Italy Day 3, 4, & 5

Welcome back! Hope you enjoyed the quick tour of Rome yesterday. We have a tiny bit more of Rome left, then on to the Amalfi Coast! Breathtaking I tell ya!

Day 3 - Rome - travel to Amalfi Coast -- Sorento.

The next morning, we headed back over to the Pantheon. We wanted to see it in the daytime, and we wanted to go inside. It was really pretty cool. We only stayed for about 15 minutes because we only had an hour total to do all the last minute things we wanted to do in Rome before we had to check out of the hotel.

This is my handsome hubby in the piazza outside the Pantheon. He's listening to his free Rick Steve's audio tour on the Pantheon. I could never catch him candidly!

Our friends Rick and Amanda told us about this gelato place... and our guide book said it had the best gelato in Italy. But we went at 10 in the morning, and it was closed. This is our sad face!! We asked a local where it was so we could take a picture by it, and they looked at us like we were insane for asking where a gelato shop was at 10 in the morning! :) We weren't going to eat it then... well, maybe we would have if it had been open! :)

We then went back over to the Trevi Fountain (right by our bed and breakfast) to catch a glimpse during the daytime.

We also, of course, had to do the obligatory throwing in of the coin. It's a fountain after all. They must clean this fountain a lot, because there weren't very many coins in there, and the place was ALWAYS packed out!!

After this, we headed by cab to the train station, by train to Naples, by tram to the port in Naples, then by boat to Sorrento! That's a whole lot of modes of transportation in one day! But this is what we arrived to in Sorrento. Absolutely stunning! The city of Sorrento is up on top of the cliffs.

None of our hotels the entire trip had less than four flights of stairs. Lots of good workout time on this trip. Usually, we had to carry our suitcases up too, but this time... they had a little cargo carrier!!! It was awesome. It was mechanical and brought them right up! Amazing!

This was the view of the main street from our terrace at our hotel. Really beautiful city. Of course it was a bit loud at night, but that's okay.

We explored the city a bit before heading out for some dinner. I had the wild mushroom risotto, and Archie had a cheese and tomato gnocchi.

We walked around the city and explored the market, enjoying the views and stepping into a bunch of churches.

Day 4 - Sorrento

Day 4 was a day of exploration! I got up early and went for a run in the city. It's a pretty small city, so there wasn't much chance of getting lost. It's such a good way to really see a city. I ran in Sorrento, Florence and Venice, and loved it! We stopped by a local market to grab a picnic (one of our staple lunches throughout the trip) of fresh bread, salami, and cheese. Add a few marinated olives and sundried tomatoes, and we were happy campers. We took the lunch along with us for the day.

While at the market, we saw some of the freshest produce we'd ever seen. This area, Sorrento, is known for it's lemons as well. They grow several varieties, and are even known to mix a hybrid of lemons and oranges together. Look how gigantic that lemon on the left is!!! We also got yelled at for touching the lemons. It's a no-no to touch the fruit here apparently! Whoops.

This was their speed limit sign! Ha Thought it was pretty funny.

We then walked through a lemon grove - right in the middle of the city. It was beautiful, and several of the trees were ready for harvesting. Don't forget to act like an Italian model when you're in the lemon grove.

We did a tasting of the Lemoncello they make on sight at the lemon grove. It was pretty tasty. We had to go ahead and get some.

We took a walk down towards the water and found a little park bench to have our picnic on. This just so happened to be our view. Ah-ma-zing! It was one of the best picnics we had on the trip. (the other was in Vernazza - wait, just wait for that one!)

While we were sitting there eating, we happened to notice this little run down building overlooking the water. It was so cute, quaint, and the perfect bed and breakfast potential!!! It even had this awesome back patio overlooking the sea that would be great for meals and evening fire pit options! We appropriately dreamed of owning said bed and breakfast, escaping life as we know it, and naming it "Vivianna & Rebibi's". HA. Here's to wishful thinking. But it's perfect!

We then took a walk up to the very top of the hill so we could overlook Sorrento. It really is such a gorgeous town. I love all of the colorful boats and their little "laying out" space. :)

We went to dinner this night at this amazing restaurant called the Inn Buffalita. It had awesome salads, pasta, everything, but they specialized in Buffalo Mozzarella, and buffalo meat. It was so good, that I forgot to take pictures. SORRY! But don't worry, the plot thickens soon! :)

We had dessert at this awesome little shop - awesome gelato! I had caramalized fig gelato, Jen had baba - a cake soaked in rum, and look at these Meringue's. They are SOO huge!

We then headed back to the hotel and played some cards on our balcony. Enjoyed the evening, and the very loud music coming from the gelato slash discotec under our room! :)

Day 5 - Day trip to Positano & evening in Sorrento

We woke up and took a bus over to Positano... we definitely risked our life by doing this, (this picture really doesn't give it credit how crazy it was), but we made it! Whew.

When we got there, we realized that it was totally worth risking our lives, and missing our stop for these amazing views! Positano, situated on the Amalfi Coast is stunningly gorgeous.

We, of course, stopped for a picnic at a deli, and got some baked goods at a bakery and took them down to the beach.

We rented these chairs and umbrella's and spent a few hours just basking in the sun on the Mediterranean.

The beach was really beautiful.

It was a pretty surreal moment to be sitting in the sun on the Mediterranean!

And of course, what trip to the Mediterranean would be complete without doing a little searching for some sea glass.

We then drove back to Sorrento on the treacherous bus, with amazing views again of the Amalfi Coast.

After a quick rest back at the hotel, we had our afternoon snack on the terrace.

On our walk to dinner, we found this graffiti on a wall. Ti Amo means "My Love" in Italian - just thought it was pretty cute!

For dinner, we headed back to Inn Buffalito - it was SOOO good the night before that we had to go back. We ended up having the same waitress - who was hilarious, and she teased us, made jokes with us, and treated us like royalty. She even brought us this champagne on the house to toast us coming back a second night. :)

We started the meal with a Capri salad - buffalo mozzarella, the ripest tomatoes you've ever seen, and arugula drizzled with balsamic.

We also had a caponato salad with bread, mozzarella, olives and tomatoes. It was also delicious. Even if it doesn't really look like it in this picture.

Then we moved on to an antipasto plate (which I'm sorry, I know it doesn't look appetizing in this picture - the light was bad), which had sundried tomatoes, a giant pile of buffalo mozzarella, salami, french green beans, and buffalo meat. Again, so so good.

Then we all split family style the lasagna, ragu with buffalo meat, and gnocchi with tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella. This restaurant was one of the best we went to. It was a real treat.

Stay tuned for Day 6... Pompeii and onto Florence!