The Amalfi Coast in summertime. This is honestly where dreams blend over seamlessly with reality and become hard to separate. The cobblestones are warm, shaded by ancient vines with colourful flowers, the people friendly, the food spectacular and the views… completely out of this world. A treasured memory was arriving in Naples at midnight and being casually pointed in the direction of Vesuvius. Wow, is all I can say. To first see this in the dwindling lights of a city on a clear night, stark and outlined perfectly by the soft glow between sky and city… this was truly something.

As we wound (literally, the roads hug cliffside and hairpin bends alike) around the starlit roads on the way to Positano, Vesuvius loomed, peaceful and evermore steadfast. I could see how people mistook it for a mountain and were fascinated by its ethereal smoke before history was made into a deadly reality.

740 something stairs to the beach. I guess it was one way to admire the view from a plethora of angles and really take in a lot of the city on the way to a from the beaches.

We hired a paddleboat and went cliff-diving… yes. This did involve climbing up the cliffs before flying off them toward the ocean, climbing higher after each try. It was only after a number of hours that we felt slightly ready to head back to our “home” beach. This is where the tricky part began… we had hired a paddle boat (with a slide in the middle I must add!) that moved quite nicely on the way to our destination. It was only on the way back that we realised how strong the pull of the currents were and the unhelpful movements made by boats and yachts. This was slightly tricky and involved some ungraceful paddling the fight the current. The three of us had all grown up on the coast and knew how to deal with rips, but this didn’t really make it any easier in achieving.

Eventually we made it back to the beach and within a half an hour had eaten some gelato and jumped right back into the water, following this (only after the sun had begun to descend) with pizza and pasta. What else! This was such a wonderful way to explore a new place and share fun experiences with good people.

Positano: days under the South Italian sun in July 2014