A little Steppe out of order! Because sometimes the alphabet dictates where we go next!
Skipping ahead to a bit later in our day, Anara and I stopped at the Grotto della Smeraldo right about in the middle of the Amalfi Coast- closer to Sorrento than to Salerno, which is the direction we were traveling this day. In the next post, I’ll tell you all about the adventures we had getting up TO this point and then again beyond. But for now, let me gush about the Emerald Grotto, as it’s translated into English.
Hopping off the public transportation bus, we approached a small, unassuming kiosk and bought our tickets for a little tour into the underground, sea-water-filled cavern on the beautiful Amalfi Coast. While the famous Blue Grotto on Capri is far more well-known, the Emerald Grotto is just as lovely and WAY less touristy. Win-win! Sure, it’ll take a lot more effort to get to but that’s all part of the adventure and fun.
For $5, we were treated to an elevator ride down to the boat launch, along with 15 of our new Israeli friends who only spoke a bit of English and Hebrew. The Italian tour guide herded us all onto his little skiff and began his rote spiel (see what I did there?) The English was indeed pretty broken and mixed up, but we got the gyst and made the best of it. I focused on photography and got some pretty crappy photos with my phone. Anara however got a couple of good ones. Hers are sans watermark.
The tour lasted about 30 minutes of tooling around in the fairly small-ish grotto, but I appreciated him letting us have the time to take the photos we wanted. Something he knows the photographer-types like is the luminescence made from the splash of his oar, so I definitely took advantage of that!
He also pointed out the Nativity Scene placed there in 1956; each year around Christmastime fisherman place flowers there as an offering. It was honestly both enchanting and creepy at the same time but made for a cool photo opp.
The formations were surprisingly complex and exceeded my expectations. So that was yet another win.
The boatman tied up on the little underground dock at the end of our tour and jokingly said to our Israeli tourmates, “Next time, when you come back, I’ll do it in Hebrew!” Everyone burst out laughing and that was that. We were totally glad we made this out-of-the-way stop and for the price, I’d certainly recommend it. If you up for a less-touristy way to see an under-water grotto and find yourself on the beautiful Amalfi coast, this may be just the ticket for you.
