Before we are boarding our plane tonight for our second trip of this summer, I really wanted to share some moments from our family vacation in Italy.

This time we went South. To Castellabate. Castellabate is a town in the province of Salerno in the Campania region of south-western Italy.

It was perfect even so {or maybe just because} we ended up here by accident. Our holiday plans were made really late this year and one day we were just sitting around the kitchen table and decided for Italy. And then I booked flights to Napoli. We did Tuscany a couple of times and wanted to discover the South.

It took us some more weeks to finally find time to book a place. And this is how we found Castellabate. Looking at the map and what was around Napoli and {very important} a spot we could do without a car. We just did not feel like driving around.

We found a cute little apartment in the village of Castellabate. Upon a mountain which means: amazing view! The town is all about alleys full of corners, arcades, labyrinth stairways that lead through the intact ancient town center. Castellabate was declared UNESCO world cultural heritage.

From here we could take a little bus to either:

Santa Maria di Castellabate – sandy beaches and a fun Italian pedestrian zone. A large park surrounds Villa Matarazzo, which is the venue for various kinds of cultural events and a big playground.

or

The fishing village of San Marco di Castellabate. San Marco still has an active fishing fleet and traditional wooden ships are built here.

[read more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]

But the best thing – no mass tourism. No big hotels. No queues. Just Italy.
And we did really slow here.
Lots of beach time for the first days and then even the kids announced that they would like to do something different. So we discovered the cities, the castle, the playground, played lots of games and had long lazy lunches in one of the lovely restaurants. A few ice creams too.

And enjoyed the view. Again and again. The water and sky so blue!

The coast is lined up with sandy beaches and we tried a few over the two weeks.
The water temperature was perfect and the sun was shining every day.
BLISS!

Now we are off to Iceland and I will write about it here too. Stay tuned and follow us on Instagram until then.

BACI!

[/read]