Two Thursdays ago, my roommates and I took a trip to the Amalfi Coast! We drove through the night on Thursday on a charter bus, with a program called Bus2Alps... it was awesome!! We arrived in our hostel in Sorrento around 3am and had to be up at 7... yikes. We took a boat over to Capri... a beautiful and stunning island in the middle of the Mediterranean. Can you believe I'm actually going places like this?? It's still crazy to me! We took a boat tour around the entire island. Our tour leaders pointed out celebrity's homes and an old Mussolini castle. It was crazy and these homes were beautiful. We then went to see the Blue Grotto... one of the seven natural wonders of the world and one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. Four of us get into this little tiny boat that sits really low in the water. Our Italian boat rower takes us to this little hole in the cliff. He tells us to lay down in the boat... crazy, right? So we go through this tiny little hole and it feels like we were transferred to an entirely different world. In this little cavern, or grotto, the water is electric blue. Literally the most brilliant blue color I have seen in real life. It was fascinating and beautiful and unbelievable. We only stayed in there for about 5 minutes... but we could have stayed much longer just staring at this amazing water. Our guide told us there used to be a tunnel and that is how they believe it was discovered. Now the tunnel has been filled by falling rocks. The Blue Grotto is definitely something everyone should see.. it was breathtaking and I couldn't believe there were places on this Earth that amazing and beautiful. Its not everyday in Ohio and Indiana you see things like that...
Next we continued on the boat tour and saw a few more grottos and cliffs. There was one cave with a natural rock formation that looks like a statue of the Virgin Mary... this was wild. Look at the picture at the top and she is in the center. Crazy and very cool. We then had lunch and spent the rest of the day in Capri. It was a great start to our amazing weekend!!
Anchor door in Sorrento :)
On the boat in Positano to play in the brilliant blue water!
"The Three Sisters" Restaurant in Positano!!
Positano
Me jumping off the cliffs!
On Sunday we packed our things from the hostel and drove the hour to Pompeii. I have been so excited to see the ruins here. Ever since I was young I was very interested in the story of Pompeii... probably because I read one of the Magic Tree House books about it and loved it!! Actually, I got to read a little of the book with Ezzie before I left :) Pompeii was amazing right from the start... Everything is so well preserved because the city was just covered in ash and then basically put underground for centuries until it was found in the 1700s. Can you believe that? Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and it wasn't found until 1700 years later... holy crap. The volcano erupted for almost 24 hours, so you can imagine how much soot and ash (no lava, actually) covered the town. Even today not all of the city has been found.. I think our tour guide said there is still a third of the city underground. Archeologists are digging day by day I am sure. Who knows what they will continue to find. Amazing, isn't it? I am so so glad I was able to see this incredible piece of history.
Mt. Vesuvius
Old Forum in Pompeii
Bodies were preserved for that long because of the ash... the real skeleton is in there.
Il Vecchio Teatro (Old Theater!)
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