Day 29: Cosenza, Italy

Today we headed to Cosenza, a city of about 70,000 people where Kevin's family supposedly originates. We decided to take the scenic route, which included a 4 hour bus ride along the Amalfi coast ending in Salerno. The ride was amazing, scary, but amazing. The only things between our plunging hundreds of feet straight down a cliff into the sea were the driver's skill and a knee-high cement barrier.

The views reminded us of the Cinque Terre hike. The bus would come around a bend and we would see a town clinging to the cliff all the way down to the water. We decided the Amalfi Coast may be worth a return trip someday (Brooke says definitely) and we'll spend a little more time in these towns.

We transferred to a train in Salerno and arrived in Cosenza 3 hours later (a long travel day). Although it was dark and the station was basically shut down for the night, a few taxis were outside and we got a ride to our hotel. Our hotel, which was a cheap 2 star, is awesome. It has a huge room and bathroom, satellite tv, and an actual queen size mattress (not the usual twin beds pushed together). The dollar goes far here.

The staff does not speak much English, but we managed to get a restaurant recommendation (although our request for a place with a tv to see the US vs Spain soccer game apparently wasn't understood). The restaurant confirmed our thinking that there wasn't going to be a lot of English around here, but it makes even the smallest interactions a bit more fun.

We got back to our room and we heard loud bangs outside. Turns out, a firework show at 10 at night on a Wednesday was going on. We still don't know why, but an interesting end to our night.