Gardens of Ravello

Jane at Villa Rufolo

Tower at Villa Rufolo

View from Villa Rufolo

Villa Cimbrone

Villa Cimbrone

Crypt at Amalfi Dumo

Today we head up the hill to explore the gardens and spectacular views of Ravello. All the towns along the Amalfi coast where initially selected for their defensive positions and are perched high on the rocks.

It’s a pleasant 6km bus ride to the top with all the Italian nonna’s doing their business and lots of tourists. First we start with Villa Ruffolo, built in 11^th century by a very wealthy family and restored by a botanist from Scotland in the early 20^th century. The building is a fusion of moor and Norman architecture. It is just stunning to walk around and enjoy the layout of the paths, steps and views. Sue learns about just how many photos Jane and I can take when in a frenzy and gets into tourist mode as well.

Its very, very hot by the time we finish, but like the intrepid tourists we are on we go to the next attraction. Thankfully there are lovely shops to distract us as we climb up and down steps.

Villa Cimbrone was the hangout place for lots of interesting people. You can just imagine everyone hanging out here being important and creative. We walk in the footsteps of E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill, Greta Garbo and even Vita Sackville-West from the gardens we saw at Sissinghurst in Kent. As we walk down under the cool trees along the Avenue of Immensity we wonder what is at the end. Finally we reach a statue and then the Terrace of Infinity is there to admire with heads of gods and infinite views across the blue of the Mediterranean. A restorative gelato under the trees, hazelnut is so far my favorite and now off to explore more of this amazing garden.

We are so tired from the heat its time for a late lunch at Villa Maria. We sit right in the corner and have amazing views from the roof top terrace being serenaded by Italian music and pinching ourselves to think this is all real. It seems like a dream to me. We share a Lemon delight for desert, Amalfi special and it is a delight just like all of the Amalfi coast.

Time to find the bus and head down the hill. This is more like it a packed bus with standing room only for me. The bus driver is a true Italian, a cigarette in his mouth, honking the horn and generally causing havoc on the road. Quite good fun when someone else is responsible for the driving.

Back to Sharon House for a short siesta in air conditioning. We all gather for the next event, a tour of Amalfi, with a bit of tooing and froing we find the designated starting place. Our guides name is Michelangelo, within 2 minutes his voice is so boring, I am bored. He knows his facts but it is dull and interesting, we should all make a runner. But we soldier on hoping it will get better. He tells us about Flavio from Amalfi who invented the marine compass and this is actually not true. Unimpressed. We do get see inside the beautiful cathedral and the ladies even have to delay rosary for the evening whilst we do our tourist thing. This goes down in history as the most boring tour ever.

Its 9pm and time to have our last dinner together as Jodi and Phil head to Prauge early tomorrow morning. It seems perfectly normal now to eat dinner after my usual bed time, the days are so long. Farewell Amalfi, tomorrow we move onto Oriveto.