Ravello Villas

As part of our tour of the Amalfi coast we visited two famous villas in the town of Ravello. One of the sites we visited was the Villa Cimbrone, just about 30 minutes from Amalfi by bus. The villa was once a manor house but is now a hotel that still highlights its original beautiful gardens and statuary collection.




An arbor covered path at the villa.


One highlight of the Villa Cimbrone is the dramatic balcony lined with beautiful busts overlooking a vertical cliff. It was exhilarating to stand there and overlook the valley below.

While in Ravello we also visted the historic Villa Rufolo. Today this villa is a museum and center for cultural events.

Villa Rufolo is famous for their gardens overlooking the dramatic views.

These visists were a great way to get a taste of the past from several hundreds of years ago. Great experiences!

Pompeii and Herculaneum

Next we travelled to the nearby city of Naples to see the ruins of the cities Herculaneum and Pompeii. Both cities were destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79AD and covered the towns in burning ash over a period of 3 days.

Below is a view overlooking Herculaneum. Herculaneum is not as well known or as well visited as Pompeii. It was only discovered in the 1700’s and is still being excavated today. Because of this, the ruins are better preserved and offer more dramatic examples of tile work, frescos and pottery.

A sign in the street advertising a local business.

This image is of beautifully tiled floor in one of the baths.

Here is an example of the incredible frescos that are preserved here. This one is actually a combination of fresco and mosaic.

Another beautiful mosaic from inside one of main entrances of a home.

Even the kitchen pottery remains. Jeff is looking into earthenware pots that are built into the countertop of what was once an elaborate kitchen.

Our next stop was the city of Pompeii. These ruins are much larger than Herculaneum. In fact, the city was huge!

These tall columns give you an idea of how massive their buildings were, especially for 2000 years ago.

The city contained many elaborate baths where the wealthy residents (Pompeii and Herculaneum were both extremely wealthy cities) would come to bathe and socialize. This image is of a bench with grottos where patrons would relax in hot steam.

Pompeii also has many examples of beautiful frescos such as these that decorated the homes and buildings of the city.

Pompeii is also famous for its extraordinary mosaics. There were examples of these beautiful works of art everywhere such as these that decorated the floor of one of the homes.

Although it’s a bit gruesome, there are also remains of the Pompeiian people, frozen in time 2000 years ago.

One of the grand features of the city is the large amphitheater. Many of the seats are still intact.

A wonderful trip and definately worth it! Both of these sites are a must see.

Capri and Ana Capri

Off to Capri! The boat ride was beautiful and a terrific start to a great day. The island of Capri was wonderful. We were there just a day, but I wish we could have stayed longer. This image is a view of the town from above.

And a view as we came into the harbor.

Narrow walkways between homes and shops lead the way uphill from the marina to the center of town.

The architecture was beautiful and very colorful! The whole island had a colorful feel about it.

To really get a feel for the place, Jeff and I hiked up the Phoenician Steps. They’re an incredibly long (and steep!) pathway of steps leading up the mountain of Capri. Until the middle 1800’s these steps, originally built by the Phoenician’s) were the only pathway to get to the other side of the island.

The climb was worth it! Here’s a view from atop the hill, looking out into the marina below.

From the top of the mountain we took a chairlift up to the sister peak called Ana Capri.

View of Ana Capri from above.

After a long and adventurous day, we sailed home and enjoyed the view of this beautiful sunset.

That concludes our adventures on the Amafi Coast. Well, except for the greatest adventure of all… Jeff’s proposing marriage to me on the balcony of our hotel room! But you can read all about that in the previous entry. Hope you enjoyed the tour!

How to Post a Comment

This is late in coming, but I was just recently told that it's a bit tricky to post a comment on this blog. Here are some directions for those of you who want to comment:

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Step 6. To return to the blog, just click on the title at the top of the page. You can always return to the home page of the blog by clicking on the title "Ieszic's Great European Adventure" at the top of the page.

Hint: You can also click on the dates on the right hand side of the blog pages to view past blog entries.

Thanks for sharing your comments. I always look forward to them. Remeber, you can always just email me too!

I'm Home!

Hello Everyone! As most of you already know, I've made it home. I had a wonderful, in fact incredible, time and I'm so glad to be home now. That trip was an experience of a lifetime and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to pursue it. I learned so much about Europe, landscape architecture, art, history, culture and myself. I saw so many incredible things and places and met amazing people. That all being true, just like Dorothy said, "There's no place like home!" I'm looking forward to catching up with you all!

Believe it or not, I still have several blog entries to post. I still have to tell you about some of our fieldtrips and share pictures with you. As always, feel no obligation. I understand most of this is for a very limited audience; mostly Jeff! But for whoever is interested, I welcome you to continue to pursue my photos and long-winded stories.

Enjoy!

I Haven't Forgotten You

Hello all,

I haven't forgotten you. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We've been very focused on our quarter project here at school for the past couple of weeks and we're entering into the home stretch. Between project work, fieldtrips and general work and life, we've been pretty busy. I hope to get some more postings up before I leave, but even if I have to post to get caught up once I'm home I certainly will.

Today starts my last week in Italy. I've had such a great time and it's been a wonderful experience, but I'm ready to come home.

Until the next post... whenever the hell that is! :)

We Have Wonderful News to Share!

Hello everyone! We have wonderful news to share!

Jeff has come to visit me in Italy and we spent the week on the Amalfi coast where we visited many beautiful towns and saw many wonderful sites. However, we have news better than all of that. On the balcony of our hotel on the Amalfi coast, overlooking the beautiful sea, Jeff asked me to MARRY HIM! And of course, I said YES!

We normally wouldn’t share news this important via online methods, but because I’m going to be out of touch for another month, I couldn’t wait and thought this was the best way to share the news with all of our loved ones.

It was a truly romantic, beautiful, loving moment that I will treasure forever and Amalfi made for the perfect setting. Jeff had very thoughtfully planned the proposal and asked me in a perfect way. He gifted me with a beautiful platinum ring of simple yet elegant beveled design. We will wear these matching rings throughout our engagement and as our wedding rings.

We haven’t set a date yet and haven’t made any definite plans, but we will certainly keep you posted. It may be a long engagement as I get through school, but we couldn’t wait to share this incredible news with the people we hold dear.

So please celebrate with us as we celebrate with each other, in our commitment in love to one another.

We hope you’re all well and can’t wait to catch up with you and celebrate this news with you in person!

Love,
Jeff & Ieszic