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FOOD & DRINK · October 21, 2010

Mamma Agata’s USA Cookbook Tour!

Over the past two weeks I've shared with you about the Mamma Agata Cooking School on the Amalfi Coast, located in an absolutely dreamy spot in Ravello, and one of my favorite cookbooks called "Mamma Agata - Simple and Genuine." My dear friend Chiara Lima, author of the cookbook and director of the ...

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FOOD & DRINK, WRITING · October 16, 2010

Cookbook Review: “Mamma Agata – Simple and Genuine” by Chiara Lima

Sometimes you happen across a cookbook that you know you'll treasure for the rest of your life. That's how I felt when I first looked through Chiara Lima's beautiful cookbook Mamma Agata - "Simple and Genuine" Italian Family Recipes. I've written many times here on Ciao Amalfi about my adventures ...

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FOOD & DRINK · October 4, 2010

A Taste of Paradise at Mamma Agata’s Cooking School on the Amalfi Coast

One afternoon not long ago I stepped into paradise. That’s really how it feels when you walk through the doors of the Mamma Agata Cooking School on the Amalfi Coast. The pretty ceramic tile sign outside the door says “The Hidden Treasure,” and as soon as I stepped inside I knew I had discovered one ...

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PHOTOGRAPHY · August 6, 2010

Photo Friday: Mediterranean Beauty

    For several years now I’ve been admiring this rooftop view looking out over the Bay of Salerno from Ravello. It’s surely a little slice of heaven! The intensely blue sea, simple white architecture and warm terracotta tiles are the very essence of Mediterranean beauty. Happy ...

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PHOTOGRAPHY · July 30, 2010

Photo Friday: Rainbow over Ravello

    It’s hardly rained at all over the past month, but when a good summer rain arrives it usually means we’re in store for a beautiful rainbow. Earlier this week I spotted this one, which arched all the way over Ravello and seemed to dip down into the sea. In Italian a rainbow is ...

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Ravello · January 27, 2010

Winter afternoons in Ravello

  The other day it was sunny so we went to Ravello to enjoy a walk and poke our noses around the Villa Rufolo gardens to see how they trimmed their hydrangea. The gardener there does wonderful things, so I try to learn as much as I can by observing the beautiful gardens. The hydrangea in my ...

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TRAVEL · September 29, 2009

Tempting Tuesday: Morning Boat Trip from Salerno to Amalfi

    As much as I love being out on a boat and watching the sun set along the Amalfi Coast, one of the most beautiful times to see the Amalfi Coast from the sea is early in the morning. The sun is bright and strong this time of year, but the cool evening breezes have blown away the ...

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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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