OLLI Study Abroad, A Walking Tour of the Amalfi Coast - Days 1 and 2 - Travel and arrival

Traveling from Tallahassee to the small village of Amalfi in southern Italy isn't easy. Anyone who lives in the southeastern United States knows that it is almost impossible to fly out of that part of the country without changing planes in Atlanta.  To Atlanta's credit, throughout the years the folks in charge of the airport have made constant improvements mostly focused on the efficient movement of people. As a result, Atlanta has one of the best, most people-friendly operations in the world. Unfortunately, the leg from north Florida to north Georgia was not only the easiest, but also the shortest.

We flew from Atlanta to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. We've flown into and through Charles de Gaulle on two previous occasions, and the unpleasant memories from those experiences were pretty good predictors - it's still huge, crowded, and seemingly designed by an architect with a weird sense of humor. After 3000 steps as measured by my Fitbit to get from one gate to another - and keeping in mind that by the time we boarded for our flight to Naples we had been awake just about exactly 27 hours - we were definitely not in our best moods.

[A side note here:  the flight from ATL to CDG is around eight hours.  That included, this time, one large meal, one smaller meal, and two walks up and down the aisles to the restroom and beyond. The remainder of the time, we watched movies. AND - I watched what I believe to be the best movie of the year and maybe of the decade, "Bohemian Rhapsody."  The hubs had to restrain me a time or two - I think maybe my rendition of "We are the Champions" could be heard over the engine noise.]

Our little band of pilgrims was met in Naples by a young woman who loaded us onto a large bus for the trip to Amalfi.  Think of every trip you've ever made on a narrow mountain road with multiple hairpin turns; add to that the fact that the road is ONE lane; add to that the fact that Italian drivers park just about anywhere that's convenient, including at the side of this one-lane road that has a sheer rock face on one side and a tiny guardrail on the other and no shoulders; and then multiply the length of the trip by a factor of about five.  Add several tunnels that actually felt like safe havens in that they didn't feature a 500-foot plunge into the Mediterranean immediately outside our side of the bus, and add the cheery sound of the bus driver blowing his horn as he plunged around blind curves, and you will understand how the five-Euro tip we gave him seemed like a payment well-earned.  Suffice it to say that most of us came off that bus with some alacrity when we finally reached our destination.

And what a destination it is.  A beautiful small village with its city center just a few feet from the emerald Mediterranean waters, Amalfi stole our hearts. We are in a small hotel where we occupy 12 or so of the 29 rooms, each room with either a view of the sea or the city's main piazza. After we got settled in our rooms, we walked up one of the main streets (and in this part of the world, there is only up and down for streets), looking into shop windows and checking out restaurants.

We sat in the piazza and ate pizza, with a little glass of house red for me and a Peroni draft for the hubs, then walked back to the gelato shop just outside the hotel for a scoop of creamy lemon in a waffle cone.

And so to bed. Tomorrow - a walking history lecture from our instructor, then sketching and a visit to Atrani.  The weather is wonderful, and once we close our eyes for a few hours, we will be off again!