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Amalfi Coast Moments of Poetry

PHOTOGRAPHY · September 5, 2014

Foto Friday: Instructions for Living a Life

There are so many ways that the poet Mary Oliver has captured beautiful moments of life in her work, but this excerpt from her poem "Sometimes" is perhaps my favorite. It has that slap you in the face simplicity and speaks a truth that really resonates with me. So few people pay attention to what ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu

PHOTOGRAPHY · August 29, 2014

Foto Friday | Nel blu dipinto di blu

Oh, it's good to be back home on the Amalfi Coast. Since moving here many years ago, I've never traveled back to America in the summer. After enjoying warm weather, sunshine, fresh picked sweet corn and BLTs in Nebraska, I realize what I've been missing. But then I come home and see colors like this ...

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Most Beautiful Beaches of the Amalfi Coast

TRAVEL · August 27, 2014

A Day at Santa Croce Beach

Anyone who has spent time on the Amalfi Coast or lived here has a favorite beach. The beautiful beaches and tiny little coves that dot the coastline certainly can make that a hard decision. While I have quite a few that would be contenders, there's only one that could be called my favorite - the ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel Garden Terrace

PHOTOGRAPHY · July 11, 2014

Foto Friday | Amalfi Coast Garden

Often when I'm out walking or hiking on the Amalfi Coast, I simply have to stop and marvel at the way of life that people have created here - often for generations. Way high above Amalfi, and nowhere particularly roads, you see terraces of lemons. And you know that to tend those lemon groves, make ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel Pink Flowers Campanile

PHOTOGRAPHY · July 5, 2014

Pink Flowers on the Bell Tower

In early summer the Amalfi Coast blushes a bright pink. When the days become warm and spring showers have turned everything a lush green, the valerian flowers burst out, quite literally, from every nook and cranny. They poke out of crumbly stone walls, drape over the walkways through villages and ...

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Amalfi Coast Best Beaches Harbor

TRAVEL · June 14, 2014

First Summer Swim in Amalfi

Summer has arrived on the Amalfi Coast! The first half of June has been unusually warm, which has the beaches busy and sunbathers happy. Dig out the flip flops, swimsuits and towels. It's time for the beach! I didn't make it to the beach until last weekend, a tad behind many of the locals and a lot ...

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LIFESTYLE · May 15, 2014

Happy in Amalfi

For those of you that love the Amalfi Coast, then you'll enjoy this video featuring Pharrell Williams very catchy song "Happy" filmed in Amalfi. Like that one? Check out the We Are Happy From Positano video and the Happy from Ravello video, too. Love all the enthusiasm and, well, ...

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Amalfi Coast Festa della Liberazione

PHOTOGRAPHY · April 25, 2014

Foto Friday: Festa della Liberazione

Today is the Festa della Liberazione, a national holiday in Italy commemorating the liberation from fascism at the end of World War II. Quite an important historical event to celebrate and an even more important one to never forget. I caught this photo of the Italian flag (with the symbols of the ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel Vesuvius Naples

TRAVEL · March 10, 2014

A View to Vesuvius

From the Amalfi Coast there are a few ways to reach Naples, but from Amalfi the quickest and easiest is via the Valico di Chiunzi, a pass across the Lattari mountains connecting the Amalfi Coast to Naples and the surrounding area. From Ravello, the road climbs higher and deeper into the mountains ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel History

TRAVEL · March 2, 2014

Return to the Sea

The people of Amalfi have always had a strong connection to the sea. Not just because of the town's geographic setting, but because of something that seems to run deep in the blood. This is the something that led those Amalfitani in the Middle Ages to head out across the sea to other parts of the ...

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Cat on a Hot Roof

PHOTOGRAPHY · February 21, 2014

Foto Friday: Cat on a Hot Roof

If you've ever lived in another country long enough to feel like it's your home, then you might know that funny feeling when you forget you're actually living in another country. The Amalfi Coast has felt like home since the first time I visited here in 2007. But sometimes there are moments when I ...

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Marina Grande Beach Amalfi

TRAVEL · February 15, 2014

Winter Sunshine

There's nothing quite like when the sun comes out in February after a rainy spell. There's the warmth of the sunshine to dry everything out, but also that sense of spring on its way. It's hopeful, warm and irresistible. And not just for the Amalfitani! We took an afternoon stroll in Amalfi this ...

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Ciao!

My name is Laura and the Amalfi Coast is my passion and my home. I’m a writer and photographer who is endlessly inspired by the incredible beauty of the Amalfi Coast. Welcome to Ciao Amalfi!

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Latest on Instagram

Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day with a newsl Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day with a newsletter inspired in part by this beautiful song by @samantha_whates & @mgboultermusic. While I could never decide on just seven bookshops for my whole life, I’m sharing about seven remarkable indie bookshops I visited earlier this month in Bath and London. The link is in my bio, but swipe through the photos here for a look inside - each bookshop is tagged if they’re on Instagram. But definitely give them all a follow: 
@persephonebooks 
@mrbsemporium 
@toppingsbath 
@sherlockandpages 
@huntingravenbooks 
@hatchardspiccadilly 
@lrbbookshop 

Long live the independent bookshops! 📚
Thanks Amalfi … I needed a little reminder of th Thanks Amalfi … I needed a little reminder of that this morning. 🩶
Magic to watch the reflections dancing on the wate Magic to watch the reflections dancing on the water. Magic when they’re frozen in time. Just so much magic all around. I could spend a long time in moments like these. ✨
While it’s been a beautiful Easter Sunday in Ama While it’s been a beautiful Easter Sunday in Amalfi, I’m still processing all of the incredible experiences from my trip to England last week. And, thanks to “Square Haunting” by @francescawade, I am still very much haunting the streets and squares of London. Her book opens with this marvelous quotation from Virginia Woolf’s diary written 100 years ago today on April 20, 1925 (photo 1). It captures just what it felt like I was doing days ago - including a saunter through Bloomsbury Square (photo 2). Diving into this book over the weekend has felt like I’ve been able to linger even longer in those rare April days of spring blooms and blue skies in London. 

This book caught my eye immediately at the ever so charming @sherlockandpages in Frome (photos 4 & 5). How could it not when it was surrounded my one of my all time favorite books (“Letters to Camondo” by @edmunddewaal) and one of the best books I read last year (“All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me” by @patrickbringley)?

Hope that your Easter weekend has been a lovely one - with a little bit of “street sauntering & square haunting” wherever you may be!
Just had an unforgettable spring day visiting the Just had an unforgettable spring day visiting the Jane Austen House in Chawton as an early birthday present for myself.(Quite a bit early as it’s not until June.) But earlier this year I decided to have a Jane Austen theme for the year, especially since 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth in 1775. I do love a theme! Seeing the place where she wrote all of her novels, her tiny twelve-sided writing table, a quilt she made, and sitting in the garden listening to the birds sing is altogether something I’ll never forget. ✍️
Watching the colors of the sea and the fish swimmi Watching the colors of the sea and the fish swimming and thinking of the deep connections of old friends. And this poem by Mary Oliver. Hold tight to the friends who always find a way to say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment.

Mysteries, Yes 
— by Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
Mary Oliver wrote in a poem that “happiness isn’t a town on a map.” But when the little bit of wisteria blooms in Amalfi, I’m not so sure. 💜
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