For a small town, the citizens of San Lazzaro in Agerola, overlooking the Amalfi Coast, sure know how to party. Every night I was there, something fun was on, starting with a birthday party for the owner - with fireworks! Italians know how to party, and the festivities dont even usually kick off until 10pm or so. Dinner is consumed at around 11, and drinks and dancing happens sometime after Cinderella has already lost her shoe. The next night, it was a festival in Agerola town centre, with a famous Italian singer up on the big stage, and corny carnival rides and cheap plastic toys everywhere. God I hate carnivals, they represent everything thats cheap and tacky in the world... I would love to see a proper fete like they would have had before horrible carnival rides and chinese toys were invented, with hay and boiled corn and animal shows. The night after, the hostel had a hot dogs and beer party. Initially I didnt join in, I didnt really feel like hot dogs and ate salad instead, but after an hour or so, the hostelier came in and offered us all free beer - they had a keg outside, so I couldnt say no. The last night I was in San Lazzaro, there was a star watching conference on the summit of the highest hill overlooking the town, with telescopes pointed at milky spots. I dont know what they are, but everyone was very excited about them, so I will have to look them up sometime in the future. After the stargazing, as I was walking down the hill I heard a few acoustic guitars and Italian singing, so I went to check it out. On the piazza below, a concert of an Italian singer was taking place... it was great, and such a lovely night, almost a full moon. I missed Bec a lot as I was standing on the balcony overlooking the concert, with the moonlight night making the view of the sea look even better than in the daylight.
So the nights were filled with fun, but that didnt make the days any less active. On the first day, I made friends with all the guests at the hostel - it was a particularly social one. Everyone was fun. There were two Canadians, one who had recently sustained a perforated eardrum from cliff jumping in Croatia, so he was initially a bit quiet. There was a dutch guy, who was always having fun, as well as two English girls who had been held up at gun-point in Naples, another English woman, and an Australian girl. This crowd just grew as the days went on, being augmented by extra Americans and Australians. The first day, all the guys decided to climb down the 3000 steps to the beach on the Amalfi Coast. The day was absolutely sunkist - after the climb, we took a boat to a grotto on the beach, where there was a rock arch to jump from into the water, and a cave that a Roman fellow cliff jumping girl told us was called the Lovers cave. Anyone can guess what goes on in there. Afterwards, we drank beer on the beach and sunbaked on the sun-warmed rocks. After a perfect day, for some reason we elected to climb the 3000 steps back up... not an easy accomplishment, but we beat the bus back to the hostel and were drenched in sweat and sunscreen. We definitely earned our dinner that night!
The next day, the Canadians, the English woman and I visited Pompei, which wasnt particularly impressive, apart from the awesome brothel, with a la carte sexual positions painted on the wall. Another day on the beach and it was sadly time to head up north again, to Bologna.
When I arrived in Bologna, I immediately was not impressed. After a mosquito-armageddon night in the out-of-the-way hostel, I decided to head to Pisa again instead of staying longer in boring Bologna. I didnt even get to eat a bolognese there, although my roommate Australian did, and said that it was horrible. No points for Bologna. Now that I am in Pisa, I intend to get up early the next two days and see Cinque Terre.
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