Sightseeing From Salerno

And just like that, the prevailing winds pointed us towards Salerno, Italy! (Ok, ok, we actually arrived by train).

We had picked Salerno as our gateway to the Amalfi coast and Pompeii due to it being a bit less expensive and much less touristy than the alternative towns. Little did we know that Salerno itself has a very interesting history. For instance, in addition to having a medieval castle, several Greek ruins, and a culture of producing world class buffalo milk mozzarella, it was home to the first medical school in the West and has contributed greatly to modern medicine! Sadly we did not have time to explore all of this but will remember it for next time.

While it was a long travel day, we did have the unique experience during the ride from Taormina; we had to cross a large body of water…in the train! Both Juliette and I had expected a bridge of some sort, but sure enough in the middle of the trip our train decoupled from the engine and boarded a ferry which took us to Italy! Think of this like somewhat of a transportation tur-duck-en. 🙂

Anywho, we coasted into Salerno that evening and quickly got to our Airbnb. Our host Giuseppe was kind enough to pick us up from the station. Though he didn’t speak English, he picked us up with a friend who acted as an interpreter and was quite a character! The apartment was in a good location and was very comfortable for our three days- you could tell that Giuseppe is very fond of the color green!

Amalfi

After a pretty restful night and home-cooked dinner (sautéed chicken with peppers and pineapple — one of our favorites), we were ready to tackle the Amalfi coast the next day. Here we splurged a little and actually hired a driver to take us. It turned out to be a good decision because the weather was rainy and the road was very tricky to drive in (narrow with pedestrians and many blind curves). In this setting, we heard our driver mutter many “mama mia’s” along the way. It is still so funny to hear this out in the wild!

In a word, the Amalfi coast is breathtaking. Paolo our driver took us to Vietri, Ravello, Amalfi, and Positano during our drive — in each stop we had about an hour to explore on our own (which definitely wasn’t enough). This was one of the drawbacks to having a hired driver but it did mean that we were able to see several towns in one day. We were also lucky that the rain wasn’t a huge issue and it actually made for some really nice pictures. See the awesome sights below:

Pompeii

As mentioned before, Pompeii was another significant reason to visit this area of Italy. Easily accessible by train from Salerno, we arrived in time for our 10:00 tour only to find that we went to the wrong train station! After an exaggerated face palm, we hustled to the meeting point and joined the 11:00 tour. We highly recommend a guide due to how large of an area Pompeii occupies. After all, it was home to over 20,000 people back in the day.

Highlights of this tour included seeing the theater, several well-preserved houses, streets with houses and shops, and a collection of human imprints! Due to the amount of ash and debris that rained down on the town, archaeologists discovered empty cavities everywhere. They poured in plaster and then dug it up only to discover that these holes were where citizens of Pompeii died. It was very surreal to see how these people (and some dogs) spent their last moments.

It was also incredibly fascinating to learn about the impact that this civilization had on life as we know it. They had their own version of fast food, a highly developed government, and sophisticated city planning. We also have a lot of English words with these origins such as “candidate” which is derived from “candidus” which was a term for the white toga that Pompeiian politicians wore that represented honesty and integrity. Seems a little suspect now, however.

We had a late pizza lunch in Naples and exhaustedly made our way back to the Airbnb in Salerno.

Being so close to the ocean (and starting to get tired of pizza and pasta) we opted for dinner nearby with locally sourced all-you-can eat sushi before preparing for the next travel day.

All in all, Salerno was a great stop but we would choose to stay a little closer to the Amalfi coast next time. But be it the friendly people or the amazing sights, this city definitely grew on us over our three days.

Goodbye for now; Look for us next in Capri!

GP