Italy - Sorrento and home

Sorrento Marina

I have been telling you about our week long adventures in Italy, which are nearing the end.  We have one last full day, and have to leave early in the morning for the plane.

I didn't create an itinerary for this day.  I had saved the day to do whatever we felt we missed, or found out about after the fact.  We could have gone to see the other small towns that were destroyed by the volcano.  We could have tried the Phlegraean Fields again. We could have gone south to visit Paestum (more ruins) and the resort town of Positano.  But the laziness serenity of Amalfi was still in our system, and we opted to have a slow day in Sorrento. We were planning to do souvenir shopping, but a lot of that had been done in Amalfi, and since we walked by the souvenir shops everyday, we pretty much knew what we wanted anyway, so the shopping was done relatively quickly. We went back to the hotel to nap, and then went out to dinner. It was a nice relaxing day.

Sorrento cloister

Nightlife in Sorrento consists of dressing up and walking up and down the main street, to see and be seen. We were generally dressed in our rumpled tourist clothes, walking back to the hotel.

Sorrento "statues"

These pictures were taken on various days.

Sorrento gelatto shop

The next morning we headed to the airport.  There is a shuttle that can take us to the airport, but it leaves at 6:30 which is cutting it close for our 8:50 o'clock departure, if we try to get to the airport two hours before, and it takes an hour to get there.  And I would think it would take longer to load than unload, since tickets would have to be bought, etc.  No one is willing to tell us if the airport requires us to get there two hours early for international flights.  We hired a private shuttle to take us.  It had been cheaper to stay an extra night than the leave the day before, but the shuttle ate all the savings.  But it was good that we had one full day with which to do as we pleased.

Sale!

So we left at 6:00 with the shuttle, but he drove very fast, and we wound up at the airport very early. We had coffee and pastries at a lounge in the airport, then the steps of going home was pretty much the same as the process of getting here, except that it was reversed, and took a little bit longer.

Ciao Italy!

Italy - Amalfi Coast

Amalfi coast

With the days quickly slipping away, we wanted to go down the beautiful Amalfi coast and spend time at the beach, and recover from all our sightseeing.  We were planning to go to Rome on the following day. So this day was all about rest and relaxation.  We slept in, and took the bus south along the coastline.

curvy roads - Amalfi coast

There was a man sitting in the front seat who was telling everyone how to stamp their ticket, and telling them to go to the back, etc. He had a musty smelling sweater even though it was really hot. He was irritated when the bus driver told him to let me sit beside him, but he did eventually move his legs so I could get through. I guess I can thank him for saving me a front seat view. I thought he might be the Italian equivalent of a Walmart greeter, but when he got off the bus, I decided he was just a crotchety old man. My daughter wound up somewhere in the back.  I'm glad we had discussed where we were getting off before we got on the bus. We skipped Positano and went to Amalfi.

Road - Amalfi coastline

There were cliffs and a steep hill down to the water that the bus had to navigate. Lots of times he had to drive blind, because there was no way to tell if someone was coming from the other side. I think I figured out his code, honk once to say "anyone coming?", honk twice to say "Watch out, I'm coming through!"  There was only one place that had a light to make sure traffic only came from one direction at a time.  It must be manually operated, because there was a man standing there with his walkie-talkie beside it.The traffic light was on the ground, and someone passing the bus missed seeing it.   They somehow managed to work it out by the time the light turned green for us.

narrow lanes with parked cars

The lanes were very narrow, and yet people parked there to take photos of the view, etc. A lot of the drivers are tourists and don't know where the narrow spots are, and the locals are pushing the tourists to drive faster. Sometimes the bus driver had to drive backwards to let cars through, yes even around curves, but our driver drove carefully and only had to go backwards a short distance once.

 
I was gearing myself to go down this road, but we didn't go there.  We got to the beach which has volcano rock instead of sand.  We got some lounge chairs and umbrella, got out our books and read.  I thought it was sweet when my daughter told me I should move my chair since the shade had moved, but she really wanted the sun since she was trying to get a tan.  We did get into the water which was very cold. I finally convinced her to go up to the shopping area.  An Italian souvenir grocery store had colorful beautifully shaped pasta, Italian spice mixes, candy, limoncello alcohol, and we wound up buying a lot of our little gifts for our family members here.

