Amalfi Coast, Italy- Beautiful views and narrow winding roads

We had a wonderful week on the Amalfi Coast. It was absolutely beautiful and I loved the view every morning from our rental home. Quite a few of the kids were feeling sick from the winding roads, which took about 45 minutes to get up and over the mountain to the “Amalfi Coast.” Once on the Amalfi Coast you can drive from city to city, however the roads are narrow and cars and buses honk when going around a corner to warn the oncoming vehicle of their presence. I can only imagine how scary those roads would be in the summer with so many tourists around. (Then it would be best to take one of the many buses from town to town.) I was grateful for the off season.

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(These are two small videos of the Amalfi Coast)

School Term Ending

This was the last week of my kids’s first term abroad and first term with their online school. I have learned many things to help with our schooling for next term. The main thing being:

Count all assignments for the term and divide them by the number of school days in the term. This tells how many assignments need to be done each day.

We will be doing this for next term and making sure we calculate ending two weeks earlier than needed as a safety. For the last three weeks it has been ‘school assignment crunch time’.

Hiking Steps to the Pizza Shop and Grocery Store

Living on the edge of a mountain on the Amalfi Coast means lots and lots of steps. Lots of steps to the grocery store and lots of steps to the beach. Here in Italy everything is recycled. I like this part and I am getting used to have four different garbages for organic (unused food), plastics and cans, paper, and bathroom trash. At this rental we were lucky in that all the recycled bags can be put out each night for pick up. Most of our other rentals had a specific day for each type of trash. Which is hard when you forget to put out the type of trash with a big family, then it adds up.

The little girls and I enjoyed our hike to the Pizza Shop. The Pizza shop and grocery store were up about 400 steps from our rental and the beach was about 600 steps down. We made a YouTube video of our journey to the pizza shop.

Laundry

Hanging your laundry on a clothes line with a view of the Amalfi Coast actually makes doing the laundry fun! When booking rental houses we have made sure to find rentals with washing machines. Of all our rentals we have only had four with drying machines. It took until December and my son-in-law to figure out that these dryers require the water to be drained out after each use. I had no idea! Because these dryers don’t have a vent and water drain hose in the back, they collect the water and require draining.

I told my husband I don’t need a drying machine when I return home, a clothes line will be great. He then said, “You just need an ocean view to hang a clothes line by.” Do you think I can find an ocean view in Utah?

One down fall for the clothes line, is that two days it rained at night, so I woke to clothes that were wetter then when they were attached to the clothes line. Eliza did see a home that wrapped a tarp loosely over their laundry to keep off the rain, but still let the wind dry it. Interesting.

Mount Vesuvius and the Great City of Pompeii

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We drove an hour and a half to the ancient city of Pompeii outside of Naples. This city was destroyed by the huge volcanic eruption from Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. We were not expecting this excavation site to be so enormous. I thought a few areas of the city would be uncovered, but I was wrong. The Pompeii ruins are 160 acres of uncovered city, and are the biggest archeological dugout in the world, with still two thirds of the city covered by debris from the volcanic eruption!

We walked down the Ancient Pompeii streets, went inside many homes, saw a giant colosseum (not as large as the Rome Colosseum, but better preserved and apparently used for the same things as the Rome Colosseum), and saw pottery that was preserved in time. We walked through large court yards and saw a huge area dedicated to athletics with an outdoor swimming area and grounds for athletics, all surrounded by pillars and covered walking areas.

I found the cooking areas in each home very interesting. Most homes had three large pots inclosed with dirt except for the top. I was amazed at the detailed tiled work and how we as visitors could walk through places where there once was a thriving city 2000 years ago.

Below is a video of some of the things we saw in Pompeii.

Church in Naples

We enjoyed visiting a wonderful Branch in the outskirts of Naples. The church entrance is the door Justin is about to walk through. Zeke is already inside. We then walked up stairs to the church and chapel. The area above, with the church sign attached to the railing, is an outdoor area where the local kids can play a little soccer after church. Sicily and London passed the ball around with a couple boys before we left.

The branch had about 20 people present, not including our family, and two sister missionaries and one senior couple. The senior couple translated for us. I was so impressed with their story. The husband served his younger mission to this area and his wife studied Italian, so they could return for an 18 month mission to serve the people of this branch. -I need to study my Spanish harder, so Justin and I can return to Argentina as senior missionaries.