Snippets of one crazy weekend in South Italy

 After three weekends in Viterbo (which is admittedly one of the nicest places to spend your weekends), I was getting itchy feet and decided that the upcoming weekend would be the perfect time to see a little bit more of Italy.

Now there's a couple of things wrong with this supposedly "genius idea for a weekend" I had in my head...

1) I suck at planning or organizing ANYTHING. I'm a very go-with-the-flow, spontaneous kinda person so the idea of actually having a solid plan kind of terrifies me. Honestly, I have no idea how I even got to Italy most days.
2) It was a full-on study week, so I had little time to actually plan anyway.
3) I somehow was struck down with the nastiest eye infection/hayfever combo I've ever experienced in my lifetime.

Because of this lethal combination, I ended up booking the tickets the day before we left, going to a place just on a whim which I'd only ever heard about twice. I'm not lying when I say I knew literally nothing about what I was getting into. Luckily though, I had three great friends with me who are quite adventurous and very trusting, which was really what I needed for this trip. Thanks guys!

So, we ended up in Salerno.

Viewz

For me, the absolute best thing about Salerno was the fact that I finally saw some Italian surfers.

My people

We stood and watched them for a good quarter of an hour, and it was too good. The swell was gentle and rolling, but looked like a lot of fun. I swear I'm somewhat addicted to surfing cos I honestly had the biggest cravings to go surfing after that, it almost hurt to be on dry land and not on a board out on the sea. Unfortunately, Salerno didn't have such a thing as a surf rental shop though so in the end I had to walk away from the ocean, half severely disappointed and half super-stoked to find out you can surf in Italy at all.

Amalfi: Up close and from far

We reached Amalfi after a very loooooong bus ride surrounded by unruly youths who I pretty close to knocking out at some points. The town was lovely, but we spent a long time wandering around trying to find a place for lunch (getting our priorities sorted as usual). After a great feed of pizza and limoncella (the local beverage which is flipping delicious) we finally got to soak up the atmosphere and art of the place.

The Duomo in Amalfi and some of its "art"

 The Duomo (church) in Amalfi was incredibly stunning, both inside and out.

The figure of Christ inside the Duomo was awe-inspiring. I could have stared at it for hours.

We finished our time in Amalfi watching the sun go down from on the wharf and exploring some natural rock formations. 

Pictured: The "natural" rock formations

Some of the best times in my life have been sitting with a few friends watching the sea. Amalfi was no exception: sitting watching the waves lap at the edge of the wharf and passing round a bottle of wine with these people I only met four weeks ago was the perfect way to see the day out.

The following day we caught the afternoon ferry to Positano for more good times.

Aforementioned good times

Going along with the general Italian trend of good-looking views and people, the ride in was spectacular. Once there, Positano completely blew my mind despite the short amount of time I got to spend there. Naturally, I chucked my togs on and hit the beach to do some swimming at 5pm. I love that you can do that here. Even in full summer back home in New Zealand, I sincerely doubt I've been out in the ocean past 4 without a wetsuit on. 

The ride in.

One ferry ride back into Salerno, dinner was on the menu. And afterwards, I had the extreme pleasure of sampling a local delicacy from a gelato place called "brioche".

The picture doesn't do it justice.

\If I was to simply translate brioche into "icecream sandwich" I would probably be speaking the truth but at the same time I'd be doing a grave injustice to the beauty of this food. Although initially concerned, on my first bite my taste buds were all like "Oh hello there!", and then by about the third bite in I swear I could hear angels singing. Brioche isn't just food, it's heaven. It's just as well they only serve this in Salerno, Italy because I'm pretty sure it would be illegal anywhere else. It would cause torment and pain, obesity rates would skyrocket in the US/NZ, and even I would get fat. But man. Just the thought of that brioche and my mouth is already salivating. Thanks Italy for doing your food right, once again.

I'm going to continue the food train of thought here because gosh darn it I'm hungry. As a friend so quipped to me, I might as well re-name my adventures "Eat-ily" because that's pretty much all I do here. Well, Jono, you're not wrong. Eating in Italy though is a little different from just filling your stomach, its an experience which in itself brings me great joy. Dishes are cooked to perfection and every region has its local specialities which are completely worth sampling. Food itself here is like another whole adventure, and for once I enjoy eating not for the sake of getting full but for the explosion of flavor you get with the meal. Maybe I'm turning into a food snob, or maybe I just appreciate it more because I take twice as long to eat pasta because I can't master the perfect fork twirl. I just don't know.

Anyway, we ate spectacularly well in South Italy. They have the best little bakeries in the world which serve up incredible pastries and decent coffee, the local drink of limoncella, and in Naples, which we went to on Sunday I had the best pizza of my entire life. Eat your heart out Domino's. Oh and did I mention Brioche?

Before Napoli, we stopped off in a place called Pompei. You might have heard of it.

Seen in Pompei

The historical centre of Pompei was just immense. It was easily the biggest set of ruins I'd ever wandered around before, and that was with half of it being shut off on Sunday. Such an incredible place, it was really easy to imagine it as a bustling city before the volcanic disaster wiped it out. The modern town of Pompei was great as well. Wrapping my face around a giant panino (sandwich) which was almost bigger than my mouth, I made my way to the center of town with Jamie to enjoy some sunrays and hang by a fountain. Such an Italian way to spend the afternoon. Eat your heart out Subway cos that was the best damn sandwich I've had in my life.

Vendetta's against fast-food restaurants from back home aside, our journey continued to Napoli and then after the aforementioned pizza (which is worth mentioning again because it was so great), made our way back to Viterbo. Despite it being an unplanned and disorganised little venture, everything had run so smoothly that I started to relax. We caught the last train to a town in the middle of nowhere called Bracciano, and everything was going fine.

Except then it wasn't.

In a typical "We're to tired to think" and "Everything will work out perfectly" tourist mode, none of us thought to ask if the bus stop we were hanging out by was the right one to catch the bus back to Viterbo. Guess what? It wasn't.

The result of our poor life choices

So what do you know, we spent the night in a train station. Things started off fine with a good few rounds of cards and some wine (to help us sleep of course) but took a turn for the worse when we moved inside to get out of the rain. Some very shady looking characters also decided that the train station was a great sleeping spot (it wasn't) and came and joined us. I was naturally to sketched out to sleep, so spent an uncomfortable couple of hours staying awake keeping watch while my friends all somehow managed to grab a few hours of sleep. To this day I have no idea how, as the train station floor was more uncomfortable than a bed of nails and the inside was hotter than a sauna with all four of us plus the three shady extras spread out inside. What a night. Finally caught a train back the next day at 6.30 in the morning and somehow still made it to Italian class on time.

After somehow surviving that, I really think any travelling from now on is going to be ok. Just hoping I don't have to sleep in any more train stations.