#MeetTheMindells: Our Honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast

After Santorini, we took a plane to Rome, a train to Naples and a car straight to the Amalfi Coast! We were in awe as we rode into the Positano area, where we spent most of our time, as it was just so spectacular. Completely different from Greece but equally as jaw dropping. We spend four nights on the Coast, per Katie of Ever After Honeymoons recommendation and we loved every single second. But really, if you put me in a place where orange umbrellas line the beach, pastel buildings dot the coast and mozzarella flows freely, I’m going to freaking LOVE it. Here’s a photo story of our trip, along with a map from Kate with our top places we hit!

We stayed at Casa Angelina, a luxury boutique hotel in the town of Praiano. The hotel is like a beautiful modern art gallery, all white everything with incredible art at every turn, a stunning view of Positano and a pool deck surrounded by lemon trees (!). Praiano is about a 10 minute car ride from Positano and Casa Angelina had a free shuttle into town. We actually really loved the location and it was refreshing to be slightly out of the tourist hubub of Positano. And the service was equally perfect, with the added bonus of tiny surprise treats on our pillows each night! This girl’s heart is easily won over with sugar.

We went to La Strada, an intimate little restaurant across the street two nights in a row because we loved it THAT MUCH. The pizza. Yowza. And I think it’s safe to say that we had the best caprese of our LIVES at Casa Angelina. Really, it was mind blowing. A few hundred steps down from the hotel was a gorgeous beach club that you could spend the day at. The setting was pretty unreal.

We spent our first day wandering around Positano. Similar to Santorini, we spent our time just wandering in and out of streets, alleys, shops and restaurants. We walked down to the beach to see those uber famous orange umbrellas.

Amanda told us that she had custom sandals made at a place called Nana, so we obviously had to explore that. It was so great! I got to pick out the style sandal I wanted along with the color leather and the shoemaker sized it to my foot exactly and made the shoes right there in front of us!

On our second day, we took a ferry over to Capri for the day. We rode the funicular up and did some more, you guessed it, wandering. We picked up some lemon almonds per an Instagram recommendation (YUM!!!) and limoncello. Two places we didn’t make it to on Capri but came highly recommended: the blue grotto (It was closed due to high tide) and Anacapri.

On our last day on the Coast, we took a cooking class!!! This was probably one of the highlights of our trip. We took our class at Buca di Bacco with three other couples and made SO MANY DELICIOUS THINGS! Let me tell you: arancini, gnocchi with pesto, eggplant parmesan and profiteroles. At the end of the class, we all sat at a table by the water and enjoyed the meal we had just made. Endless wine and prosecco, by the way. 😉 It was really a blast, and we left with a cookbook containing all the recipes we used.

Photos by Jeff Mindell

Once again, I asked Kate to make this fun little map of some of our favorite places in Positano and Praiano for those of you who may be headed there in the future! Click the photo of the map below to view it in its full size!

Map Illustration by Striped Cat Studio

To Stay: Casa Angelina (A stunning, modern oasis in Praiano)

For Dinner in Positano: Ristorante Max (Sadly, we had to change our plans at the last minute and didn’t make it here! But we had multiple people tell us this was the BEST meal they had in Positano, so we had to include. Guess we’ll just have to go back… 😉

For Dinner in Praiano: La Strada (Went here twice we loved it so much! The pizza was devine and they gave us tiny heart shaped caprese sandwiches in addition to a hefty basket of bread while we waited for our meal. Man, I love Italy.)

For Dessert: Collina Bakery (This bakery is right at the start of the walking streets in Positano and it is DELISH! They have gelato too, but we focused in on the almond and pistachio cookies and the canolis. They also had the best color sprinkles ever on mini donuts. Gotta get me some of this in the US of A!)

For Custom Sandals: Nana (You have to take the winding street up and up and up to find this shop but it’s worth it! Pick your style, colors, the works! We got our sandals and then took the tiny narrow stairs across the street back down to the beach, stumbling upon such gorgeous architecture along the way.)

For Moccasins: Tre Denari (Found this on Conde Nast Traveler’s recommended list and we both got leather moccasins that we’re obsessed with. So comfy and so affordable and in EVERY color!)

For Clothing: Louise (A CRAZY colorful boutique where everything is all floral all the time. The styles may not be what you want, but it’s pretty fun to wander through and see all the colorful patterns everywhere. All handmade in Positano)
Palo Borracho (An open air boutique that sits under a canopy of bougainvillaea. Enough said.)

For A Cooking Class: Buca di Bacco (A great cooking class experience! You make a full, multi-course meal with a renowned chef and wine and prosecco are free flowing throughout!)

And that’s a wrap! ONE MORE huge huge thank you to Katie for organizing this amazing experience and to Casa Angelina for really going above and beyond to make the second leg of our honeymoon perfect. You can see all the sources for my outfits in this post, if you’re curious!

p.s. Jeff is selling some of his favorite shots from our trip in his Society 6 shop here!

For more of our travel adventures, click here!