After Sorrento we headed onto the next leg of our tour which was to be a water side tour of the Amalfi Coast. This coast line is supposed to be quite picturesque. I am still concerned about the hazy sky. Our route from Sorrento takes us from the twisting coastal road back up toward Naples to a major highway that is more of a direct route to Salerno, which is where we are supposed to get onto a boat and then travel along the coast to Amalfi where we would get off the boat and have an hour or so to walk through the town then back to the boat and back to Salerno and the bus. Along the highway there were glimpses of towns and the overall landforms that I captured as we drove by.
Above a townscape with housing, businesses, churches, towers and a mountain in the background
I thought this mountain was interesting
One more shot of the town.
The mountains in this area are clearly volcanic rather that upthrusted like the Rockies or the Alps. They have this distinctive cone shape.
As we get closer to Salerno we begin to see more density in the spacing of housing, some of the buildings are getting fancier.
Churches and towers continue to be prominent elements on the town sky lines.
This was an interesting building I have no idea what it was, but it was interesting.
Salerno is a pretty good sized community with an obviously very busy port. Smaller cruise ships come and go, there are obviously cargo ships loading and unloading, and we did see quite a few yachts
By the way this must be a small cruise boat. Below is part of the highway system that we were on. It is elevated and twists around a bit to get from the upper highlands to the marina level.
These housing units are packed into the hill side which was developed with some quite elaborate retaining walls. You can see in the photo below that you can enter the building from grade on one side of the building on the ground floor and the other side on the 5th floor.
There was a variety of ways in which buildings were sited on the steep terrain. Later on when we were on the tour boat we would see some pretty interesting ways in which people have built along this coast line which is why it is so picturesque.
Even amongst all this probably high price and urban/resort environment you can hang your laundry on the balcony.
From the tour boat we could see the interesting high ramp system that we had used to get down from the mountains to sea level. The shot above is looking off to the left and the one below is looking to the right. Note the structure on top of the mountain some kind of castle or fortress ruin see below.
Here are a couple of close up views of interesting structures. Above a hill top ruin and below an interesting bridge.
Not knowing what was actually the Amalfi coast and what to expect I decided to start shooting photographs as soon as we left the dock. These first few are of Salerno sort of close up.
On the tour boat there were two levels. I decided to try to get to a spot on the rail on the top deck. That turned out to be a fairly good place to take photos.
Here we are getting out into deeper waters and away from the harbor. These next few shots are still of Salerno.
Once out a ways from shore I figured that I would have to switch back and forth with long and wide angle lenses. You can see that it is still a bit hazy. I still have hopes of the sun coming out.
Ultimately we would be motoring from Salerno past the sea side towns of Veirtrisul, Mare, Raito, Cetara, Maiori, Minon, and Atrani on our way to Amalfi.
The two vertical lines in the middle of the photo above is an elevator that carries guests from the hotel to the beach. Notice the interesting trees along the ridge in the photo below.
Like I mentioned above I took a lot of pictures of the coast line. What I have in this post is perhaps 10% of the pictures I took. It became clear that the coast line was extremely rocky and steep and people had used some really creative ways to get access to the view of the Mediterranean which made the view from the Mediterranean very interesting as well. It took us a little over an hour to go from Salerno to Amalfi by boat. By car I think it was a couple of hours to make that trips along the connecting road. I had hoped to get that one great shot that really caught the essence of the place. I think I got a few half way decent shots but nothing great. I will only make comment on the photos below if I notice something that is unique. Enjoy.
You can see in photos above that the buildings were up and away from the edge of the cliff, below the buildings are below the cliff and the hill behind is almost completely without vegetation.
The building in the photo above almost looked like a parking garage or a military bunker. Below the village is spread across the hill side.
It was a bit interesting to see how in some areas the buildings were nestled together and in other areas they were spread out.
I thought this building hanging over the cliff was interesting. How would you have like to be the guy building that?
A little farther on we turned a corner and the village began to revel itself.
