Amazing Amalfi

Bon giorno!  A few notable things have happened since my last post (shamefully it was a while ago).  One of my best buddies got married at the church of my graduate alma-mater at Stanford which was emotional for a few reasons.  I drove up PCH in the days prior from San Diego which is, without question, a drive everyone should make at least once in their lifetime (preferably while sitting in shotgun to admire the views).  I caught up with a few cousins, aunts and uncles on that drive and also in my annual pilgrimage to Saratoga at the wonderful race track there.

But this blog is not about any of those exploits.  It's about putting "International" in International Man of Leisure.  The first stop of the 4 city trip was in Amalfi, Italy for the wedding of my cousin Emily.  The above picture is from our cliff side villa which took 55 steps every time to get up to the main road.  It was definitely good for the legs and butt, but I don't think my mom or her sisters appreciated it.

The view from the wedding ceremony.

The wedding was a beautiful yet simple one.  Less than 100 people attended and it was nice to catch up with relatives I see once every 2 or 3 years.  We stayed in Amalfi for 6 days following the wedding which gave us the chance to explore the coast and all the interesting nearby spots.  

The first one I checked out with my mom was the city of Pompeii.  This city, and basically all others around it are near Mount Vesuvius which towers over everything.  

My massive head is in the way of the mountain and I'm not sure what's going on with my hair there but you get an idea of just how large Vesuvius is.  The crazy thing is that now it is half the size before it erupted and scattered ash all over the surrounding towns including poor Pompeii.  As the story goes, the eruption happened around 79 AD and buried the entire city in 4-6 meters of ash.  The city wasn't rediscovered till around 1600 AD.  

I found this artist's depiction of the eruption.  Imagine seeing that outside your bedroom window.  Crazy stuff!

This is what it looks like today.  The city was interesting like any other older city that has been somewhat undisturbed over the last 2000 years.  One of the things Pompeii in particular, is famous for, is that when the ash covered the city over the course of 3 days, it suffocated people obviously due to the toxins present in the debris.  Most people collapsed and died from it and the ash covered them up and over time cooled and hardened around the bodies.  The bodies then decomposed to just bones after a while however the hardened ash left a "shell" in the position of the deceased.  The first people to discover the city didn't realize this and were looking for buried treasure and thus destroyed these pockets.  In 1860, a clever engineer by the name of Fiorelli took charge of the excavations.  He realized what these voids were and smartly injected plaster into them to form large molds of the last moments of life the people that died.

Pretty fascinating and a little bit creepy!  They had many plaster people like this one and some animals too.  There were a lot of people huddled around this guy to see him and the somewhat well preserved artwork on the neighboring wall.

The other popular place in the city was, not surprisingly, the brothel.  I won't go into it too much, but Pompeii had a fascination with penises.  To guide visitors to Pompeii to the brothel, they wouldn't use signs but rather penises pointed down the streets to guide you there.  You'd see them etched in the road or sides of buildings all over town.  The brothel itself was packed with tourists (some things don't change in 2 millennia) and it looked surprisingly small and uncomfortable.

 

These are 3 of the 5 pictures above the rooms depicting various sex positions.   The patrons would point to whatever they desired (like Denny's) and be escorted to a room.  Talk about having it your way.   

The rest of the trip was filled with quality family time, excellent food and nervous driving.  The main road along the coast is really not made for 2 cars to pass each other in many spots much less large tour buses that come by occasionally.  It was difficult, but I like a good challenge and thankfully I didn't run me or my relatives off the side of a cliff.

As you can see views from the water are breathtaking.  Like Venice, I'm not sure how or why they decided to force cities in places nature doesn't particularly want one, but I'm glad they did. 

 

My sister and I about to crash into a water cave. 

All in all, Amalfi was awesome and the food was exquisite!  We were lucky to be able to spend such a long time there and see Positano, Ravello and Sorrento nearby.  We also had one of the best meals I've ever had in town at a restaurant called La Caravella which I cannot recommend enough to anyone traveling there.  

Arrivederci Amalfi....