Sorrento
We arrived in Sorrento in the afternoon, and trudged our bags through the streets and up to our hotel. We then began exploring our new surroundings by wandering through the tourist shops all along the small winding streets. We stopped for dinner at a small pub, an English pub! We thought we had struck gold to finally find a restaurant that served food other than Italian... but the chicken burgers we ordered were more like green scrapings from the factory floor, so Sara and I sent them back. We then continued to wander the streets and came across a parade down the main street. Priests, men and boys marched along with flags, incense, candles and crosses. I’m not quite sure what it was for but interesting to watch nonetheless.
When the parade finished, Sara and I were still hungry as we had not eaten our dinner so we stopped at a waffle house for some crepes. After ordering we sat down on the outside tables. Two young boys, probably around 12 years old sat next to us, and Mum being ever-insistent to talk to locals, thought she would strike up a conversation with the boys. She started with a friendly hello, to which they politely nodded. She then asked “are you having waffles or crepes? They look very yummy in this restaurant” to which one of the boys tapped his chest with the palm of his hand and said “Italiano” with a look of “lady, I got no idea what you’re on about, why are you speaking to me in your language? I’m Italian”. It was adorable and unexpected so Sara and I laughed, but then he seemed quite upset to now be ridiculed for not speaking English, which was not the case, though it was hard for us to express that we were not laughing at him, but rather laughing at the fact he had so eloquently told Mum to stop talking to him. He turned away to eat his meal when it arrived and we let him be. Poor kid...
Next we went in search of a bar to get our drink on! We saw a sign for karaoke so headed inside, to find that we were the only ones there. We had one drink in hopes others would join but left soon after and headed to an Irish bar. After many drinks, we all got our dance on. Sara and I made up actions to all the words of the songs and acted like complete morons... only to have the rest of the bar copy us because we were “so cool”... Seamus the barman became our best friend and was always trying to pump up the crowd by stopping the music between songs to yell “Are you ready??.... Are you really really really ready?!”. Normally that would get annoying by the 50th time, but I guess by our 50th drink it just became funnier and expected of our dear friend Seamus... eventually though, we had to bid farewell to our new friends at the bar, and stumbled home to our hotel in the wee early hours of the morning.
The next day we found a gelato cafe that served breakfast... REAL breakfast! So Sara and I were delighted to eat eggs on toast! Finally! Next we went by ferry to the Isle of Capri. Upon arrival we followed signs to the tourist centre which was in the town centre... we continued to follow said signs, up and up... and up the blasted hill... it was never ending! Every step we took Mum assured us that it must just be a little bit further... even though the people we passed coming down the hill kept saying we had quite a while to go... eventually we made it to the top of the MOUNTAIN only to realise there had been a funicular to take people up the hill... and although I’m scared of funiculars... anything would have been better than climbing that mountain so I would have sucked it up...
Capri is mostly full of tourist shops so we had a look through them before getting a boat around the island. As the water was quite choppy and high we went to the Green Grotto instead of the Blue Grotto, as we had been told the Blue Grotto was closed for the day, and was too late once we found out the guy had lied to us. It was quite pretty however, and very green as the name suggests. By the time we left the island it was getting quite cloudy and cold, but was still a beautiful place to visit.
That night we went back to the Irish bar from the previous night. Unfortunately they had sport playing on the screens till after 10pm so the mood was very different. It did however, give us a chance to talk to an American family we had met the previous night. When the music started up again, Seamus did his best to entice us to dance, but Sara and I were not in the mood. The other 12 people who returned from the previous night looked quite disappointed that the dancing girls were not their entertainment for the evening, despite their best efforts of inviting us, and continuing to practice the moves they had learnt from us...
The next day we took a train to Pompeii. The sheer size of the site was astonishing. It was interesting to walk around the archaeological site, and the audio guide was definitely useful to explain what all the piles of rock, and missing walls used to be, though I found it a little long winded in places. With over 80 “points of interest” to listen to and walk to, it did feel a little tedious by the afternoon. There was a group of people dressed in togas who were all running around the site with Ipads, they had been split up into groups, identified by coloured sashes, and were in a race to find clues throughout the site. They were an American group of friends who were there for a 50th birthday. Sara and I thought that was a brilliant idea and they all looked to be having a lot of fun. Sara and I later decided to leave Mum and head back to Sorrento, while Mum went to Herculaneum to see another archaeological site, though she was not as impressed with it as she had been with Pompeii.
After dinner, we headed home for an early night, only to be stopped by an Irish girl outside our favourite pub, who recognised us from the first night and invited us to stop and chat. We ended up having another big night of drinking and dancing which was a lot of fun, though Mum didn’t last as long and Sara and I, and went home before us.
The next morning, we still managed to get the 10:30 bus to the Amalfi Coast, though Sara and I did not appreciate the winding road on the way there so attempted some sleep... The view when we arrived was gorgeous and once again full of tourist shops. We spent the day strolling along the water and trawling the shops for nik nacks... Now, Sara and I both hate shop spruikers, we figure if we're going to shop somewhere we don't want to be yelled at at the front door. We don't mind the odd hello, or a friendly smile that lets us know they are there to help, but as soon as you start showing me how something obvious works, or start reading us a menu written in English, we are out of there. Our general rule is that we are friendly until they go too far and insult our intelligence, and then we move on... As you can imagine, it was quite difficult to choose a restuarant in tourist areas because everyone is out to get you... Anyway, like I said, normally we are done as soon as you annoy us.... but this day we made an exception... Sara found a small vendor who was selling random things... one thing however caught her eye...a pen... on a string... attached to a belt hook... the seller showed Sara how the pen could be pulled in and out on the retractable string... see? insulting her intelligence... really? a retractable string goes in AND out?!? wow!... so Sara did the normal thing and walked away... but then when she told me about the pen, we realised how useful a pen is, especially when we could attach it to our day bags, and just pull on it whenever we needed to write anything down... genius!... sooo... we broke our number one rule and bought a pen each... for 1 euro each... and oh... you have no idea how much those pens were to entertain us...
Late that afternoon Sara and I caught the bus back to Sorrento, as Mum had left earlier than us. Now feeling more awake we were able to look out the bus window... what an incredible road! The narrow road wound around the cliff face with barely enough room for our bus let alone 2 way traffic with one lane each. Other cars over took us at great speed in some places. Our bus had to toot the horn around each bend to warn oncoming traffic we were on our way because the corners were blinded by overhanging rock. At one point there was another bus coming the other way so we both had to stop. The drivers got out and inspected the angles as the overhanging rock was ridiculously close. After a few quick manoeuvres we edged our way free with a paper thin gap between the bus on one side and the rock face on the other. It was incredible, and the drivers seemed unfazed, presumably as this would happen multiple times a day, nevertheless our bus gave our driver applause as we continued to drive along. The whole drive home had stunning views over the water and it was amazing to see how the houses were built right into the rocks, many with lemon orchids layered like steps down the cliff face, which produce the regions famous lemoncello liqueur (which are not only bottled in Cello shaped bottles, but all sorts of amazing twisted glass shapes, and can be found in all the tourist shops, and tastes delicious!).
That night we headed to bed early in preparation for our morning taxi to Rome Airport. We had not realised how long public transport would take from Sorrento to get us to Rome Airport to catch our flight to Athens, so it worked out cheaper to get a taxi for the three of us, rather than leaving a day early and paying accommodation twice. Next stop... Dadda!
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