We could have gone to Positano as well, but my daughter told me that people generally go on vacations to simply relax and do nothing, and going to another town felt like doing something.  And since we had seen it on our way there, and we would see it on the way back, it didn't feel like we missed anything.

Italy - Herculaneum

Herculaneum

Everything that went wrong during our trip, went wrong on this day, but it all turned out to be in good ways. The plan was to go to see the Herculaneum in the morning, hop on a tour bus to see the Phlegraean Fields in the afternoon, and take the ferry back to Sorrento in time to see the sunset.

We stopped having buffet breakfasts and opted to go to a "bar" for breakfast. Finally, a filling breakfast. One thing about staying at a resort - everything is so expensive - a tiny cup of coffee is three euros, which is about $4.50.

Herculaneum floor

We got to the train fine, and the train got us to Herculaneum fine as well. There were people standing at the train station asking us if we wanted a ride to Ercolano, which was momentarily confusing, because I thought it was the name of the town, but it is also what the Italians call Herculaneum. Why we don't also call it Ercolano, I don't know. It is a great site - it is much smaller than Pompeii, partly because it was a smaller town, and partly because less is excavated because a lot of it is underneath the current city. There is more shade, since some of the second floors survived the volcano. It isn't as crowded. You can rent headphones here as well, but we opted to use our book. And best of all, I had finally solved my foot problems. I think the trouble was that my feet were getting sweaty in the athletic shoes. Even though I switched to flat shoes with little cushioning, and cheap flip flops for the remainder of our vacation, my feet were much more comfortable from then on.

Pozzouli

The first problem happened when we tried to buy train tickets to go to our next site.  The ticket booth was closed. When we had told the ticket booth lady in Sorrento our plans, she had told us to buy our next ticket at Ercolano.  We asked people what to do, and they just shrugged their shoulders and said closed.  We didn't want to wait until 6 o'clock, when it reopens, to get a ticket.  We went back to the shuttle driver to see what we could do, and somehow my daughter understood from "its ok" that we could get on the train without a ticket.  I guess it makes sense if the cost of the transport for a few people is less than the cost of the hiring a ticket taker, then you might as well let the people go free, but it was still scary anyway. We were happy to save a little bit of money on the train.

We sat at the platform to wait for the train, and there were two tourists who had visited the site, so we talked to them.  They were really winging their vacation, and were thinking of staying in Sorrento next, and were asking about hotel information.  The train came, and it was very crowded.  Unfortunately, the two men managed to wind up at different doors of the train, and they were confused about how to get the doors to open. (You have to push the green button.), and making sure that both of them got on.  By the time they figured it out, the doors closed, and my daughter and I were left outside.

The problem was solved very quickly, because the next train came just a few minutes later, and it was empty, so we had plenty of seats.  We got to Naples, and already knew how to get to Pozzouli where the guidebook said the tours started.  We got there fine, and got off the train.  The book said the tours start at a particular piazza - municipio I think, but didn't give us directions for that piazza.  The book also told us they were open that day.  We walked around a bit, and saw some ruins pictured above.  The tourist office was closed.  We found the ferry ticket office, and asked them about the tour bus.  They said the tour bus was closed today. The guidebook had said it was open on Sundays.  Then we asked about a ferry to Sorrento, and they said there wasn't a ferry to Sorrento, but they could take us to Naples.  Since we were early, we decided to walk back and take the train back to Naples.  I'm still not sure why we made that decision instead of taking the ferry to Naples, except that it was our original plan, and we were too early to see a sunset.

We got back to Naples just fine, and proceeded to walk to the ferry, and walk and walk.  It's a good thing my feet weren't giving me trouble.  It was longer than we anticipated, and there were several marinas, one for cruises, etc, so we were lost.  We went to one that looked like the wrong one, but we didn't know which way we needed to go to find the right one.  A police car pulled up, so we asked them.  They were very nice, and didn't know anything about ferries to Sorrento, but they told us the ferries were that way.  We were ready to walk that way, when they asked if we wanted a ride.  The nice policemen gave us a ride to the correct marina.  One of them was born in the states, so he enjoyed telling his story.  The ticket booth for Sorrento was closed, of course, considering our problems of the day.   We checked all of the ticket booths to be sure there wasn't another one going to Sorrento, but no. No ferries to Sorrento on Sundays, even though the guidebook said there were.

