It has been several months now since our excursion to Amalfi from Sorrento, but we remain committed to finishing video highlights of our trip. Some of our productions came fairly easy, but we labored over this one for well over a month. We were long in production for a number of reasons. I spent maybe three days just trying to learn how to do Google Maps flyovers: I wanted to showcase just how dramatic the coastal drive really was. Then, frankly, we have just been exhausted with projects from my day job. Today though is a rainy February Saturday, so it a good time to finish this one up. Looking out the window at the gray skies reminds us of the day of this trip. The usually sunny Amalfi Coast was shrouded in clouds and drizzle, and the view from our bus window was often obscured. The Amalfi Coast tour day did not make for good picture taking, but we learned some good lessons on photographing under adverse conditions.
We figured our young bus driver, Claudio, to be especially skilled at navigating the roads and by-ways of Italy, but the Amalfi Coastal Road is quite another thing. Therefore, our tour company brought in a smaller bus piloted by Ernesto, who specializes in navigating this route. It might be possible for a tourist to drive the Amalfi Coastal Road, but I don’t think it is worth it, because you need intense concentration, and would miss the beautiful scenery.
We did stop along the way at a number of overlooks and attractions, but the technicolor towns were the most interesting places to get pictures. Unfortunately, the town zones had absolutely no places for our bus to stop. In fact, just navigating through the city streets was about impossible. The driver had to stop on more than one occasion and direct a line of oncoming cars to back up so that we might get through with our bus. We did come to a dead stop in the middle of the road a couple times to allow pictures out the bus window, but there was no chance of dismounting from the vehicle.
By the time we got to Amalfi the weather had cleared, giving us mild temperatures with a sky of beautiful puffy clouds. Despite being a tourist destination, Amalfi provided some great shopping values. Marcy bought some Italian produced clothing at a good value, and it was fun to see and photograph the colorful displays.
We talk about the region’s ceramics in the video. But since we do not drink, I haven’t bothered to mention the wines and alcoholic beverages of this region. However, I do need to say that a liqueur called limoncello, which is a made from the zest of Femminello St. Teresa lemons is a big part of tourist commerce here.
