Leaving Amalfi for Firenze this morning, with Guest blog appearance by Beth!!

We left Amalfi this morning, of course once again, the Italian concept of “I don’t know!!” came up. Beth asked about the bus to Salerno, since we wanted the earliest bus to Salerno. The guy at the counter said the earliest one was at 9am, yet we saw a bus leaving to Salerno at 8am. So in the mean time, just walked around Amalfi one more time and then hopped on the bus. The drive along the Amalfi Coast is definitely a travel wonder of the world. There are surely drives or commutes that are as picturesque in the world as the Amalfi Coast drive but there is none that is better in the world. Comparable would be Gornergrat Express through the Swiss Alps or the Express Train from China to Tibet but nothing to surpass it. Anyway, we eventually got to Salerno upon which we missed the 10.23am train to Napoli, and had to grab the 11.22 to Napoli… within that time, we looked for shoes, Beth thought an ATM swallowed her bank card and I found a semi decent salad!

 

Food note: I don’t know how vegetarians can travel through Italy without going mad by having only to eat Cheese, Bread and Antipasti. The salads you find on the streets or even in restaurants are either really expensive or not fresh. I have not had a great salad in Italy. The pizza, pasta and antipasto have been amazing though…as if I came to Italy for the Salad

 

Waiting in the Station Napoli, we decided to go back to that Sharwarma place that we got the ridiculous Sharwarma in the first place. So of course, we got…

 

(Beth hereJ, while Rishi is snoring away…) By ‘we’, he meant him and Amanda who got the Shawarma with fries in itJ – we even saw pizza in their display box with fries on it! I wonder what the Italians feel about that?:-) Anyha, I got the yummiest and oiliest spaghetti pomodoro – from the same Middle-Eastern restaurant that they got the Shawarma from! I have to say the portion was the biggest we had since we arrived! The guy kept piling it in the takeout box until I said ‘that’s plenty, could you give me some carrots on the side instead?’, he smiled and added some boiled carrots for me. I’m not even crazy about carrots back home but it was a treat to eat vegetables after days of eating bread and meats. The only vegetables I had in the last 7 days was some antipasti grilled eggplant, zucchini and peppers drenched in EVOOJ in Minori where I ventured to on my own after my trip back to Solerno. I also had some Tiramisu gelati there after I promised myself I would give my poor tummy a break from it for atleast 2 days. I think we’ve all been OD’ing on gelati since we arrived. Finding a decent fruit has been a bit of a challenge as well. Other than the banana I picked while we stopped off at a street fruit vendor’s on our second day in Rome, I didn’t have any fruits (or vegetables) in the last 5 days or so. That’s one of the things I announced to the guys when they got back from Sorrento – that ‘I had vegetables today!”J. After their adventurous trip to Capri and the Blue Grotto, I’m sure they didn’t care less about what I ateJ. I’m not complaining about the food in Italy by any means but it’s funny how you miss having some foods that you take for granted in TO.  Like I mentioned to Rish the other day how much I missed scrambled eggs which I rarely have in TO…

 

We’re on our way to Florence and Amanda and I are looking forward to finally going shopping for purses, shoes, etc. I really haven’t bought much so far except for the thick leather belt that Rishi and I had bought in Amalfi where the owner kinda customized it for us… yeah, we both like saying it – that we had it custom-made it for usJ. So Florence hopefully will be where we’re going to finally get to shop… we shall wait and see…