We decided to take a taxi to the train station instead of walking.  You know those roped lines, well there is one of those for the taxi.  You wind around and around the ropes, and when you get to the front, you catch the next taxi that pulls up.  People cheer when more than two people get on a taxi, and boo when only one person gets on.  Okay, only a couple of people did that, but it was funny to see.  We were probably the only ones without luggage.  The line took a long time, and we probably could have walked it in that time

We wait for the train to Sorrento. There are several trains on this line, so we have to make sure we go on the one going to Sorrento.  The announcer mentions something about Sorrento, but people stay sitting.  A train pulls up, and we ask a lady who doesn't speak English if this is the train to Sorrento.  She says no, and told me in sign language for another train.  The next train comes, and I hear a lady asking the conductor about Sorrento.  She gets on the train, so we follow suit.  We sat down, and there is an Italian who starts talking to us about Italy.  He says that the pizza is the best in Naples - which is true, because they use real cheese.  He tells us that the people in southern Italy are poor because the northerners have stolen all the riches.  He states that most employers require you to work under the table so they don't have to pay taxes, and that good jobs are hard to find. He tells us to be careful of pickpockets.  Some people who tell you to be careful are actually crooks trying to win your trust, so I hold my bag tighter.   And finally, after we tell him we are staying in Sorrento, he tells us that we are on the wrong train.  He says to stay on this train for eight stops after he gets off, and transfer to another train.  We speak to the conductor, and apparently, the train is going on the same route as Sorrento, but eventually makes a turn.  I'm not sure why we have to wait until the eighth stop, but we stand by the conductor for directions.

Graffiti on train to Naples

The lady who had asked the initial question talked to the conductor, and we ask her what she was told.  She also speaks English, and she told us we could get off with her, that the eighth stop isn't in a good area, that the seventh was better.  We got off with her and her son.  She told us that someone had set fire to a train, which was the reason for the delay of our train.  She is from Rome, and she tells us that the southerners are selfish, and can't or aren't willing to do things for the common good.  We get on the next train and head on our way.


The trip to Sorrento was fine, but just as we were about to get off the train, about a million people crowd to get on the train.  Most of them are young adults.  We almost didn't get off the train in time - we had to push and shove our way out. But we managed just fine, we were happy that we were able to talk to locals and get a real flavor of what living in Italy is like.

Italy - Naples

Quilt Idea

We had heard lots of things about Napoli.  That there was a lot of crime there - especially pickpockets.  On the plane from Venice to Naples, I met an Italian student who went to school in Naples, and returning from his visit with his parents who lived in Venice.  He said to be careful.  The guidebooks say don't stay in Naples, and hold on to your belongings very carefully.  The other tourists in Sorrento said, "What, you're going to Naples?" like we were out of our minds. Poor people live in Naples.

We live in a city, and people may even say things like that about our neighborhood, so we were not afraid.  We took the proper precautions - limit how much money we were carrying, and left the purse in the hotel.  I was worried about having to stand on the train for an hour, but the train wasn't too crowded, and we were able to sit.  We were able to give some pointers to some tourists who were going to Pompeii, and received some advice about going to Amalfi.

There is an information booth in the train station at Naples.  The lady was very unfriendly.  She expected us to have a map (but she didn't sell any), before she could provide information.  She did not even have her own map to show the way.  We went and got a map, and went back to the info booth.  Luckily, there was another person at the counter the second time, and he was able to give us good directions.  We took a local train to the museum. A nice train rider showed us the way out of the train station and to the museum.

The museum was very nice, it had a lot of marble statues, an Egyptian exhibition, Italian paintings, and of course, treasures from Pompeii and the other towns devastated by the volcano.  I'm afraid I wasn't a very good companion to my daughter, because my feet were still itching and hurting.  The shoes and athletic socks I had brought were very comfortable, but were not breathable. Also, I had forgotten to recharge my camera battery so I couldn't take any pictures.  I wound up looking at the exhibits from the benches most of the time.

