Hello, again, Blogonauts! Today we'll talk of seaside trails trekked vertically.

The U.S. is a continent-wide country, and our coastlands involve long, flat, often sandy stretches. Perhaps a dune or a rocky pillar breaks up the terrain, but with a few exceptions, the land gently slopes toward the water, and then disappears beneath the waves.

In contrast, Italy (crudely put) is a craggy, hundred-mile-wide peninsula dangling from the belly of Europe. (Think of hungry Romulus clinging pendulously to his wolfy wet-nurse.) And unlike skinny Florida, Italy's interior is filled with mountains as high as the Rockies. It is little wonder then, that Italian shorelines leap out of the sea and reaches immediately skyward, in in preparation for those mountain peaks within a few miles of the coast.

Our next stop after Pompeii was three nights spent on the Amalfi Coast, a region south of Naples noted for it beautiful scenery, quaint villages, and citrus groves, often the source of the sweet liqueur, lemoncello. What it should be known for, however, is its lack of any landscape remotely approaching flat

This is a land where you can move