From our high viewpoint at Hotel Jaccarino near Sant'Agata we sometimes watched the last of the evening light catch the far end of the bay beyond Sorrento, some three miles away.
Tags: sorrento italy naples amalfi coast cliffs lido
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There were alot of corners on the road to Amalfi. Sharp and narrow ones. There must be thousands on that short journey. But this is my favourite one.
Tags: amalfi coast italy
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More beautiful but far cheaper than an Aston Martin Vulcan is Positano on the Amalfi coast (where my wife insisted we went on holiday). You're an idiot if you desire a car bigger than a Fiat 5oo here.
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Despite the bulk of comments on Tripadvisor suggesting it was a terrible idea to drive ourselves along the Amalfi coast, I decided to pre-book a little Fiat 5oo with Hertz Rentacar in Sorrento. After handing over my driving licence, passport and credit card they asked me the name of the hotel I was staying at. Only then did they very deliberately say, "OK now we will tell you how much you have to pay if the car is stolen". Having just given them the name of the hotel, and aware it was their car and they had the spare keys and we are in Mafia country, this really put the willies up me. Especially when they said I would have to pay 2000- euros. One doesn't have to be too clever to realise that if someone wanted to they could just pop over to the Hotel Jaccarino (an excellent hotel) at night, pick up the car, and make it disappear for a bit and bill my credit card for 2000- euros. I'm not of a nervous disposition but all the same it didn't take much to persuade me that I should pay for the Super Cover which tripled my anticipated cost of car hire. Now I don't wish to slander Hertz but I can't help but wonder if this is a 'designed' sales technique. But on hearing that we had hired a car and intended to cruise the Amalfi coast the Thomson rep suggested we were very, very careful.
As it turned out someone must have reversed a bigger vehicle into the car on the first night leaving a small dent in the boot (which could have cost 2000-euros) but I found I quite liked the 'horrendous' driving of the Italians in this area. It seems they do not obey any sort of traffic rules which was an extremely close match for my own style of driving. My three passengers might well have been terrified but I loved it, trying to put the fear of God into the Italians, especially those on scooters, who came two abreast towards me on my side of the road. We got on fine (although I had to shut my eyes a few times) so much so that I drove to Amalfi and beyond and back to Sorrento twice in one day. We came back with cramping thigh and butt muscles, needing decompression............we had the bends! Take the road from Sorrento via Sant Agata to Amalfi and up to Ravello (twice) and you will know what I mean.
The nightmare part was trying to park.
Tags: amalfi coast italy
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Tags: sorrento italy amalfi hotel jaccarino evening light sky clouds vesuvius
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