I even convinced my daughter to go through the Secret Room, just so she could say that she had seen it.

After taking our time looking at all of the exhibits, we had Napoli pizza in Naples.  It was very good, and at better prices than the ones in Sorrento.  Unfortunately, going through a museum doesn't make you very hungry, so each of us only ate half of our individual pizzas, and the chef was disappointed.  And since we were not done sight seeing, we couldn't take it with us.

We then went to see Naples Underground.  While we were waiting, I took off my socks, which helped a little bit with my feet.  The city is built upwards.  Instead of tearing down the ruins and starting over, most people just built a new layer on top of the old one.  The archeologists discovered remains of the old buildings underneath the current ones. We went underneath several buildings to see streets, a theater, and an aquaduct. It was nice and cool underground, and the tour guide was very personable.


We walked to the train station, stopping at some shops and street vendors along the way. The train ride was fine, and we walked from the train to the hotel, stopping at the little streets in Sorrento along the main walk for a restaurant.

Italy - Mount Vesuvius

walking up the mountain

After walking around Pompeii, we ate at the only restaurant there.  The reviews talked down the food, but we didn't think it was bad, but the staff was brusque.  There were several different stands of different types of foods to eat, and it was already awkward to figure out where to order the food and where to pay, etc.  The cashier wanted to limit the amount of change to return.  I'm used to credit cards, and when I use cash, I use bills, and keep the change for parking meters and emergencies. I had a teacher who used all his change for a vacation fund.  The more change the better.  I'm not used having to deal with one dollar (euro) coins, and having to withdraw money from a money belt, and having to keep track of limiting the amount of change I receive.

don't wear black shoes

I thought we had more sights to see, but we were done with Pompeii, so we headed out to see Mount Vesuvius.  There is a bus that takes us to the mountain, then we transfer to another bus to take us up the mountain.  The cliffside view down the mountain from the bus is incredible. I am in awe of Italian bus drivers and their ability to maneuver the huge bus around the narrow steep blind curves.  We are to walk to the top.  There, we will find a souvenir shop, and a guide who will take us to the crater and tell us about what we are seeing.  It was organized very well.

view from the top of the mountain

It is only a 30 minute walk to the top.  The young people sprinted up with no problems.  It wasn't a clear day, but the view was still spectacular. There are beautiful yellow flowers growing on the mountain, and below that, you can see the cities and the water and beyond that the resort towns. Except that there is high altitude, and and dust, and we had to walk up hill on slippery volcano rock.  My feet were itching and hurting.  My lungs weren't getting enough air.  My heart was racing.  I found the best way for me to go was to go a few steps, take a rest, go a few more steps, etc.  People kept passing us.  My only consolation was that there were some other people who were also having difficulty.  I asked someone on their way down how much farther, and they said we were about halfway up.  Yikes! After a while, I told my daughter to just go without me.   I would wait for her.  There was already a beautiful view from where I was, and I didn't think it would get better higher.  So she left.  I didn't have anything to do from where I was, so I decided to keep going up slowly.  I took my time and took lots of breaks, figuring I would meet my daughter and the group on their way down. I didn't want to tell you that I wimped out.  I wanted to say I made it to the top or at least made the effort.

Mount Vesuvius crater

All of a sudden, I was the souvenir stand.  I had managed to make it all the way up.  We had been more than  halfway up.  When I got up there, the tour guide asked me if there was anyone else in the group.  Apparently, he had waited for me to start the tour!  My daughter didn't know he was waiting, so she hadn't told him to start without me.  This is the most dangerous volcano in the world, because it is still active and so many people live around it, and it would be impossible for all of them to evacuate in time.  We went to the crater, and he said people could climb up some more if they wanted but to come back down because we would be picked up where we were dropped off. The way down was much easier, and the bus was very comfortable. The bus took us down the mountain, and another bus took us back to Pompeii.  From there we caught the train back.   On the way back, we were able to sit down on the train. From the train station, most of the entire shopping and restaurant area is on the way to the hotel, so we have our choice.   We ate dinner in Sorrento.

