Well, it's been a couple of weeks since this day trip to Vietri with my friends, Stacy and Diane, and their two sweet babes.  Since then we've been to Capua and grape stomping at Cantina del Vesuvio as well, so one might say I'm behind on showing you all pictures from our adventures.  The night before this scheduled trip to pick up some custom ordered tiles for a friend of a friend, I was watching a photography webinar on creativeLive.  It's an awesome website with daily photography and photography business related classes.  The session I was watching was talking about honing your craft, and releasing your creativity.  The instructor said that he is never without a camera because you just never know what you may come across something that sparks your creative juices.  I wasn't planning on taking my camera with me (why? I don't know, maybe because it was a quick trip not really meant for me to take photos), but I did.  And while we were driving I captured one of the sweetest exchanges I've ever photographed...I've seen this happen a lot, but have never had a camera with me to capture it...here you go: Share those O's! I mean...doesn't that just make your tooth ache??  :-)

They took me to the hot spots for ceramics where the clerk said he could tell by my eyes that I was Italian, so I don't stand out until I open my mouth and attempt to speak Italian.  

Lorenzo's is down on the left a little passed the blue awning.

We cruised by small restaurants where I spotted a strand of garlic, braided exactly like my grandma tried to teach me for many summers when we would harvest the garlic that my great-grandparents brought over from Italy in the late 1890's.  Every fall to this day my grandmother (up to her passing), and now my father and stepmother, have planted a crop of garlic, then harvested, cleaned, dried and braided it in July to share it with neighbors, family and friends.

 We passed stand after stand of fresh fruits and vegetables where I bought my very first canary melon (a cross between a honeydew and a cantaloupe) very sweet and delicious.

We stopped at a great little meat, cheese and pasta shop where we were greeted by the owner with pear and ricotta candy coated almonds, so good and super sweet, and bought a delicious panini for the ride home!  He also sells great limoncello, meloncello and almondcello.  For those that don't know, limoncello is an Italian lemon liquor, mainly produced in southern Italy.  It is mostly offered on the dessert portion of the menu, and it is said to help aid digestion.  I've tried it and it's very strong and burns as it goes down!

All of the different kinds of "cellos" the lovely owner of this store makes and sells.

But as we all know, there's always room for dessert, so I picked up this delightful little pastry which I can't remember the name of because the clerk rattled it off so quickly, but I thought to myself "how can you go wrong with light flaky layers of puff pastry, powdered sugar and chocolate.  I will say it was molto delizioso and we loved it!

Here are a few more lovelies from the trip.  

I really kind of liked the sign more, but the door has a nice worn look it too. So I'm gathering that each town of the Amalfi is known for something, I think Vietri is known for its ceramic donkeys. Interesting.

Salute Amiche!!  

Mackenzie