In the past week I have traveled from Florence to the Amalfi Coast to Chieti, visiting parts of Italy that I hadn’t before.
I extended my stay in Florence so that I could go to Firenze Rocks, a rock music festival. The festival lasts for four days, but I bought a one-day ticket so that I could see The Struts, Glen Hansard, and Eddie Vedder.
Firenze Rocks is like a smaller more sophisticated version of Lollapalooza. There is just one stage and six bands perform each day. The food and drink options include champagne, caviar, and aperol spritzes, plus more typical festival foods like pizza.
The next day I took the train to Salerno, the southernmost town on the Amalfi Coast. I picked Salerno because the town has a train station (most other towns in the area don’t) and it is far more affordable than towns like Positano, Sorrento, and Amalfi. My airbnb was just $160 for three nights!
I used Salerno as a jumping off point to visit Positano and Capri, which are both easy to get to using the ferries.
I loved Positano, I even spotted Rihanna there (she was getting onto a very expensive looking boat).
I am still obsessed with the beaches in Italy. When I arrived in Positano I walked to a beach that is hidden away in a cove and rented a chair and umbrella from one of the beach clubs (this costs just $12 for the day).
I went swimming, got a panini and a spritz, and took a beach nap. It was glorious. Then I walked around the town for a couple of hours before catching the ferry back.
The next day I took the ferry to Capri where I joined a day tour. We went to the towns of Anacapri and Capri. Anacapri is more lowkey while Capri is very glamorous.
After seeing the towns we boarded a small boat to see the rock formations and grottos. The water in Capri is the bluest water that I have ever seen.
And I couldn’t resist trying a lemon granita in a giant local lemon. It was 10 euros but so worth it because it was very hot and the granita was very refreshing.
I spent three days on the Amalfi Coast and then went to Chieti, a small town in Abruzzo where my great-grandmother used to live. I have always been curious about the town she came from, and I have been surprised at how beautiful and built up the town is. Even though it is a smaller town, there is a theater, an outdoor theater, a large park, an archaeological museum, a large cathedral.
Chieti is between the mountains and the coast and you can get to either in 30 minutes. The town is on a large hill and has views of the valley below. It’s beautiful.
I also went to Pescara, a town on the Adriatic Sea, where my great-grandmother and her family lived at one point. Pescara is a larger town with a very large beach lined with over a dozen different beach clubs.
These beach clubs are on another level. Not only did they have beautiful restaurants and beach chair setups, some had pools, volleyball courts, and bouncy castles.
Today I am leaving Italy and traveling to Tanzania. I will be flying straight to Kilimanjaro, staying in Moshi for a couple of days and then embarking on a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro. After I climb the mountain I am going on a safari in the Serengeti.