Caserta Presepe

One of my favorite views.
Check out the skin and bones dog!

Presepe means Nativity in Italian. The Caserta Reggia had one of the most beautiful we saw. This is a huge presentation of the Nativity featuring people from all walks of life around the main event, Christ's birth. In Italy you can buy these sculpted figurines all around the country during the celebration of Christmas. They are very expensive. We settled for some great photos instead. Practically every chapel and cathedral in the country has one. This one was our favorite. It is very large and the Presepe is surrounded by a glass encasement. Most figurines are at least 12 to 14 inches tall. They are extremely colorful, very detailed and true works of art.

Aldo and Buster~ Amalfi Coast

This post is about the Amalfi Coast. This trip was arranged for Jim and me by Robert and was a military tour group. Our guide was Aldo. A very vivacious and cute Italian who could really talk up a storm and told us so much about Naples, The Bay of Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi and the Isle of Capri. When he got done with that he told us about the customs and cultures of each of these places, and all about the topography, the vegetation, etc. etc. This guy could talk..let me tell you. He also had an uncle and a story for every hairpin turn of the jagged coastal mountain range we were attempting to "do" in a big tour bus. It was a pretty cool experience except for the fact that I was petrified most of the way. Several times when the turns were very sharp and steep Aldo would say, "It is so quiet in here, you are all praying aren't you?" How did he guess?

Not an aerial view, this is from the bus!

Across the aisle from us sat a gentleman and his family from Texas who took a particular liking to Jim. He also talked our ears off the entire time, in and out of the bus~ there was no escaping this guy. Meet Buster! This is a 70 year old guy, not a little boy and yes, that was his real name!!

We learned two things~maybe we really do prefer going on our own even though we would not have wanted to drive this coast line. More than 2,000 curves between Sorrento and Amalfi taking two painful hours pretty much settled that. We had gotten accustomed to driving with the kids' trusty Tom-Tom and we just preferred the quieter approach to touring. The tours can be fantastic but you just never know who will be sitting across the aisle from you. We were thankful the tour ended at 4:00 pm and not 10 days later.

Here are some of our pictures from the Amalfi Coast.

This is a little nativity scene (presepe) that the people of
Amalfi have constructed and it has a miniature
of each building and home in the town.
It is right along the very narrow road next to the cliff.
What were they thinking?
Who can dare to take their eyes off the road?

On the top of this crest is where we had to drive to go down the other side of this mountain. The roads are so narrow that tour buses can only go one way. They have areas where you sit on this cantilevered balcony waiting for your turn to go. All the tour buses that come here had beat up mirrors where they scrape other vehicles passing. City buses, delivery trucks, etc., are allowed in both directions. Baaaad idea! They have traffic people that radio ahead when it is safe to come up or down the hill. I am using the term "hill" very loosely.

Note the white castles up in the sky here.

The natives say that when they die and go to heaven it will be just like another day in Amalfi's paradise. There are stairways from the top all the way down to the sea and people make the trek down and back up again everyday all their lives~even the very old ones! Impressive~but no desire to move here!

Can you say...scary? Think single wide trailer~that was us!

These places are built right into the cliff sides.

St. Andrea's Church in Amlafi.

Oscar Wilde's Mrs. Windermere's Fan has been adapted into a movie starring
Scarlet Johansson, and Helen Hunt, A Good Woman, that was filmed here.
It came out in 2005 and is very good.

The Patron Saint of Amalfi is St. Andrew
and he carries an X shaped cross
as his unique identity.

We made it safe and soundly back to the base and I was exhausted from stress. But it was one of those things that once it was over, it was awesome. I will liken it to jumping out of a plane, which incidently, I NEVER plan to do. So as far as I am concerned we have "done" Amalfi! It was great but ...I ain't goin' back!

Originally posted 4/28/08