August 31

Hard to believe it is the last day of August!  Until you go out touring and it is hot and humid.  But beautiful.  We sailed into the Amalfi coast harbor this morning and it is amazing to see those houses just perched on the cliffs.  Plenty of terraces here too. This is a UNESCO recognized outstanding example of a mediterranean landscape.

There is no cruise dock here so we took a tender in to shore and then boarded another boat to Positano.  This is a lovely town and when John Steinbeck lived here, it was a poor and forgotten fishing town. But because of its spectacular beauty, it now thrives with the tourist industry and many wealthy people both live and vacation here.  The first glimpse of it is unforgettable.  We were in Italy in 2001 but didn’t visit here, although I remember seeing it by boat.

We toured the town, did some shopping for the locally designed and made linen and cotton clothes (yes, Chris, I have some more new ones now!!)Norm got some linen shirts too.

This fountain is covered with small figures of people

This whole area is famous for its lemons and limoncello.  The lemons are bigger than oranges. Of course we had our gelato, then we got back on the boat to Amalfi.

There, we toured the town, which has the Spanish influence in its architecture, saw the amazing 11th century cathedral and just generally strolled the many narrow and picturesque streets before coming back to the cool air conditioned ship.