headed down south...

...to the land of the lemons.

Our weekend at the Amalfi Coast was a merry-go-round of citrus, greyhound buses and volcanic rock.

Saturday we rode the ferry from our hotel in Sorrento to Capri. Perhaps I am desensitized to rare, volcanic-bore islands - rough life, eh? - but Santorini was the definition of my beautiful. So Capri was a slightly downgraded version of paradise. Nevertheless, it was paradise.

We took a boat tour around the island and fell into the 12 euro trap of seeing the Blue Grotto. In essence, this 15 foot wide/deep/tall sea cave thing is situation just so that the light makes the water a glowing pigment. But we were unimpressed the minute they charged us 5 extra euro for swimming. 

We had 3 hours of free time. Now why do they call it "free" time if they don't expect you to do something mildly wild and slightly crazy? So living up to that expectation, we found a 5-star hotel with an infinity pool that looked over the island's panorama and pretended to be guests of the establishment. We swam and sunbathed. 

Then it was off to Positano for the rest of the day. We hiked up to an overlook also known as someone's roof with open access. And the Lord gave me the perfect opportunity to have a conversation about Him with a friend. 

Then we shared an overpriced, undersized plate of calamari and a strawberry "smoothie" which tasted like milk with seeds. Another tick mark in the column of tourist traps.

All was redeemed when we sought out an empty beach, swam with an octopus, smoked a cigar and searched for heart-shaped rocks.

That night we ate Paola's homemade apple bread that she sent along in our travel parcel and watched the awesomest, historical-fiction movie of all time: "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

Maybe it was because I had forgotten my socks, or maybe it was because we were trying to be as frugal as possible and didn't pay for the guided tour, but Pompeii was difficult. We could not make sense of our emotions towards it. "And that's all I have to say about that."

Then we headed to Pompeii's destroyer: Mt. Vesuvius. As one of our Canadian tour companions described it, "it's like a horribly misunderstood ball of death." Why yes, it is a volcano.