It’s becoming quite a trend. For two years running now, we’ve spent Memorial Day Weekend traveling around Italy with friends. As true Americans, we know that the holiday is about much more than kicking off summer with a long weekend (no Chris does not get vacation for Memorial Day). That said, many of our friends back stateside see the long weekend as an opportunity to come visit, and we are always delighted to indulge in a chance to catch up and explore with pals.
For this Italian Memorial Day Extravaganza, we met up with our friends, Bill and Sasha. A year ahead of us at Wake, Bill was Chris’s roommate junior year, and Sasha is his better half whom we have come to know and love. Here are the highlights from our fabulous four days with them.
Positano: Without a doubt, Positano is a beautiful town. Situated in a little valley tucked between the cliffs and the sea, it’s hard to find a more picturesque place. On the flip side, it’s also hard to find a place in Italy with more Americans. Don’t get us wrong – we love Americans. We consider ourselves some of the best Americans. But when traveling around Europe, it’s not exactly the cultural experience we seek. Perhaps the long American holiday weekend had some influence, or perhaps Positano has simply been over-run with tourists. Either way, we definitely made the most of our time here (but doubt we will return).
Our favorite parts included a private boat tour of the coastline (complete with a few opportunities to swim), tasty dinners (what’s not to love about pasta and wine), and a couple of incredible sunsets (see prom pictures below).
Capri: Capri is a tiny island about an hour ferry ride from Positano. Let us be clear – there are also a ton of tourists in Capri; however, most people do Capri as a day trip. Consequently, we found that as long as you avoided the main drag of the town during peak “tour bus” hours, it was a lovely, little island. On our first day, we took a chair lift to the highest part of the island for some magnificent views. It was seriously like watching something from Jurassic Park. We say it often, but it continues to be true: pictures don’t do it justice.
Day two was packed with activities. Per our hotel’s recommendation, we went for a light hike in the morning. In all reality, our hotel told us that by Italian standards it was “a good hike that should take about 2 hours.” By Swiss standards, it turned out to be a nice walk which took us less than an hour… silly Italians. Nonetheless, it was a scenic walk which led us to a beautiful natural arch and some fabulous coastline vistas… Bill and Chris could not resist revisiting their 1510 photo shoot days – “Yes. Yes. More. NO! NO! NO!”
We’re nowhere close to buying a boat, but still, we consider ourselves boat people now. As such, we rented a boat and skipper to drive us around the island for a few hours that afternoon. Our first stop was at the famous Blue Grotto. Though it’s full of tourists, the stop was definitely worth the line and entrance fee. Our grotto guide told us about the history of the cave (once the private swimming pool for Emporer Tiberius) and explained the natural phenomenon that creates the blue color (sunlight seeps in from under the shelf of rock at water level). It was quite surreal in the grotto, and we could not resist – out of the boat we dove and enjoyed a lovely, but apparently frowned upon swim in the famous Blue Grotto… some palms were greased and all was forgiven. Hooray supporting the Italian tourism industry! Later on our boat ride, we visited the Green Grotto (where we got to swim for free), the White Grotto (where we jumped in just to say we had), and the Red Grotto (honestly an otherwise unimpressive cave except for the excess of red coral). The perfect weather, perfect scenery, and perfect pals made for one heck of a finale.
SASgoesSwiss 