assumed worked for Giovanni, who was our driver from Naples to Positano. Turns out the man who picked up our luggage was some random guy who hangs out at train stations, "helps" people with their luggage and expects 10 Euros in return. Giovanni gave him 5 Euros and told us the real deal on who these people are. Opps.

At Naples train station

Our ride

Naples has a lot of garbage. Seems like it's built from garbage. Going further outfield the scenery changes drastically like night and day. Rolling hills and houses built on the slopes of mountains. The south is simply stunning.

12ish Arrived in the hotel, checked in. We're living on the -2 floor. That's right. Minus 2. The floor goes all the way to -5. The hotel is on the top floor, level 0. Our room's on a slope. If you look upwards above the balcony you don't see anything other than sticks of bamboo and the sky.

Positano, view from the top of the hotel.  Positano is a small town located on the Amalfi coast.  Much of its economy is tourism.  With such great views you can see why!

Roadside shop

1pm Walked about, took photos, explored and had lunch. Starter was sautéed shellfish (mussels and clams) and mussels in white wine, garlic, cherry tomatoes, olive oil and crusty ciabatte. Mains were seafood (clams mussels prawns octopus) pizza and the restaurant's specialty pizza (fried eggplant in a parmagiana style with basil tomato and mozzarella). We couldn't finish all of the pizza and had it takeaway.

3ish pm Walked on the beach. It's mainly stones. Very different to what I think of beaches usually. Also did more exploring. There's a limoncello shop which apparently makes the best limoncello. The same shop sells all sorts of things lemony which includes perfume, soap, oils, etc. We also went to another shop and had samplings of different limoncello. Strawberry, blackberry, cream, rockmelon. The lemon one's still the best. Blackberry tasted like wet socks, even smells like that too.

Taken at beach level

That's the beach behind us

It just smells so good!

One of the many walkways that form a maze of shops, these are littered everywhere and literally form the town

4pm Walked back to the hotel and made bookings for Capri for tomorrow and Pompeii on Saturday. Then proceeded to get some water and other drinks and sit in the balcony for hours.  This is the view from the balcony attached to our room.

7:46pm I'm still sitting in the balcony. Will upload this at some point. Internet costs 5 Euros an hour here. :)

11:10pm Time for sleeps.... dinner was leftover pizza.

Other ramblings

1. There was a girl following us yesterday in the vatican taking pictures of me, that was rather strange.
2. Bangledeshi person yesterday who couldn't guess where I'm from. Usual guesses, Korea, Japan, China.. blah
3. My idea of pizza has changed. Marinara pizza isn't marinara pizza here, it's tomato with cheese. Risotto that Lauren had didn't really taste like risotto it was more of a fried brown rice. Also the pizzas here are rather exceedingly simple with only a few toppings. But perhaps that's the way it should be.