Brushing up on history

My friends and I try to get together once a week and have a girls day. Whether it's exploring a new area, revisiting a place some of us have already experienced, or simply having lunch together, it's always a great time!

I will share two of our latest adventures, both of which were new for me!

Adventure One:

Vietri

Vietri is a small town at the end of the Amalfi Coast that is known for it's hand-painted ceramics. We decided to venture there in search of Christmas gifts!

It's never too early to prepare for Christmas right?!

That's a lot of ceramic...

Though I must admit, we all came home with gifts for ourselves...

But that's besides the point.

At one point we stopped in a cafe (or "bar" in Italy) for a restroom break. We kind of sensed that the people working there weren't thrilled with this idea, so Rachel decided to get a cappuccino.

Which is when I found out- it was her FIRST ITALIAN CAPPUCCINO! So clearly, I had to capture the experience.

If you haven't seen my previous blogs, Facebook post and pics, etc, then you may not know this, but I LOVE Italian capps! It could very well be what I will miss most about this country when we leave. There's a reason there are no Starbucks in this country!

After we all found what we were looking for it was time for lunch.

The server decided to take the reigns on our order and asked if he could bring us out his choice since we couldn't decide what we wanted. He gave us a delicious variety of foods that we all shared- and I'm actually still not sure if we got played .

Here is my purchase of the day:

Touristy painting of Amalfi on a napkin holder.

The back has a painting of lemons on it. Yum!

Adventure Two:

True Pizza Napolitano and Napoli Sotterranea

("Naples Underground")

First we had to get energized and who better to help (while in downtown Naples) than L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michelle (Where Julia Roberts ate pizza in Eat Pray Love - Yeah. I know. I go there often...)?!

Let the underground-ing begin!

The tour started off with a Greek-Roman theatre from the 4th Century BC.

It's kind of hard to grasp how old that is...

The exit of the theatre:

and "probably the most photographed clothesline in Naples..." - Rachel

On our way to the main event, the aqueducts, our guide showed us an external buttress that was added to support the structure during the Roman Empire:

Currently, it's simply supports the bottom of an apartment...

And now, I give you... Napoli Sotterranea

with some of my favorite girls (and baby boys- though they didn't make the pic, oops)!

First we had to walk down 40 meters:

During WWII, the caves were used as bomb shelters:

And was also a shelter for refugees.

Here are some of their belongings:

A display showing how in the 4th Century BC the Greeks dug deep into the ground to build the city walls and temples:

Some of the walkways didn't have lights so we had to carry candles!

We had to squeeze through some tight spaces:

This pic doesn't do the small walkway justice.

Chip was such a good sport... and look at Heather clinging onto her purse.

Hah!

All the candlelit and tight walking lead us to a Roman Cistern:

Down here, the Romans made a 40o km long Aqueduct.

Us in amazement:

Great times with an interesting Napolitano history lesson...

What's next?!

xoxo