ITALY! Days 4-5: Positano & The Amalfi Coast

So I'm sick, because this is what my body does when faced with the reality of post-vacation life, but I seem to be on the mend and in between naps and work emails, thought I'd try to get another post out about the trip, because stop #2 was a favorite of all of ours and the boat day was the favorite day for 4/5 of us.

Day 4, continued:

When I left off we were in a van driving past Positano and on to Nocelle. Nocelle is a tiny town high up in the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast. The hour of one lane, no clearance, hair-pin turns, around sheer cliffs straight to the ocean was a Lag Liv family dream that only made 40% of us carsick.

We were dropped off with our bags in the little parking lot that serves all of Nocelle; you have to walk from there to get anywhere in town.

The manager of our rental house met us to lead us down (and up!) 100+ stairs and multiple long walkways,

carrying our luggage and the few groceries we'd stopped to grab in Positano,

to our home for the next 3 days. Once again, the kids were dismayed to find out a luggage porter had been add-on option I unchecked.

But the breathtaking Villa Savina was worth every step.

Our biggest, fanciest accomodation, it had 3-bedrooms, 4-bathrooms, air conditioning that WORKED, and 2-levels of decks overlooking the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. After being in the heart of Florence, and knowing we were going to the center of Rome, it was lovely to be somewhere both bigger and much quieter right in the middle.

While Nocelle is small, there were a couple restaurants, a very tiny market, and multiple lemonade granita stands we could walk to from our house. For the first night we walked along the cliffs to a little restaurant our property manager recommended. And spoiler alert, it was so good we went there the next night too.

I ate some of the best pasta I've ever had with this ridiculous view from my chair. The perfect welcome to our stint on the coast.

We went to bed in our beautiful temporary home feeling almost cold for the first time since the trip began. It was *amazing* and I slept like a chilly little rock until morning.

Day 5

We woke up to the Mediterranean Sea out our windows and found our way back to the Nocelle parking lot to meet a driver who would wind us down the crazy road to Positano.

Positano was charming and BUSTLING!

We bought all the breakfast pastries, two meatball subs, and an iced chai at 9 am to eat on our way to the beach and boat. It was my first tea since we left the US (Italians really like their coffee and I was so hot, I didn't try very hot to find hot tea anywhere). It was delicious.

My friend Kaleigh had encouraged us to book this trip and I am SO glad we did. It was all of our favorite day and such a wonderful respite from all the walking and historical exploring in Florence.

The Positano dock is so busy with boats you have to wave your arms and then jump on your boat when it pulls up. I thought our boat would be a little speedboat, but we were all delighted to find it was an absolutely lovely yacht with plenty of sun coverage, a cabin with bed, kitchen and bathroom, and a wonderful captain. We told him we like to swim and climb and jump, and off we went!

Seeing the coastal towns from the water was amazing- our captain told us about each one, and pointed out the towers, all the historical buildings, the best hotels, and more.

We stopped at secret beaches, green grottos, caves, and bigger caves with secret beaches inside them.

(Boating inside another grotto!)

We swam and jumped off cliffs (me too!) into cerulean water so clear I could see rocks that I couldn’t touch no matter how deep I swam.

Prepare yourself for the grace in motion you're about to see:

The kids jumped and climbed forever. Landon is jumping in the picture below, he moved on to flips after this. Claire jumped off one of the highest cliffs to a smattering of applause from gathering boats. Cora jumped, James jumped, everyone jumped! And pretty soon people started swimming from their own boats to join us.

Our next stop was this double cave with a secret beach inside that connects them.

We swam and swam and swam. The water felt so amazing. Crystal clear and the perfect temperature, it was refreshing when you jumped in and then immediately comfortable. I jumped in with the kids everytime our boat stopped.

James did too, of course, but that's far less unusual.

In my down time, I enjoyed ogling my personal David statue. (That's his model shot for the suit he designed. He enjoyed how much Italy embraced Speedo culture.)

While my "suntanning" looked a little different.

Claire, yelling from the back of the boat, "Mom! You're entering your coccoon era."

We stopped at a tiny water-locked town for lunch and soaked up absolutely spectacular views of the even more spectacular coast. I also experienced my first Limoncello spritz which I liked just as much as the Aperol spritzes I'd been enjoying until then.

It was such a wonderful refreshing, fun, relaxing day. Absolutely perfect to have in the middle of our tour-packed visits to Florence and Rome. Our boat was also stocked with drinks and some snacks. Claire drank 7 lemonades, I enjoyed all the Prosecco (with Limoncello!), and even Landon went crazy with a sparkling lemonade soda. It was a completely perfect day.

Once we disembarked, we bought lemon candies and tiny limoncello bottles in town, taxi’d and hiked back up to our house on top of the tallest cliff, and then walked to dinner at the place we loved so much the night before.

The kids declared the the boat trip their favorite day of the whole vacation. I responded that we hadn't even been to Rome yet, so they couldn't know that for sure. And Landon replied, “Oh my god mom, in Rome dad is going to have to touch SO MANY OLD THINGS and then make us all think about them."

He wasn't wrong, and that boat day was for sure his favorite, but he did enjoy Rome anyway!