Each of the places I ventured on my spring break were beautiful: The Almalfi Coast, Capri, and all of Sicily are full of breathtaking views of beaches, water and hill tops. The Almalfi Coast, a couple hours south of Rome is famous, and full of tourists, because of the 3 unique sea-side towns that cling to the cliffy coast and because of the beautiful vistas afforded to anyone who takes the twisty/turny road along the coast to get to these three towns. I absolutely loved the 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the Almalfi Coast, and was so struck by the beauty I was witnessing, I felt the strong desire to journal about it and describe what I was seeing. Here is an excerpt from that entry- hope you enjoy!
3/18/2011 Everything seems in opposition to each other-beautiful impossibilities. Tall steep cliffs covered in deep green grass drops sharply into the dazzling turquoise blue sea and are shrouded and topped by thick white clouds. Trees, houses, churches, and gardens all cling and cascade down the side of the carved-out coastline. The street seems to run magically along the side of the cliffs, winding endlessly back and forth, affording wondrous views of the sea and its rugged coastlines. Sometimes we get views almost straight down, revealing angry waves crashing and breaking upon the rocks. In between the towns, terraces bear mainly lemon and orange trees. My favorite part of the drive though is when we are going through the towns. The houses are painted in a variety of colors and take on unusual and varied shapes, as if conforming to and fluidly extending out of the terrain beneath. The roofs of the houses too take on new forms here- they become driveways, patios and gardens. Each house seems to be on multiple levels of the incline, sometimes including a platform off the back (resembling, to me, one of the stadiums in the super-smash brothers video game) which hold swimming pools, tennis quarts and "backyards;" it seems as if they might fail at any moment, to the doom of those on top of it.
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| The lemons in the Almalfi coast were huge (and a little warty), perfect for making their famous Limoncello. |
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| Our first stop on the Almalfi Coast was Ravello, which according to our hostel owner, is the most beautiful of the three cities (Portofino and Almalfi are the others). Even in the rain it was very quaint and beautiful. |
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| The thick cloud covering made the hills around mysterious and majestic, but unfortunatley when we went to the famous Villa Cimbrone, we couldn't see even a little bit off of the supposedly amazing vistas. |
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| the duomo of Almalfi |
Capri
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| We got up super early to catch the 7:30 ferry to Capri, since it was the cheapest, and we got to watch the sun coming up over the harbor of Sorrento- isn't it beautiful?! |
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| The Arco Naturale on Capri |
Sicily
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| After we had crossed from Mainland Italy onto Sicily on our train (in the wee hours of the morning) we were able to look back and see a few cliffs of mainland Italy fading into the distance over the Ionian Sea. |
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| The rocky beach right near the train station where we ate our breakfast |
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| I'm in the Ionian Sea! |
Taoromina and Catelmola- we stopped off here from our train, and headed on to Catania later in the day because I had read in guidebook that these two cities, perched on top of each other, had the best views in Sicily, as well as a couple nice hiking paths in between.
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| This is the nice part of the trail-full of pretty flours and well maintained rocks... the other part of the trail was a little bit more "off the beaten track"- thus I twisted my ankle :-( |
A couple random shots on buses/trains through beautiful central sicily
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| Mt. Etna's in the distance |
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| Our awesome fancy-schmany train ride to Palermo! |
3/18/2011 Everything seems in opposition to each other-beautiful impossibilities. Tall steep cliffs covered in deep green grass drops sharply into the dazzling turquoise blue sea and are shrouded and topped by thick white clouds. Trees, houses, churches, and gardens all cling and cascade down the side of the carved-out coastline. The street seems to run magically along the side of the cliffs, winding endlessly back and forth, affording wondrous views of the sea and its rugged coastlines. Sometimes we get views almost straight down, revealing angry waves crashing and breaking upon the rocks. In between the towns, terraces bear mainly lemon and orange trees. My favorite part of the drive though is when we are going through the towns. The houses are painted in a variety of colors and take on unusual and varied shapes, as if conforming to and fluidly extending out of the terrain beneath. The roofs of the houses too take on new forms here- they become driveways, patios and gardens. Each house seems to be on multiple levels of the incline, sometimes including a platform off the back (resembling, to me, one of the stadiums in the super-smash brothers video game) which hold swimming pools, tennis quarts and "backyards;" it seems as if they might fail at any moment, to the doom of those on top of it. 
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