The best way to explore the Amalfi Coast: in a boat

While staying on the coast of Italy, we were introduced to the best way to explore the Amalfi Coast: in a boat. Here’s the post I promised from the original Amalfi post this morning. Can you tell Claire was pretty delighted about that prospect as we headed out?

Ha! Love that exuberant girl. But we all felt the same, we were full of delight to head out on that boat for our day of exploration.

We took off from our little Sorrento, sailed out to the island of Capri, then continued on to the town of Positano, and then returned back “home.”

It was quite a day.

The Island of Capri

Capri was our first stop. I loved getting closer and closer to that place in awe of how they build cities on mountains. Check out that road on the cliff in the middle of the picture below, supported with those huge columns:

Amazing right?

We were dropped off right on the port in that hot August sun, full of excitement to explore.

We didn’t really know what to expect, had heard some mixed reviews about this island. And we had some trouble finding our driver (they have all these “convertible” vans and stretch cars to take you all over the place):

But once we found him we went bonkers over that place. We wound up those tiny roads right to the main part of the town, and were enchanted.

It was take-your-breath-away gorgeous.

And also so, so crowded.

More lemons, of course.

We wound through the main square and down the windy streets…

…to Giardini di Augusto (or Gardens of Augustus for us English speakers).

Gardens Of Augustus

These terrace gardens were built back in the early 1900’s and overlook the famous Faraglioni Rocks in the distance.

Rocks that we would get right up close and personal with later on in the day, so remember those puppies.

In an interest of time we didn’t go all the way to the top of the gardens. Instead, we took Via Krupp almost down to the sea, in awe of all that beauty stretched out on that blue horizon with those rocks jutting up in the middle at every turn of that hairpin path.

Oh it was so beautiful!

We had to, of course, have a little refreshment at the lemon stand when we were done with the views…

Then we raced back to meet up with our driver and took off again back at the dock.

With a little bit of refreshment:

Anyone who hasn’t tried those things should please go give them a try. They are scrumptious.

Ready for the next leg of the adventure…

Faraglioni Rocks

We relished our boat ride to the town of Positano, those rolling waves, pure delight in the girls’ eyes as we passed right through that iconic arch. Here we are approaching:

And after we got through on the other side:

We got to stop to take a swims in that brilliant blue water in a few different spots en route to Positano.

At one stop we swam into this little protected cove and jumped off some ancient stairway.

I had the girls just stop and take it all in…how it felt, tasted, looked, and sounded, our excitement and gratitude bouncing off each other.

Some may wonder if we made a stop at the famous Blue Grotto.

We didn’t.

We did stop by and see a three-hour wait and opted out of that one! Check out all these boats waiting to get in:

And that picture doesn’t even do it all justice.

Instead of the Blue Grotto, our excellent boat captain took us in and out of all kinds of tiny craggy caves along the coast.

This one had a heart-shape in it:

Let’s get a better look at that:

Positano on the amalfi coast

Here’s how it looked to approach the famous Amalfi coast town called Positano.

At closer examination, this is how the beach looked:

Yikes!

We hiked up all kinds of stairs to get the view from the top:

It was pretty beautiful up there.

Look at these little wooden stairs built right along the rock wall to get into someone’s garden:

After we took in the view, we took these tiny stairs:

…back down to join in with the “tourist soup” along that pebbly little beach:

We had to pull ourselves out of that place to get back to our boat.

Felt so full of gratitude for that gorgeous day pulling back into our own little port late that afternoon and headed up the steps to dinner in our favorite little Sorrento city again.