Our last day. I will really miss all of the sights and sounds of Positano. It’s been an incredible trip.

This day was the highlight of our trip, as we spent it on the water in a chartered boat with our captain, Paolo. Here we’ve just left Positano.

We took the boat to Capri, taking time for a swim on the way. The color of the water in the grottos was unbelievable.

We went all around Capri, and then got off the boat and made a quick trip to the town center.

We stopped for lunch at Nerano, a small fishing village with a beach dotted with colorful umbrellas. This was the view from the restaurant.

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We had a relaxing day, swimming in the ocean and in the pool at the hotel. I went up the “staircase from hell” twice – the second time was after dinner. I don’t know how I did it. This photo doesn’t even do it justice.

We went on an excursion today and stopped at Amalfi, which seems like a huge city compared to Positano.

The streets were crowded but there were plenty of great things to photograph, right down to the lemons.

We went on to Ravelo, where we had a wonderful lunch and toured the gardens of a fabulous villa that was once privately owned.

Ravelo is the highest point in this area of the Amalfi Coast, 1200 feet above sea level.

The view from our hotel terrace is pretty spectacular. I could get used to this very quickly (and have!).

Our hotel is hundreds of feet up on a cliff, as is almost everything here. There are no bad views.

The water changes hue from one minute to the next and every shade is prettier than the one before.

We’re staying at Ca ‘Sagredo, a beautiful hotel that was once a private villa. It was built in the early 1400’s, before Columbus ever touched American soil.  Each morning we climb a lovely staircase to go to breakfast and at the bottom of the stairs are two statutes. This is one of them – just a little decoration. You can see a tiny bit of the Venetian glass chandelier which hangs from the huge room at the top of the stair

We took a water taxi to the island of Murano, for a private tour of some glass blowing facilities and glass artist galleries. We arrived around 9:30 in the morning and Murano was wonderfully quiet. 

We saw the work of Lino Tagliapietra, who is almost 82 and was named a master glassblower in 1950, when

There is a restaurant on the back of our hotel and it faces the Grand Canal. This is the view when you look to the left. I took this late in the day yesterday, one of my favorite times to shoot photos because the sun isn’t so strong and doesn’t wash out all of the colors.

Another photo taken late in the day. There’s something so peaceful looking about this boat, its color, and the color of the water. Even the window shades seem to pick up a hint of that blue-green.

We had dinner at a restaurant with a rooftop bar. I was mesmerized by the scenery up there, wishing I had wings (like a few of the pigeons we saw) so I could soar above the city and see every last thing.

I’m overwhelmed. This is my first trip to Venice and it really is a remarkable place. Yes, it’s full of tourists (30 million people a year come to this city and I think 20 million of them are here now) but there are so many wonderful things to see, I don’t care. And there are also plenty of canals and bridges to discover that aren’t overrun.

Here is part of the view from our hotel window – the Grand Canal. I keep thinking about the wonderful Merchant/ivory film, A Room with a View, based on E.M. Forster’s novel. Parts of the story took place here in Venice. What a romantic city.

We had a private walking tour of Venice, which included St. Mark’s Basilica. A tiny

I’m so excited. We’re at JKF airport in New York, waiting for a connection to Venice. We’ll be there for three days and then to Positano on the Amalfi Coast for six days. It’s a long-awaited family vacation and I can’t wait to get there. We’ve been to Italy twice before – to Tuscanny and to Umbria – but this is our first trip to Venice and Amalfi. I’ve got three cameras packed – two Nikons and one Sony point-and-shoot. I learned from a previous trip to Paris to always have back ups! I’ll be posting photos and travel tidbits here, so stay tuned.