Amalfi Coast? You've Outdone Yourself This Time

Disclaimer: There is no possible way I can emphasize just how incredibly perfect and beautiful the Amalfi Coast was. But I will do my best.

Seriously, how do you even begin to talk about a place as picturesque as this?

A little panoramic action of Capri, Italy

I guess I'll begin with how we got there. It was an "easy" 8-hour bus ride (normal after Germany & this weekend) down the coast to Sorrento. We passed through Orvieto where my brother Brad spent a semester in college. Hi, Brad. We kept entertained with Ocean's 11 & 12, which are two of my favorites. I discovered that the other Brad [Pitt] has an effortless way of making a bus full of girls get rowdy, including myself.
At around 2 a.m. we finally arrived at our "hostel" which wasn't really a hostel at all. It ended up being a little village of bungalows. I'm sure you're struggling to picture this type of arrangement in your head so I took it upon myself to provide you with one:

Our little guy.

Grapevines hung above the paths while lime & lemon trees lined the sides. Quite the setup, no?
Our little cabin was extremely cute inside, and even came with a little kitchen. I'm sad to say the bungalow pictured above was not our original. Unfortunately, the staff mindlessly overbooked our first room. Yes, we were sharing a bunk with hundreds of ants that were taking naps on my roommates pillows, beds, etc. I embraced them, but everyone else isn't too good with bugs so we were switched to a new place.
Day 1:
We woke up early Friday morning ready to embrace our first day. The sky could not have been more clear, the sun so bright, the water so blue, and the buildings so colorful. We indeed were vacationing inside of a postcard.

We boarded a ferry and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the coastline during our 20 minute ferry to CAPRI!
As soon as we stepped off the boat...

...we obviously took a picture and THEN saw this:

We then made our way to a little deli "with the yellow awning" that was recommended by just about everyone to get an infamous Caprese sandwich. Ingredients include: Baguette, fresh mozzarella, tomato, and pesto- all of which are assembled by very special Italian hands that made it so mouth-watering good.

Subway you could not have said it better, fresh is absolutely the best. 

...and we ate them in about 1 minute, flat. And then wanted more. (Hiii boys!!)
We burned those suckers off with a nice hike up to the top of a mountain for one of the most gorgeous views evaaa.

Oh, and then we snapped our fingers and just like that, spent the remainder of the day sun-bathing, poppin' champagne (cause we were thirsty), cliff jumping, swimming in grottos & cruising on a boat around the island of Capri.  I obviously didn't cliff jump because I'm a baby & unless you want to count to three and scream "JUST JUMP!" for a good 4 hours, there was no way in hell I'd find myself jumping from a 50 foot cliff. What? I was catchin rays! Captains words about our decision to not jump: "Girls, live your life and do whatever you feel is right. You are young, so do whatever makes you feel comfortable. But you girls are smart..." Thanks, buddy ;)
But I won't bore you with pictures because that's an every day occurrence...
...alright just a few:

Took a nice little dip in the Green Grotto

All in all, this day goes down in the books as one of "the best."
That night we all went out to the English Pub, a great bar in downtown Sorrento, where we had our fair share of drinks and had a great time meeting Sorrenton (?) men. Not.
Day 2:
The next day was just as lovely as the first. We filled our stomachs with copious amounts of cappuccinos and croissants in the morning and made our way to the bus station where we caught a bus to POSITANO!

 This town was unreal. We walked the narrow, windy paths filled with cute boutiques that eventually brought us down to our destination: the beach. My entire day consisted of eating a delicious panini, tanning on the beach, sleeping on the beach, reading on the beach... and swimming in the water. The water was so salty that it was pretty much impossible not to effortlessly float. So we did just that.

After a wonderful day in Positano, we reluctantly headed back to Sorrento on the ferry.
That night we were on a mission to find the perfect restaurant to eat our last dinner in the Amalfi Coast. We were all craving some sort of seafood dish, considering the town is right on the water. After many failed attempts at finding a place, we landed upon a little restaurant called La Lanterna that was tucked away on a little side street. As we were looking at the menu, a man and his wife walked by and eagerly said, "Definitely go here, this place is awesome- you won't be disappointed!" Well, that just about did it for us. We were in there and seated in less then one minute. The restaurant was filled with the cutest couples cuddled up to one another, small families with their children asleep in their chairs, and groups of girls having a fun night out. We all ordered some wine, and the most delicious fresh bread & bruschetta was brought out to us. Then came the entrees. I ordered the seafood risotto. Honestly, I'm not even going to go into how good it was. I'll leave you with this picture and a strong recommendation to get your butt on a plane to Sorrento, and into that restaurant to try it yourself. I'll provide the airfare.

To emphasize how fresh this seafood was, I could taste little bits of sand while chewing at times. DELISH.
Our wonderful, & adorable waiter treated us to a yummy raspberry mousse for dessert afterwards. The plate was cleaned up in seconds (because Jess licked it). Are you surprised?

What's a dinner without a little cappuccino?

I could've died a very happy girl after this dinner. But I didn't- so we proceeded to go out. We spent the night at the English Pub before crashing in our log cabin beds.
Day 3:
We continued the apparent theme of the mornings here:

and continued on to the train station, to spend the rest of the morning in Pompeii!
Eleven euros and an oversized map later... Jess and I were on our way to explore Pompeii. We didn't have enough time to take a guided tour around the city, so we decided to do it ourselves. The amount of history this city holds is overwhelming and was enough to keep you engaged throughout the streets of ruins.

 Mark Twain couldn't have described Pompeii better when he said, "“Pompeii is no longer a buried city. It is a city of hundreds and hundreds of roofless houses, and a tangled maze of streets where one could easily get lost, without a guide, and have to sleep in some ghostly palace that had known no living tenant since that awful November night of the eighteen centuries ago.”

Crystalized person 

We spent a good portion of the day here touring & taking our fair share of pictures. I came home only to find out that our other roommate, who spent the weekend at Oktoberfest, is currently taking a class on the History of Pompeii and generously provided me with books about the city so I can apply my pictures to actual historical context. Yay!

We arrived back in Sorrento around 3, got some lunch (i.e. pizza) and departed from Amalfi soon after. :(
I will forever be in love with this place, and am positive I will return back one of these days. I wanted to visit Naples and Sicily (right around the corner) but there is only so much you can do in a three day weekend. Maybe next time? With a boy? eh, eh?