Stairs, stairs, and more stairs

Italians don't stay healthy by drinking red wine... they stay healthy by climbing lots of stairs. Step one of the day - catch the bus; second step - be patient on the bus; third step - stay patient on the bus. First, there were students protesting something, and they were blocking the main intersection. We got past that, but now it appears the traffic lights aren't working because something is slowing us down. Finally, now we're moving. Ah! Air movement. We were hoping to get on right side of the bus, so we could experience the hair raising, death defying cliff-drop views, but we ended up at the back of the bus, and I think we lucked out because we can see the great views of where we've been. First stop was Positano. I heard someone say that there are 1,700 stairs to get down to the town. I thought that was an exaggeration, but now I think that perhaps that 1,700 was correct; I lost track after 387 and we were only a quarter way up. The good news though - the stairs aren't all in one big stair case; they are clustered into several stair cases all over the place. Going down wasn't too bad, but coming up was a bit more tiring. Positano is a charming town on the coast with great shops with way overpriced everything. There is no wasted space in Italy, and the smallest shop, whether it be a restaurant, dress shop, or bakery may be built into the cliffs. It is the coolest little town. Since things are way over priced, any last-minute shopping we do will be in Sorrento on our last day, which is tomorrow. On with our day tomorrow...I don't want to think about leaving this beautiful country, but I am looking forward to coming home. After our brief stay in Positano, we got on the bus to Amalfi. Another ride with beautiful views. The town of Amalfi is even more charming than Positano. Narrow streets abuzz with life, but not crowded like the big cities like Rome or Florence. We really like these small towns; they are so beautiful. The best part of Amalfi - not so many stairs! The streets are very narrow and there are a lot of curves and hair pin turns along the coast, and when buses pass each other, there is literally what seems to be an inch between them. It's quite amazing to watch. I am always sure that the mirrors are going to collide. Once, on our way back to Sorrento, two buses had to stop and a motorcycle just scooted in front of one of the buses - they get in where ever they can. When we finally arrived in Sorrento, we wanted to go out for a nice dinner, but on our way we thought we might go into the "Woodworks" store, but we thought we better get rid of our backpacks first, so we went to change. I don't know what kind of wood the furniture is made of, but we suspect it is chestnut. There were tables that cost € $25,000 - that's about $35,000 CAN for a table, but it would be a nice table... BUT, does that include shipping ha ha! There were beautiful music boxes for € $3,500, but they were beautiful music boxes, and I'm not even a music box kind of gal. Now do you understand why we changed our backpacks...we didn't want to accidentally knock something down by turning the wrong way. If we did, that would be a pricey accident. Since I am known as a bull in a china shop, I'm sure it would be me saying "Arrigo, can you please give me some money to pay for this broken elephant!" Yesterday Alfonso invited us to his piece of paradise on his boat, and although today wasn't quite as warm and sunny, it is still pretty beautiful, and I'd love to call this our paradise. Gotta go now. We're on our way out to the discotheque at the end of the street. We are in the mood for some dancing. We have to spend our last night in Sorrento in style. The discotheque, Fauna Notte Club Discotheque, is way different than night clubs in Edmonton. They are classy. This night club had nice couches around the dance floor, the bar staff brought our drinks to us, good lighting, dry-ice effect on the dance floor, and the bar was marble. We went to the club at around 12:15 and asked the bartender when things would start getting busy. One o'clock he said. It was getting very close to 1:00, but hardly anyone was coming downstairs. Whaat! It's Friday night. There were only three or four people dancing, and that included us, along with a couple of scantily-clad women. They were putting on a show, so needless to say, no one was on the dance floor - can't compete with that. The music is a bit different too, in that the DJ only played a partial song before he started playing the next song. We danced to Moves Like Jagger, but he cut out Christina Aguilera's part. Okay, it's getting late - time to go. It's now 3:35 am and my eyes are very heavy. Arrigo is checking out the NFL scores - he's a die hard. Next time I'll be able to blog, I will be in the Naples airport tomorrow (that is if there is WiFi there) and I'll tell you all about our last day in Italy. The next destination - Frankfurt.