Fast & Furious 5: Fiat Edition

Starting point: Firenze

So as most of my readers already know, the Florence crew and I road-tripped down to the Amalfi Coast this weekend!  For those unfamiliar with Italian geography, I’m including a little map so that you can get the whole effect. The Amalfi Coast is mentioned in essentially every Road Trip/Scenic Drives Top 10 list ever produced. It’s also been on my personal to-do-list for as long as I can remember. 

Our navigator.
Worrisome.

When our teeny Fiat rolled up, early Friday morning, our adventure began!  Anna (The only one who drives stick... God bless her) was behind the wheel, contending with the temperamental vespa drivers, and Adair deciphered the maps, while Spencer, Lauren, and I (classified as the “Sleepers”) took turns singing, dancing, and dozing in and out of consciousness.

Music up. 
Windows down. 
Sea-Bands on. 
Feeling-in-butt gone. 
One bag of popcorn, two pringle cans, a few 90‘s jams, some unreal glimpses of the coastline, and 6 hours later... we arrived in Sorrento, which became our home-base for the weekend.  

Saturday, we left the mainland for the Isle of Capri. (Pronounced: Kah-pree. I was corrected many a time.) The island, about a 45-minute ferry ride from Sorrento, combines rock formations, fancy white villas, and the clearest of turquoise waters.  Sure, 5 college students fit in just fine with the big-spenders and honeymooners dominating the paradise. It's becoming a theme here that the 5 of us enjoy traveling to lavish and exotic places where normal, twenty-year-old kids should not be traveling. We stick out like a sore thumb. I guess you could say that the Amalfi Coast is not quite our natural habitat. Yet, secondo me, it should be. 

Oh Hello, down there!

We took a chair lift to the top of Anacapri, the highest region of the island, where we paraded around with our cameras, capturing the views as best we could.  We simultaneously took part in a fun, little game called “What would you be doing at Holy Cross right now?”  On Saturday, our poor, little Crusader friends were slaving away at exams after endless hours of studying, without sunlight, fresh air, or food. Okay, maybe they could eat. But still. I guess it’s a teensy bit unfair that we spent Holy Cross’ final exam week doing this:

Our "We're in CAPRI instead of taking FINAL EXAMS" faces!

What would you be doing at Holy Cross right now?

What are you doing instead?

THE FIAT 5

 After a Caprese pizza and a gelato (I don’t kid when I say “A Gelato a Day”), the gang headed to a little, rock beach on Capri’s Marina Piccola.  We could only worship the blazing sun for a matter of minutes before bidding farewell to our towels and immersing ourselves in the Tyrrhenian.  We swam around like little fishies, waiting to be pinched and awoken to the reality of Dinand Library. 

Yup that little bobbing head is mine!

Birthday kids!

That night, we celebrated Spencer and Lauren.  The pair happen to share the same birthday which we rung in with a picnic of bread, cheese, and vino atop the hostel’s gorgeous, rooftop patio.  Uber European.  We kept the party rocking with a make-shift cake in the form of a tin of cookies, garnished with festive, birthday numbers.

Before hitting the road for our return trip to Florence, we revisited our friend, Signor Fiat, who toured us all around the roads that snake in and out of cliffs, high above the sea. I'm not going to lie: I took my Dramamine and was prepared for anything because the last time I drove on winding cliff-roads was on an entertaining, yet heart-attack-inducing, trip to Yosemite, as a backseat to Uncle Ken's superb speed-racing. Luckily, Anna's a bit more tame, behind the wheel. We stopped in Positano, a picturesque little town, built on the side of a ledge. 

GRANITA!

Sadly, on the beach at Positano, we mutated from tanned beach bods into overcooked, red lobsters. However, in the meantime, we did enjoy a bit of beachside granita--an Italian lemon-flavored slush.  Make that, a GIANT lemon, flavored slush. For some odd reason, the lemons in Amalfi are on steroids. They look a bit like Kyle, after a nasty, chalky power-milkshake, during a hockey season, lift session. That's one freakishly, huge lemon.

A view of Positano from the beach

Once my gelato franchise hits it big in the States, I will be joining the girls in purchasing a Positano time share.  Today, at the ceramics store, Lauren and I even picked out the blue and white design for our kitchenware. You are all welcome to visit, just be sure to pack your walking shoes because the stairs on this hillside village challenge those at good, old HC. 

I don't have a mere minute to complain about my blah and boring life because I'm off yet again.  This is my final little Euro trip... I can't believe that next week I'll actually have to buckle down with Boccaccio and some good, old Tuscan History readings. Boo Hoo povera me. Guess I'll have to enjoy myself this weekend in Greece with Miss Adair!

Happy weekend! I hope these sunny photos bring positive thoughts to rainy Massachusetts!