Adventures in Amalfi

​This past weekend (September 11 to 13) I traveled to the Amalfi Coast with six other girls from JFRC.

We left Friday morning and took a direct high-speed train to the city of Salerno. We stayed in a huge three bedroom apartment in the city center that we had booked through airbnb.

the girls

The first day we decided to take a bus to travel to Vietri sul Mare, the next small town over (less than 10km away), to go to the beach. We bought bus tickets from the local tabacchi and caught the first bus we saw, thinking we knew how to get there. One of the girls in our group is thankfully half-Italian and talked to the bus driver once we realized we had gone too far. We ended up taking another two buses back through the mountains to get to the beach. I didn't mind so much because the view was so beautiful.

On the beach we met up with three other guys from JFRC who were traveling to Amalfi and staying in Salerno as well, and we randomly saw a group of about ten of our friends on the beach who were staying in Vietri sul Mare. We had pizza for dinner and then headed back to Salerno.

The next day we woke up early to take a ferry to Positano, which is a bit farther north from the Amalfi Coast and from Salerno. The ferry stopped in the town of Amalfi to take on more passengers.

view of the Amalfi coast from the ferry

view of the town of Amalfi from the ferry

Many students from JFRC took a trip organized by a company called bus2alps and were also in Positano on Saturday. They had gone to Capri the previous day. We decided against going to Capri because the ferry was so expensive and we'd heard it's a bit of a tourist trap but I'd like to go back someday.

Positano (ft. random older lady)

Chiesa Santa Maria Assunta in Positano

Positano was beautiful and we spent the day exploring the town and laying out on the beach. The region is known for its lemon groves and limoncello so it seemed like every shop sold bottles of limoncello and lemon-themed kitchen items. Although the shops were a bit touristy and expensive, the town itself was very beautiful and the buildings were all painted different colors. It was so worth it to walk to the top of the hill and see the view.

View of Positano and the beach from the top

We took a bus to Amalfi for dinner. Amalfi was smaller and less touristy than Positano but I think i like Positano better beacuse it was more beautiful and seemed to have better beaches.

Seafood risotto from Amalfi

After dinner we headed back to Salerno; everyone was tired from being in the sun all day so we called it a night and I slept in the next day, which was really great.

Sunday we spent in Salerno, mostly just walking around the boardwalk. There was a gelato fair going on and we tasted the city's signature lemon slush-type dessert. We got back to JFRC at about 9pm that night.

me in Positano

Our trip ended up being about €36 per person for two nights at the airbnb and less than €60 roundtrip for the trains which was very affordable! We each then spent about €70 on food as well. Comparably the bus2alps trip was around €230 or €270 not including food. I am taking bus2alps next week to go to Croatia so I'm interested to see how that trip will be organized.

I loved the Amalfi coast and I would go back to Positano in a heartbeat. It was nice to go to the beach and get out of Rome for a weekend because it is still so hot here (apparently the Sirocco winds are to blame).

side note... Beyoncé was in Amalfi the same weekend we were. I noticed a few big yachts so there's a chance one of them could have been hers!

Check out photos of her trip here and here...