We wake to another beautiful day for our ship’s tour to Vietre sul Mare, a little village about 10 minutes up the coast from the port, up in the hills on the way to Amalfi.  Our guide is sweet, and because we are running early has the bus driver take us up even higher in the hills to get a panoramic shot of the village from above, with the Chiesa San Diovanni Battista reigning proudly on the horizon. 

Back down in the town, we learn the history of the cute little town that is centered on ceramics, a tradition dating back to the 15^th Century.  There were a couple of ceramic factories here, now only one active factory remains, which we will visit after a quick little walk to the town overlook with cool ceramic fish planters on every column and a wonderful ceramic drinking fountain next to a ceramic donkey statue – the animal most associated with this area as it was the best form of transportation through the mountains. 

Walking up through the town, there are ceramic tiles and ceramic collectibles everywhere, mixed in with wonderful old architecture.  The building facades are worth a trip up here alone.

Taking the tour of the factory was quite interesting.  Ceramica Pinto is one of the oldest ceramic factories in the area, the Pinto family has owned and operated it since 1840.  The great granddaughter of the founder, Vincenzo Pinto, is our guide today, explaining she has recently returned home after years in other countries doing technology and finance work to help manage and run the factory with her parents.  She was so sweet, self-deprecating and funny.  Talking about working with her parents.  Just precious.  The tour was nice, and fun, and fun to watch the others on the tour oooh and aaahhh over the process (all of which I of course knew from my pottery days!).  The fascinating thing is that every tile is supposedly painted by hand.  We had demonstrations from artists doing the painting – but they produce a ton of tiles and we can’t even imagine how all are painted by hand.  There are boxes and boxes in the hallway – could they all be hand painted?  That is the claim, so we’ll have to just believe in the process!

After the tour, we have almost 3 hours of free time to wander the village (an awful lot of time in the morning for this town – especially as no self-respecting Italian restaurant will open for lunch before noon or 12:30!  We manage to fill up our hours just meandering about, taking pictures of the architecture, the ceramics and the views, including finding our way up to the church which is also decked out in ceramic tiles.

Ready for a break, we find a coffee shop for Latte and Cappuccino, then head back out to the overlook for close up shots of those great fish planters and more scenic views across the water and hills. 

Heading out of town, walking up the hill, we find more ceramics as well as an abandoned old building – and an abandoned Limoncello factory? Bar?  Who knows, but love the ceramic sign.

Reversing course, we decide to head to our meeting point, even though we are way early, figuring it was better to find something to do around there than be late.  On the way, we pop into one of the ubiquitous ceramic stores to buy these little shot glasses and a little octopus for Ed (I insisted he had to have it!) and stumbled upon Marianne – from Long Island!  She was an absolute hoot – moved to Vietre when she was 19 because her family is from here, although they had immigrated to NY and still live in the States today.  But her father always wanted to come back, so she did!  She’s 44 now, married and used to have a travel agency, but now works in this little shop selling tchotchkes to tourists. But oh, can she talk and tell stories. She mesmerized us for probably 45 minutes, making us laugh about people and how they treat her or ignore her or take her for granted. She was hysterical.  Made a good morning even better!

Leaving the delightful Marianne, we finally made our way to the meeting place, making a detour to take pictures of the Ceramica Solimene – a factory that is no longer in operation, but still has a store on the lower levels. 

Back at the little piazza meeting point, we stop in at a restaurant on the corner for beer and wine, then hang out at the end of the square, overlooking the water until our guide and bus arrive to take us back to the ship.

A fun half-day excursion, and something different to do as we’ve covered this area pretty extensively. Back on the ship, we finally have lunch on the Patio!  With so little sea days and so many onshore activities, we’ve not managed to get here yet.  But today we can finally have our Grouper panino and spicy tuna wrap.  Yum. 

Later, after a beautiful sunset and gorgeous moonrise viewed from the balcony, we attend Dr. Fisher’s lecture on Rome: The Eternal City, which he makes into a nice streamlined history lesson with modern day city info added at the end.  Then it is off to a lovely Aqualina dinner and, gasp, the show!  Tonight is Jose’s solo show which we aren’t going to miss!  He is so great, the show fabulous (see our favorite picture below) and as we told him afterward, he was born to be in this role. 

The rest of the evening is spent on the balcony and up on deck chasing the full moon!  (While we love these phone cameras for so many things – taking night pictures of the moon isn’t one of them. Ah well, we’ll take the good with the bad!)