Amalfi. The town that brought the stay all together

It's only fair that Amalfi gets it's own posting dedicated to itself. After all it was the town that had hosted me for 4 nights on the Intrepid Tour. It may not get the accolades of Positano in fame. But to me it was the best place to base the majority of the Amalfi Coast stay in. Positano although beautiful, and a closer connection to Capri, was very hilly, and well seemingly even more over priced, and less connected. Perhaps too the glamour of being the most well known destination, the focus of the Americans we overhead on the local bus had jilted me.

I may not have been out overnight in Positano however the impression was it was a place you walk down the main street only once or twice and otherwise stayed in your accommodation as it's quite a hike back up the hill for most guests. This was not the case in Amalfi. Most of the accommodation was towards the town centre right down in the town square. There was quite a connection to the town square with many cafes, restaurants, and the all important gelato providers. Although we found a lack of a nightclub for continuing on, there was plenty of buzz earlier in the evenings of restaurant dinners, and Aperol Spritz connoisseurs.

Duomo di Amalfi

Each day of our stay had started with waking up and venturing onto our breakfast balcony area for the view of the Duomo di Amalfi. We were looking straight across to it. We could not have been more central. Perhaps that's why the hotel was the Hotel Centrale. By the evenings it was a place for people watching from above, and across for the multitude of groups who would take refuge on the giant staircase. These large stone staircases are such a common sight in Italy's historical regions.

From the hotel each day would be an adventure out from Amalfi. Only the nights were based here. Heck we had spent so much time out of Amalfi I felt by the last day were were kind of short changing Amalfi. I hadn't the time to visit the paper mill museum mentioned by our tour guide and the tourism guides. I had only had an hour on the sun beds of the stone beach out the front, and I had only partaken in a selection of gelato. Oh how cruel is life when one doesn't have time to live a life of leisure on a holiday.

Incidentally I did and didn't miss out on one adventure during the stay in Amalfi. On the Friday night some of the other tour guests had arranged to go up to Ravello at night having heard about a Summer nights music festival in the region. So most of the group followed taking a bus to watch a classical music concert. They were all quite chuffed at the experience and can say they had a great time for it. But I chose not to, and well wasn't displeased with the decision. I needed the down time to do my own thing. I ended up venturing out for a pizza, walking up and down the alleys of Amalfi finding shops, restaurants, and dead-ends of staircases in search of photographs for my memories.

 
Our evenings on tour were our own. And although it might have been tempting sometimes to keep walking around until too late to order it was much nicer to dine with fellow tour guests. This for me ended up in one of my best decisions for something I would not have otherwise done. One evening we ventured to Da Gemma, the only Michelin starred restaurant in Amalfi for a fine dining experience. Well worth it. The meal wasn't as expensive as I could have gone. Perhaps that was because I don't do seafood in pasta. I would have went the steak but for it being not Italian enough for my thinking. I did though play up for the camera getting a Mr Bean moment of disgust at seeing the menu prices.

 

Perhaps one of the more memorable and more fitting experiences was basically our final experience as a tour group. After the final dinner we ventured off as a group to one of the traditional cafes to try their dessert display. And well we couldn't just be simple. We had a goal. A goal to pretty much try every single dessert in their cabinet display. So with great complication we set up three tables inside the cafe as we were too many to secure an outside table. Then some of the ladies just ventured off to order the dessert for the group. And we then just shared and tried as we liked. I was fairly restrained. It was but just a taste. Not a time for hoovering.

It was interesting doing this last dessert experience because contrary to the photo it wasn't all smooth sailing. A bunch of English speakers taking over in small Italian cafe was kind of awkward. But we had fun.