Day 4 of Italy Trip - Pompeii

On Friday, we went to Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.  Since this was the main attraction of the trip, we wanted to spend 4 or 5 hours in Pompeii, and then if we had time, we would take the bus up the mountain where it would be cooler in the hot afternoon sun.  We had a continental breakfast, and walked down the main street to the train station (10-20 minutes).  We were able to catch a train right away, but it must have been late, and / or it was also carrying commuters going to work, because it was crowded, and we had to stand the whole way (20-30 minutes).  Ah, this is why the hotel did not recommend the train as a way to get to Sorrento.

It is a very big place, with very little shade and it was a hot day. We decided to get a guide book, and follow that instead of listening to a tape or using a live guide. We wanted to be able to go at our own pace. There is an option of the 2 hour tour, a 4 hour and a 6 hour tour. We chose the 4 hour, so we could see more than the basic sights. My daughter did a great job of navigating us through the sights, but the signage is based on research, and many of the individual buildings are not labeled, so there was a lot of "well this must be the...". It was helpful to see other tourists go into a building, because then we knew it was one of the more important ones. One of the first things to see is the little museum - the one that showed the forms of the bodies, and we couldn't find it. We wandered around the general area, and wound up exiting the ruins! I swear there was no exit sign. We were heading to the town. When we tried to come back, the security guide wanted to know what we were doing. We told him we had just started, and he told us that the museum was closed for restoration. It is good that we saw him though, because he told us that some of the bodies had been temporarily moved to other places, and he told us where.

We were able to find and go through most of the other sights pretty easily. The streets were not comfortable to walk on, and my feet were uncomfortable, even though I had purchased good shoes and given them lots of practice. It was a hot day and there is very little shade or greenery in Pompeii. But it does have running water, and we were able to refill our water bottles at this and another fountain.

I enjoyed seeing the storage areas where they held more treasures they had uncovered. It is amazing that these things have survived from so long ago, and to imagine the way people lived so very long ago. I couldn't help but think about the last moments for all of these people that lived here.

There was another building we were unable to find.  We asked someone who looked like a researcher, and he told us it was closed for restoration.  We decided to sit down to look at our guidebook for the next location, when he asked us if we wanted to see it.  So the two of us got our own private tour.  We had to pay him for his efforts, but it was worth seeing the building. I think these are enough pictures for one post, so I will put the rest of the day in another post.

Italy Day 3 - Capri

Capri

For our first whole day in Italy, we decided to take a boat to the island of Capri. The hotel suggested a package that included land transportation from the hotel to the dock, the water transportation to Capri, and the boat would circle around the whole island and include a tour guide who would explain what you were seeing. The price was just a little more than doing it on our own, and transportation from the hotel sounded really good. It was well worth it. After our continental breakfast at the hotel, we set off for Capri.

Blue Grotto

The boat took us to the place where the blue grotto was. This is where we could buy a 5-10 minute boat excursion to the blue grotto. I had heard good things about the place when I researched it, but the small library book I had chosen to bring to Italy said that the adults would not be impressed (probably because they had to duck down to get in). The people we shared the land transportation with also had heard it was not worth it. Plus, the boat tour included the green grotto and the white grotto. In addition, we had to wait for the boats for the grotto, and the whole boat had to wait for the people going to the grotto. So we opted out and waited. At first it seemed like nobody wanted to go, but it turned out that almost everyone went.

We got to Capri, and decided to have some lunch. We sat beside some American tourists who were on a cruise. They were tired of going to historic tours and had decided to take a relaxing day off.

The plan was to take the chair lift to the top of the mountain and see the fabulous view.  But since we had a leisurely lunch, and my daughter was worried about being finished in time for the pickup, we decided to wander through the narrow streets and go to the shops instead. We also wandered a little bit in the residential area to see the patio gardens.

We circled the other side of the island on the way back.  This is lover's rock, and if you kiss your lover while going through here, you will have a long relationship.

