Monday, June 11, 2012

3rd Week - Field trip to Amalfi Coast


The highlight of this past week definitely was the first field trip to the Amalfi Coast; we first went to Paestum, then Atrani and Amalfi. In Paestum we saw some of the best-preserved ruins in the world, these greek temples were built more then 2000 years ago and they are still in really good conditions. If you see the temples you can easily imagine how they looked in they glory days. On the other hand it was also interesting to see how such an active place that once was so powerful was taken back by nature and then rediscovered at 1752 (roughly at the same time when also Pompeji and Herkulaneum). The ruins were everywhere and to see them in such good conditions was amazing, it was like walking through an ancient village.

Later that day we continued our trip to Atrani, where we stayed for the next 3 days. It is a 10 min walk from the more famous Amalfi. And the contrast between Amalfi and Atrani was like day and night. Amalfi was super touristy, you could barely move and you mainly heared people speaking anything but Italian. And just a 10 min walk away you are in Atrani and as I just said earlier it is a huge contrast between the two cities. Atrani is a little village and you feel like you are hundreds of miles away from any sort of tourism..., but actually it is within a stone’s throw...The village was built into the hillside so right behind the village there were some pretty challenging hikes. The runs up there actually were pretty hard and my calves were really sore afterwards... but it was worth the pain..., the view from Revello and the other overlook spot were both worth the pain. Here is a photo from our Monday rum with Amalfi in the background.


The Regata on Sunday was the highlight of the fieldtrip, it was a boat race between Amalfi, Pisa, Genova, and Venive; the most successful Maritime city-states back in the days. The race has been really close to the very end, but Amalfi ended up pulling off the win.
Later that night there was a big firework in Amalfi, it was the greatest firework show I have ever seen, it was a 20 min long show and here is the great finale of the show:

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