Jack & Jo's European Adventure: From Florence to Amalfi with a little diversion to Pisa

I seem to be giving Jo her own way a lot lately, so on our last day in Florence we took the train to Pisa Central, so as she could see the famous leaning tower of Pisa. It is an easy one hour ride and a 30 minute walk to get there, and I must admit I was happy to have done so in the end, not for having seen the Torre so much, but more so for experiencing the town itself. The town was quite quiet in most parts, wide streets and big open plaza's at the end of them, we also saw some kayak racing on the river that runs through town, including a cock-less pairs race, something totally unexpected. Around the main attraction there where the expected terrorists everywhere, standing awkwardly posing for photo's trying to look like they were holding up the tower, reckon the contractor that ripped the council off by not putting concrete in the foundations is still pissing himself at them all!

Our travel day from Florence to Amalfi, began with another train ride, this time a high speed train with a private company, we have been impressed with all the trains to date and the precise schedules they keep, this train however was truly impressive, travelling at 300 kmh and surfing the net was an awesome experience.

The fun stopped once we got to Salerno though, being a Sunday most of the place was closed and the bus drivers are total wankers, arrogant, rude and of as little help as you can imagine. After rooting around for 30 or 40 minutes we dragged our cases over a kilometer to a port, where we managed to buy tickets for the ferry ride, a much better option. What we experienced at Salerno, we got to enjoy again with the Amalfi bus drivers, so much so I have decided to rename the company from Sita Bus Company to Bull Shitta Bus Company, absolute arseholes the lot of them!

Our opinion of the Bull Shitta Bus Company was even less at 7:30AM the following morning, when the bus arrived and departed 6 minutes early, despite the fact I was running down the road after it, almost had it at the next stop before it roared off in front of me again, NOT HAPPY JAN!

And so began our three hour walk along the Amalfi coastline from Praiano to Amalfi, a distance of no less than 12 kilometers, an arsehole driving a Bull Shita Bus past us 4 kilometers before Amalfi, even though I hailed it down, he just waved to say sorry as it was full, like I gave shit by this stage.

We arrived at 10:30AM, we were supposed to be at at Amalfi he Mamma Agata Cooking School in Ravello by 10:30, and as we had so little confidence in the Bull Shitta Bus Company by now, we took a taxi the 8 kilometers up and over a bloody big hill to the school, we were so hot and bothered by the time we arrived, we hardly noticed the arsehole bus driver that was driving the taxi on his day off, rip us of to the tune of around 60 Euro's, so you thought we had a low opinion of the bus drivers, ask us sometime what think of the taxi drivers!

The day at Mamma Agata's though was very good (another instance of my giving Jo her way!!), we had breakfast, lunch and dinner with some very nice people, a group of four Aussies from Bendigo, though two of them live in New York, a Family of four from Michigan and a gay couple from St Louis, not to mention Mamma, her daughter and son in law Chiara, Genarro and their children Mario and Flora. I will write about this day in my Dinner with Jack blog later.

So this morning we woke late, had a very nice big breakfast, croissants, toast, fruit, yoghurt, coffee and which also included a scrambled egg and half a rasher of bacon served on a saucer, different, but very yummy too. After brekky, Jo was expecting to lay around reading a book etc. I need to get to bank after being fleeced yesterday, so said I was off to Sorrento on a Bloody Bull Shitta Bus, she looked horrified, but decided to join me anyway and we had a great day out in Sorrento, did a lot more walking than either of us expected, but the place was worth seeing and one I'd very much like to return to one day, might have to hire a car though!