Italy Day 1 and Day 2

Follow me

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided we were going to plan our own trip.  The preplanning process involved reading lots of reviews and ideas on the internet.  I don't know how we managed to survive without the internet.  I thought at first that Naples would be the best place to stay for our Pompeii trip, but all of the reviews of the Naples hotels said it was a seedy area, and recommended one of the resorts - Sorrento kept coming up a lot. Most of the resorts are on cliffsides, and many tourists complained about having to walk up the hills (or taking a bus) to get to their hotels.  I was happy to find a hotel in Sorrento that was on the main level (no hill) that had a price that was comparable to staying in the Naples hotel.  I reserved it as soon as I found it, because I wanted to get it while there were still rooms available. I emailed them to ask them how to get to the hotel, and they said that a shuttle bus was the best option.

common flower at cloister in Sorrento

We left in the afternoon on Day 1 (Tuesday, July 5), spent the night on a plane (where they played movies all night), and arrived in Venice the next morning.  The picture shows the car with a sign "follow me" that leads the plane to its destination.  We have to take a shuttle bus from where the plane lands to where we are supposed to be going.  We saw the "Transfers sign" so we went there.  There is a line for people transferring planes.  It is strange, because they find your name on a list they are holding.  The wimpy man finds the names of all of the people in the line, and only then does he let everyone through.  But there is someone yelling at him, because they don't want to go through this process, so he has to deal with that.  Then he lets us through the door, but doesn't tell us where to go.  We have to go through the "Passport" queue to get our passports stamped. Then it is back to the bus that takes you to the plane.   It is a short plane trip from Venice to Naples, and we arrive in the afternoon on Day 2.  We quickly get our luggage and found the bus that would take us to the hotel. It was running late, so it was still there, we were able to catch it right away, instead of having to wait an hour for the next one.  You could see from the shuttle several things - dirty, graffiti filled buildings, winding streets, beautiful sea views, and a pink / purple flower that seemed to be on many buildings.  The flower looks like it doesn't take up much yard space, but then has very big beautiful showy blooms (see picture above).  They say it takes an hour to get to Sorrento (but we didn't time it).  The shuttle made several stops, without announcements, so we weren't sure where we were supposed to get off, but luckily I asked early enough to get off at the Sorrento stop.

Sorrento view

The itinerary for Day 2 was to get to the Ulisse hotel,  rest, recover from jet lag (which we did not have), and look around Sorrento.  The shuttle stop is on the main square in Sorrento.  The hotel said it was a short walk (maybe 10 minutes).  The shuttle driver said it was maybe 20 minutes.  We had packed light, knowing we would be using public transportation. The hotel had not provided directions (one of the reviews said there were signs).  The shuttle driver pointed in the general direction, and said go straight and turn right, so we headed off, walking.  It was hot, we were rolling luggage on narrow uneven sidewalks crowded with people and tourists.  My daughter was cranky, and wanted to get there right away.  I was walking too slow for her.  We got lost (we turned right way too early), and asked for directions at a different hotel. It was a nice hotel, and they gave us a map, and told us how to get back to the main street.  The map was very nice - it had a train schedule on the back.  We got to the main street fine (Corso Italia), and asked someone else.  They told us to keep going, and go down the steps after the hospital.  We went down the wrong set of steps. There was a man at the bottom of the steps, and it seemed like he said he would help, but then he wasn't doing anything, and he looked scary, so we went back up the steps (with luggage), and found another set of steps and tried them.  They were the right steps.  We had to walk downhill down the small street.  We were about to walk up to the parking lot where a sign with the hotel name was, but they waved us down the hill. The hotel was below the parking lot. Note to self, next time you book a hotel, make sure you figure out how to pronounce the name before you go asking everyone for directions!

statue in park in Sorrento

It is a good hotel - clean and spacious. There is a view of the hospital and the cliffside behind it.  The hotel doesn't have good sea side views, and does not have a swimming pool.  These things were not important to me, because I thought we should spend time outside of the hotel instead of in it.    We had booked two twin beds, but they gave us a twin and a double bed.  We took a nap, and then looked around Sorrento.  We went back to the hotel to go to the restaurant the hotel recommended for dinner.  It was on the outskirts of town.  A driver would take us there and back.  So we went to Tarvernetta.  We were the only customers, which was very strange, but the food was good.  I knew that Italians eat in courses, but that seemed like way too much food, so I ordered the second course (roasted chicken) with a side salad.  The food was good, and we relaxed and ate on the patio (no view, but it was nicely set up with flowers.) We went back to the hotel and went to sleep.