Antica Repubblica Amalfi

OK, so we're living on an Olive Farm for a while now.<br>Bohemian? Yes<br>Practical? Only when its sunny and only when its not olive picking season.<br>So what season is it now? Olive picking and its raining.<br><br>Welcome to our own little corner of Glastonbury<br>

Since it was raining in Sorrento I decided to skip the Amalfi coast and Capri. With my extra time I wanted to hit the pizza place Di Matteo that was supposedly better than Da Michele. You know me, I'm an equal opportunity pizza eater. I have no loyalties except to whomever serves up the best pie.<br><br>The reason why I hadn't tried Di Matteo previously was because I thought it was only take-away. I walked all around the perimeter of the restaurant before and couldn't see any ...

From Rome we headed south to Positano. Once in Sorento we hired a cab to take us the rest away the way, along a very narrow winding road about 150 meters above the sea. For this driver the lines dividing the highway were merely suggestions and blind corners ************cern. The views were spectacular, however the cliff edge road ...

... umbrella and raincoat got soaked through to our underwear! Next day it rained hard too but did not mind a lazy day with no sightseeing. The city of Naples has a few nice areas but is a really dirty city and one day of sightseeing was plenty. Seeing Naples and Mt. Vesuvius from a distance is the best way to see them but south of Naples and the Almafi coast is not to be missed.

... we entered a small grocer and purchased some wine to take back and enjoy in our cabin. We found that a bottle of wine cost 2 to 7 euros, which was a lot cheaper than a bottle of Italian Chianti or French Bordeaux at $35-40 USD in the dining room. Although they were good, they weren't unique! As a practice, we've always enjoyed drinking locally made wines wherever we've traveled. <br><br ...

... the agriculture minister for the Italy and she grows all her own produce, olives, grapes organically. She guided us to her patio where a table for 8 was set. We had the best lunch of our lives. She makes everything from scratch and I have never tasted such amazing mozzarella cheese. Wine, olive oil and lemoncella was flowing. <br><br>We had time to catch up with Paolo and hear of his family and ...

... It was an amazing and incredibly hairy bus trip to get there though along a small road that hugs the cliff in a full sized bus with a sheer drop on one side and crazy Italian drivers on the other. All I can say is that I'm glad I wasn't driving and that we were bigger than the other cars. The mountains jutting out into the azure sea were really breathtaking; you can't really describe them but we were certainly happy we had included this day trip into ...

... brush up on your meditating vocabulary with some Eastern terms I learned from Jack Kerouac: "samadhi" - a meditating session "dhyana" - the euphoric state of mind in which conscious thought ceases, and one experiences his surroudings as if he wasn´t separate from them (example: Johnny experienced dhyana bliss during his Tuesday afternoon samadhi under the willow tree.) Once in Rome, I began traveling like a pro. I rode a late bus from the airport to ...

... finally made our way into Amalfi, we were still laughing hysterically anf floating with on the bubbles. But it soon became obvious that the Italian way of watching games was not exactly what we were used to from home. Undetered, we bought another bottle of wine and had an Eef, Carolyn, and Lacey party in the square. We were the loudest people around, and we didn't care one bit! While the entire country watched the World Cup finals in concentrated silence, we ...

Today was our bludge day where we took care of all the niggly stupid stuff. We washed and we sorted and we threw out. We wrote postcards and emails and caught up with schoolwork. We have decided to go back to Rome on our way to Florence and try one more time to get into the Sistine Chapel. We figured that even if we have to sleep in ...