Since I have done quite a bit of sailboarding it doesn't take much to get my attention when some sailboarder comes by.
These guys zipped back and forth in the wake of the boat for a few minutes and then we moved on out of their range.
The photo below was a point sticking out into the sea that separated one village from the next. It reminded me a little of the coast line north of Sydney where there were beach communities separated by rocky headlands. Here in Italy the beaches were a bit smaller.
Here was a small community that seemed to be able to take advantage of the little strip of beach front. I am surprised by how small this village is compare to the available beach front. Maybe it is just plain to hard to get to this spot.
This structure appeared to be a relic of the past and did seem not to be an active living site.
I thought that this building site was pretty neat, but you can see the switch back steps to the left of the building below that you would really want to go to the water to make that trip.
These were some of the most spectacular shots I think I got. The sun started to come out a little more and the way the cliffs seem to grow out of the water looked pretty monumental.
There were some areas like in these shots where there seemed to be a lot of terracing
In the shot above you can just make out the cave at the water line in behind the boat in the photo below. When we were still aways out I think the boat was actually coming out of the cave. maybe it was a garage and there was a James Bond escape tunnel from the chateau on the hillside above.
Above you can see the switch back road leading down to the building on the cliff. I thought the building in the photo below was interesting. I seemed like it had a lot of money invested in the foundation.
We came around another corner and saw another resort type community
There was a nice beach and looked like it would have been a nice place to live nestled down in this valley.
After going quite a ways without much density in building we came across this cluster of hotels or apartments.
This was our first view of Amalfi. We are heading to the left here and will enter a little harbor where we would be getting off the boat for an hour or two and return. I thought this arched wall close to the water front was interesting. Obviously it was part of the transportation sysem that got people from the rock cliff on the right to the village center on the left. As we moved toward the harbor I shot as many angles as I could to try to get hoping for a great shot.
Ok, this shot is not too bad.
Heading into the harbor at Amalfi.
As we pulled into the harbor some of the local natives came out to great us. Actually they were just going out for a sail. But this illustrates that the weather was nice and warm.
Eventually we docked and headed toward the meeting place and then on into the village of Amalfi.
We walked through a couple of narrow streets and into an open plaza and saw this church up on the hillside. You can see a significant stair case that connected the plaza with the church arched entry.
In under the stairs in the photo below were a few shops that we stopped in later in the afternoon.
Karen and I worked our way to the stop of the stairway.
Once at the top we looked out over the plaza and along the arch entry way.
Details of the columns and around the doors and walls.
The bronze door on this church was similar to other bronze doors we had seen elsewhere.
We went back down the stairs and headed up the street to the right that lead up the central valley of the village.
One of the products that we saw in many of the shops were ceramics plates and bowls. We ended up buying a couple of small bowls
I guess when you build a village in a valley you will need steps to get into and out of the main street.
Another item available in many shops was colorful fabric creations like clothing and bags
We walked to the end of the shops district and since we did not have a lot of time we headed back down toward the dock.
There were little court yards along the way. The Fountain below was in a courtyard with restaurants around the edges. Someone had gotten pretty creative with the little figures, making an interesting scale model of an island and lake.
Another set of steps and more narrow streets.
Colorful displays were designed to get tourists in the door.
But we had to keep moving or we would miss the boat.
We had seen shops in other areas with puppets of Pinocchio. I guess he was from Italy.
More ceramic and clothing shops.
We did make back to the boat and headed out. By this time the sun angle changed the look of the scene. I took a few shots of Amalfi but most of the rest of the trip back I just looked at the coast line and was glad I had taken plenty of photos on the way there, because the photos at this time of day would not have been nearly as nice.
Back at the dock in Salerno this interesting structure under construction looks a little like a sleek boat, but it was to be a fancy restaurant down on the water front.
On the way back to the cruise ship the clouds that had frustrated my picture taking all day provided some rather dramatic views of the mountains.
Finally getting close to the harbor the sun peaked out from behind the clouds and then fell into the sea.
