ITALY - DAY 19

We got up extremely early and headed to the bus station and waited and waited. When it finally came we boarded and arrived at the termini. We were suppose to board the 7:36 train to Salerno but there was a train leaving at 6:36 so we high tailed it onto the train just before it left. Drama - no seats. We leaned on walls for the first hour until we stopped and several people left. We grabbed the seats only to have them taken off us at the next stop. In the end the girls got to sit for half of the trip, Grandad got to sit for 90% of the trip, I got to sit for a quarter of the trip while Pasqual stood for the entire time.

We arrived in Salerno and Pasqual headed off to collect our hire car. More dramas. The car we were suppose to have was gone and the people wanted to give us a smaller car. Can you imagine five of us in a small car with luggage. Not good. Pasqual started to get really angry and shouted at the people from Europcar. Needless to say we didn't end up getting a hire car from them. The lovely man from Avis organised a Rav 4 and we finally got on the road an hour and a half after we wanted.

Pasqual was the only one keen enough to drive along the coast with the narrow winding roads so we headed out of Salerno along the Amalfi Coast heading for Atrani where our villa was. We arrived without incident and we followed the representative to our villa. Wow! It's beautiful. It's situated on the side of a mountain overlooking the fishing village of Atrani. We have a pool below our balcony for our use. There are other families staying at the place but because of the way it is set out, we don't see them unless they are using the pool.

We decided the walk into Atrani for lunch. 420 steps later we arrived in the village. We wandered to the beach to check it out. Umbrellas everywhere - not a piece of beach to spare. The sand is a black/grey colour and quiet coarse. The water looked very inviting but we resisted and headed to a cafe for lunch. We then faced the prospect of 420 steps back up the hill to the villa.

It was time to jump into the pool and the girls enjoyed every minute of it. I had to cook my first meal in over two months which wasn't too bad and then we settled down for a quiet evening with no television or music, total silence.