Amalfi Coast

Today was the big day, and the main reason we decided to stay in Salerno. Well, that and the fact that we had heard some pretty bad things about Naples. We wanted to spend some time exploring the Amalfi Coast, and after looking at our options, we settled on Positano and Amalfi. We decided to take the ferry, figuring it would give us the best views of the coastline while also being relatively quick and cheap.

I think we made the right decision.

The ferry took us all along the Amalfi Coast, giving us an incredible view of the towns built into the steep hillsides right beside the sea. Some of these towns are hundreds of years old, which makes you wonder what possessed people to build entire cities on such ridiculous terrain in the first place. But after actually spending some time there, it becomes pretty obvious why you'd want to live there. The views were unbelievable. I would have loved to get more photos as we travelled along the coast, but there was a swarm of people lining up along the side of the boat to get the perfect shots. I couldn't be bothered fighting through them, so we mostly just sat back and soaked up the views.

Our first stop was Positano. We pretty much immediately jumped in the water, grabbed a few drinks and wandered around the small town. To avoid the stairs and the absolutely blistering heat, we mostly stuck to the paths along the coastline. This ended up being a really cool way to see the town. We came across a few small beaches tucked away along the coast before eventually reaching a dead end and turning around. We headed back for another drink and one final swim before making our way back to the ferry. We did wander through a few small shops along the way, but between limited bag space and limited money, neither of us was really in a position to buy anything. So, once again, we left empty-handed.

From there, we took the ferry to Amalfi and adopted a similar strategy. We went for a quick swim before wandering around the town. We had heard about a really good rock jump somewhere in Amalfi, so we spent a while looking for somewhere that matched the description. It was only on the way back that we passed a small jetty where a company was running a boat-hire stall. Despite the workers not speaking any English, we managed to communicate through a combination of hand gestures and pointing until they figured out what we were talking about. It turned out that the rock right beside their dock was a notorious jumping spot. The worker showed us videos of people doing the jump, and Jack and I decided we had to give it a go. Jack went first. After watching him jump, one of the younger workers must have gotten excited because he grabbed his boardies and joined us for his second jump of the day.

This kid was fucking crazy.

The jump was probably somewhere around 10–15 metres, and he was doing front flips and all sorts of ridiculous shit off the top. Watching him casually throw himself off the rock made our jump seem a lot less intimidating.

Then it was my turn.

I was absolutely shitting myself, but I knew that if I gave myself too much time to think about it, I would probably back out. I climbed down the rocks and prepared to jump, doing my best not to look down until the last possible moment. The drop felt like it lasted forever. The rush was awesome.

It ended up being the highlight of the entire day.

After that, we figured we had earned ourselves a few drinks. We grabbed some spritzes and beers, relaxed for a while and eventually made our way back to the ferry to Salerno. Once we arrived back, we grabbed some food and headed home. The place we chose wasn't particularly fancy, but the pizzas were fucking awesome, which was all that really mattered. After that, we parked ourselves in our beds, completely exhausted, and called it a night.Read more