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| Looking towards Sorrento |
Sunday – I glanced
between the shutters to see blue sky and sunshine. My mood lifted and I began to think that
perhaps I had packed the right wardrobe after all! We were at breakfast before 8am and
afterwards opened the shutters and while hubby was getting stuff ready I sat on
the balcony and watched a green lizard wander around in the ground below. It perched on a rock for a while and I
wondered whether it was enjoying the feel of the sun as much as me. Around me birds sang and it was all so
peaceful. The only other sound was the
beeping of traffic as they encountered the bends in the road at the front of
the hotel (we were at the back). The
road outside was a very busy one with lots of twists and turns, also
uphill. Two roads met there and it was
great to watch cars, coaches, scooters and buses negotiate this. Italians are crazy drivers but they have to
be good drivers too. Beeping seems obligatory
everywhere and some of the actions would be illegal here (saw three on a
scooter once but they did all have crash helmets!).
We bought our bus tickets from reception and caught the
bus down into town. Hubby thought it was
further away than it was so we missed our stop and if I hadn’t insisted we got
off we would have ended up at the end of the route in Meta. We walked back in the heat and I used my
limited Italian ‘Scuzi’ to ask where we were!
Everyone speaks English to some extent and all were willing to
help. When we got back to Sorrento’s
main square, Piazza Tasso, we went down through streets to where we overlooked
Marina Piccola. My digital camera, which
I had been using fine, decided to die on me then with a memory card error. I went into panic. I’d bought a new card especially for the
holiday and taken about 12 photos. I
remembered seeing a Kodak sign in one of the squares so we headed there and I
ended up paying 38 euros for a new card (a dent I didn’t need in my money but
what could I do). It all worked fine and
hubby took a shot of me with the shop owner, me very relieved! (Later, trying
to work out why the card had failed, clever son’s girlfriend said that only a
damaged chip or water could have been the problem and then I remembered that
I’d opened a bottle of water which was rather full and some had dripped onto my
camera. That must have been it.)
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| Mr Kodak! |
Next we had to find the Officer’s Club where we were to
meet our tour rep for the meeting at 12.30pm.
This was fast becoming a fiasco.
Everyone was helpful in trying to tell us where it was so we went down a
steep road to the marina, back up in the lift, walked round and round in
circles with our map and had decided we were just not going to get there when
we found it. We’d walked past it several
times! We were fifteen minutes late but
we had arrived. We’d already booked
tours to Pompeii, Amalfi coast and Capri but now we booked two extra – to the
crater of Vesuvius and to Herculaneum.
Having calmed down after a stressful morning we strolled around the
shops, bought some biscuits and slowly walked back up to our hotel. As it wasn’t as far as we thought we decided
not to use the bus again. I sat on the
balcony reading in the afternoon and then it was dinner and bed at 10pm. We had an early start the next morning for
our first trip.
Monday –
another fine sunny day. And so to
Pompeii. We were being picked up at
8.45am so it was down to breakfast as soon as they were serving – 7am. Our guide for the day was Nello, a man who
had lived and worked in various parts of the UK and reckoned he knew us better
than we knew ourselves. He said that
living in England he realised that the Italians were the worst organised in the
whole world! Nello was quite a character
– funny but you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him either. He went for some other tourists one day
because he thought they were queue jumping.
At one point I thought he would come to blows. He called all other tour groups barbarians! His knowledge was excellent and his remarks
were really funny. When people stopped
to sit he’d say ‘rest time over, now walk!’
As we neared Pompeii he said that although Vesuvius hadn’t erupted since
the 1940’s it could go at any time. If
this happened when we were there we were not to run away but gather around him,
ladies first, men at the back so that we all died together. We were to smile,
so that when we were found later and made into casts, people would see we were
enjoying ourselves and happy when we died!
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| Theatre, Pompeii |
There is so much to Pompeii – it’s huge and you would
never see anything. There are advantages
and disadvantages in visiting in a group.
You have to go where you are taken, so you see only those parts but on
the other hand you get told things you might not know and you don’t get lost
(easy to do there). It was such a hot
day too so we looked for any shade we could find. The bath houses were interesting with some
wall frescoes and the red light district also had some very interesting
advertisements on the walls of the brothels!
All the original casts were in a section in rooms near the Forum secured
behind bars. One cast (of the dog) was
currently at Naples Museum. I saw a replica of this at the British Museum
exhibition recently.
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| The Forum, Pompeii |
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| The streets of Pompeii |
Pompeii was incredibly busy and each tour wore stickers
and the leader held aloft a stick with a flag or some other recognisable thing
so groups knew who to follow. If you
wandered off you may still be trying to find the way out! After a break for lunch some of the party
went back to Sorrento and those going to Vesuvius got on the coach for another
twisty, turny journey up to the crater.
Then it was on foot. We weren’t
really told just how much walking there would be – all uphill. In the heat it was quite a pull up there and
I don’t think everyone in our party made it to the top. Even I was flagging but I did get there. The view back to Naples Bay was great but
shrouded in heat haze. Took tons of
photos inside the crater but I guess once you’ve seen one piece of rock you’ve
seen them all so there is a big edit going on with the photos! Going down was much easier but hell on the
knees. Lovely drive back to Sorrento and
we were back around 4pm so time to relax on the balcony before dinner.
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| Looking into the crater |
Tuesday –
sunny again. Today it was our tour along
the Amalfi coast. We were warned that
the succession of bends might cause travel sickness to those who suffered but
that our driver would go slowly. We were
in a mini bus this time and our driver was excellent so even I was fine. The journey reminded me a little of trips to
Box Hill in Surrey which also has lots of bends as you rise to the top. We climbed higher and higher. The views were spectacular. Seaside towns perched on the hillsides,
beautiful and breath taking. We stopped
at Amalfi for a boat trip taking in the coastline either side of the
capital. It was lovely. Then on to Scala way up high for our
lunch. Hubby and I shared a plate of
pasta and a light sponge with cream. Our
last stop was Ravello where Wagner wrote one of his famous pieces at a villa
there. Instead I visited the church but
I think I should have gone to the villa!
The church didn’t have a great deal to see. The town is full of cafes and ceramic shops
(no prices displayed). Afterwards the return trip was a nice relaxing ride down
the bends back to Sorrento.
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| View of the Amalfi coast |
(Part 3 tomorrow)
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