Southern Italy

I suppose it is time to finally write about my last couple days in Italy. I kind of feel like once I write this it will all be over, so that is why I have been procrastinating. Time to move on though, so here we go.

We arrived in Napoli as state in an earlier post, and from there, had to get to Sorrento where our hotel was. To do this, we had to take the Circumvesuviana Train, which, predictably, goes somewhat around Vesuvius. So we dragged our luggage over to the train station, somewhat connected but not really to Napoli Centrale. Sadly, after we bought our tickets, we realized that we had to go down many steps. Why is this sad? Because we had heavy, heavy luggage. LC even had two large suitcases. Lucky for her though, throughout our journey from Florence to Sorrento and back to Rome, she managed to have someone help her with her with one of her suitcases about 60% of the time, if not more. Maybe it’s the short blonde thing, lol. In any case, we lugged our luggage down 2 separate flights of stairs to the platform, dragged ourselves onto the Circumvesuviana, and nowhere to sit. So we stood for the first 20 minutes, worried we were on the wrong train as the final destination listed in the car was not Sorrento. Luckily, we were on the right train, and we found seats for the last 45 minutes of the journey.

After the uneventful train ride, we arrived in Sorrento. Unfortunately, we did not really print out directions on how to get to the hotel, so we kind of wandered (with out ridiculously heavy bags) and asked multiple people how to get there. Finally, 20 min later, we found it. Luckily, it had an elevator (it was on the 3rd floor), and our room was on the third floor as well. We got into our room, so happy to change (it was a hot and sweaty journey) and leave again for dinner.

Piazza Tasso (I think it was) is the local hangout in Sorrento, and there is a corner with 3 restaurants right next to each other. Needless to say, this is where we ate dinner for our three nights in Sorrento. After our yummy dinner, it was time to explore Sorrento a bit, and then go to bed so we could be wide-awake in Positano the next day

To get to Positano from Sorrento one can take a bus or the train. We chose to take the bus because half of the fun when it comes to the Almafi coast is the drive getting there. I actually thought it was going to be a bigger scare than it was, but I was caught up in the scenery, so that might be why it didn't phase me. LC on the other hand, thought it was kind of scary. Also fun (to me at least) was that the driver honked the horn for every turn, just in case another car was coming. The road is kind of narrow, so it was necessary to make the presence of a bus known to drivers coming the other way. There were actually parts of the drive where someone had to back up to let us through. I also saw a cyclist and immediately thought of dad. The road was twisty, turny, steep, high, narrow, and not really conducive to cycling I thought. Still, that was only the first rider I saw that day, as I think I saw a total of about 6. Good for them. Anyway, back to the drive. The scenery was fantastic. I probably took too many pictures, and I only posted my favorites, so they are not all posted. But it was that pretty, so it’s all good.

Anyway, we arrived in Positano (after some confusion as to where to get off the bus) and were promptly awed by the town. It is such a cute town crawling up the hill/mountain-side. It is so quaint and there are so many pretty scenes. So we walked down to the beach, bought a beach towel, paid to use the umbrellas for the day (got a discount for being form CA), and relaxed. It was a nice day after our time traveling the day before. Pretty much all we did was sit, relax, swim, eat, relax some more, and repeat. After a couple hours (ok, maybe more than a couple), we packed up and got some gelato, as no trip is complete without trying the gelato. Sadly, this was probably my least favorite gelato of the trip. In any case, we dragged ourselves up the hill to the bus stop and were greeted by a line of people. I wasn’t sure we would make it on the bus, but we did. Granted, we didn’t have seats, but at least we were on the bus.

So the ride starts back to Sorrento, and yeah, it kind of sucks to be standing, but no biggie right? At least that was what I thought until I literally fell into someone’s lap as the driver slammed on the breaks to avoid crashing head on into another bus coming the other way. So that was fun. We finally got seats about half way through the trip, but gave them up to some elderly women. So the rest of the ride was a nice arm work out holding ourselves up, and was otherwise uneventful.

After we arrived back in Sorrento we noticed our sunburns, didn't really care, changed, and went to our second of the three restaurants in the Piazza.

The following day was our day in Capri. For this, we left the hotel early, and took a ferry out to the island. I don’t know why, but in my mind Capri was more like Santorini: beachy and such. In fact, Capri is not like that at all. It is instead very mountainous and foresty. Its still amazing though, and I took no shortage of pictures.

The first thing we did was buy tickets for a boat tour of the island. We got in a long line, and decided to take the next boat so we cold actually have seats. We were then told that we couldn’t wait in line itself, and to come back at 11 for the 1125 boat tour. So we went to an Internet cafe for 20 min, came back out, and there was a long line. Needless to say, I was mad because we were told not to wait in line. In fact, that we actually weren’t allowed to. So, I was mad, but we dealt with it, and got pretty good seats anyway. The funny part was that some people tried to cut us in line and the Italian family behind us started yelling at them. They ended up moving to the back of the line, which made me really happy.

So the boat ride was amazing. We got to see the blue grotto, green grotto, white grotto, and go completely around the island. The blue grotto was an interesting experience. We got off the tour boat and into a canoe. Two girls from NY asked if we wanted to ride in the canoe with them (it was 4 to a canoe), probably because there seemed to be quite a few overweight people on our boat and we seemed pretty normal. So we hopped in, well, squeezed in might be more appropriate, paid ten euro, and looked around for the blue grotto. We didn’t see an opening in the rock and were a bit confused. Then, as we got closer to the rock wall, the canoe guy waited for a wave, told us to lean back, grabbed a chain from nowhere, and pulled us into a hole that magically appeared. At first, it was just a black cave we seemed to be in, I was enjoying the singing that some of the rowers were doing, and I was still a bit surprised by our entrance into the cave. Then, I turned around and saw the blue water around the entrance. It kind of looked like it was glowing and it was super cool. Sadly, you are only supposed to spend about 3 minutes in the Grotto, which is lame because you pay 10 euro to get in. Lucky for us, the girls in our boat wanted to swim. So they each paid 5 euro (ridiculous if you ask me) and jumped in. Well, one of them jumped in, and the other had to be cajoled, which all meant that we got to stay in the Grotto for a bit longer. Getting the girls back into the boat proved fun, as it rocked back and forth so much LC and I thought we would end up in the water too. Nothing happened though, and after our 10 min or so in the Grotto, we headed towards the little hole that was supposed to be our exit. I kind of doubted that we would make it out without any scrapes, and I wondered how we could be sure no one was coming in while we were going out. Still, our rower grabbed the magic chain, we leaned back, and out we went with a wave. At this point, our rower asked for a tip, which we declined to give. He had his back to us, he didn’t talk, he didn’t sign, he wasn’t nice, he didn’t do anything but sit there while other rowers did all the fun stuff. We were some of the last people on the boat, and once we got on, away we went.

The next fun thing we saw was the green grotto. The boat just backed up to this pretty little area, where the water was green and gorgeous and there was a little archway and it was all just nice and picturesque. Next we saw the arch. It was naturally made and supposedly if you kiss a loved one when you go through it, you will be together forever. So the boat made its way through the arch, with some couples kissing, some not, and I personally wasn't sure we would make it through the arch in one piece, but we did. We moved on around the island and saw the white grotto. This grotto is famous for its stalagmites and stalactites (I think those are the correct terms). It is also famous for the rock that looks like the Virgin Mary at the top. I seem to have missed that, but I’m okay with it. We then continued around the island and ended up back at the marina.

I was going to write some more, but I’m a bit tired of writing, so I will write some more later. Ciao for now and look at it this way, the adventure continues :-)