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PEOPLE, PHOTOGRAPHY · July 10, 2022

Photographing the Amalfi Coast: An Interview with Emanuele Anastasio

From brilliant summer days to moody winter storms, the Amalfi Coast is a photographer's dream spot every day of the year. There are, however, some very special days when a photographer's keen eye can capture a moment of history. One of those days is the Regata delle Antiche Repubbliche Marinare, the ...

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PHOTOGRAPHY · September 25, 2016

Amalfi Reflections

  I love it when the Amalfi Coast takes me by surprise. Sometimes the surprise is just how often that still happens, even after being here for nearly 10 years now. While the typical colors that evoke the Amalfi Coast are the pastel hues of Positano's houses or the brilliant yellow of the ...

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PHOTOGRAPHY · January 24, 2016

Intrepid Naples with Carla Coulson

Many travelers zip through Naples on their way to Sorrento or the Amalfi Coast, or think of it as just a point of arrival or departure for exploring the area. But that means you're missing a remarkable place, full of history and energy and an Italian allure all its own. I could get lost in the ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel

PHOTOGRAPHY · April 9, 2015

Don’t Forget to Turn Around

I'm a fairly forward thinking person. I've never been one to spend a great deal of time reflecting or get stuck in the past. The truth? I'm a perpetual motion machine perplexed by people who have the time to be bored. (I mean seriously? With so much to learn and read and do?) But sometimes I do ...

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Amalfi Coast Travel Atrani Restaurants and Things to Do Moon

PHOTOGRAPHY · October 10, 2014

Foto Friday | Moonlight in Atrani

No matter what's going on, there's always a refuge for me in the beauty of the Amalfi Coast. It's the kind of beauty that you can throw yourself into completely. It truly is good for the soul. And when you add in a spectacular, nearly full moon and a warm October evening? Oh, what a little moonlight ...

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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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A New Way of Seeing Photography Retreats in Genoa Italy

PHOTOGRAPHY · August 30, 2014

A New Way of Seeing Photography Retreats in Genoa

Earlier this summer I spent a marvelous and weekend in Genoa at the A New Way of Seeing Photography Retreat. The dates for the upcoming autumn 2014 workshops have been announced, which I'll include below. If you've upgraded to a DSLR and have been wondering what all the bells and whistles (no, there ...

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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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Genova A New Way of Seeing Photography Retreat Fountain

PHOTOGRAPHY · July 26, 2014

A New Way of Seeing

There are moments in life when everything falls into place perfectly. There are no chances, this I know deep down, but the encounters that happen can change our lives - if we relax into them and say yes. I try to follow my intuition, but sometimes it's easier than other times. However, when I ...

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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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Ciao Amalfi Coast Travel Finding Center

PHOTOGRAPHY · June 20, 2014

Foto Friday | Finding Center

This week I've finished up a massive writing project that has kept me even busier than usual of late. It felt good. It felt very good! But now that things are settling back into the normal level of busy, it's time once again to focus on balance and recenter. Lately life has felt a little too much ...

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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!

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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