23 April - 30 April 2005
On Saturday,
23 April,
Alan &
Dianne kindly drove us to Heathrow London Airport to check in with BA to fly
from London to Rome. On arrival at
Rome Airport Graham phoned the Eurolease rep to pick up our car (Renault Scenic)
and we proceeded to drive south past Naples to Sorrento. We had
some problems with the GPS in the car on our way to Sorrento but worked out over
the next 2 days that the car windows were the issue (probably metallic
tinting) - all solved by putting the magnetised aerial
outside on the
car roof.
Saturday was the
beginning of a long weekend in Italy (holiday on Monday) so once we turned off
the Autostrade (motorway) to travel along the Sorrentine Peninsula to Sorrento,
the traffic was stop start - it took 1.5hrs to drive that stretch of road.
Thank goodness our apartment owner lived on site so was patiently waiting
for us! Our Sorrento apartment (Apartamenti Colorati) was a great
location - did heaps of walking and glad we stayed there rather than further
around on the Amalfi coast, as it was easy to travel wherever we wanted to visit.
The apartment was a 10 minute gentle uphill walk from the centre of Sorrento.
There was a general grocery/fruit/vegetable store 100metres down the road and a
largish restaurant (Restorante Pizzeria Da
Filippo) at the rear
- the locals frequented it in droves (few tourists go there as it's 10 minutes
walk from the main centre) - very convenient for us with a wide range of
meals available, great service and food, and they were so
very friendly.
Monday, we caught the ferry to Capri - unfortunately that morning it was
raining lightly so guess we got a different perspective of the Island than if it
was fine. We wandered around the
town of Capri and then caught a bus to Anacapri where we walked through the
shopping area, had lunch and then visited Villa S. Michele.
Lots of crocodiles (tour groups in long lines that charge through
everything and everyone!) in Anacapri – we weren’t able to get to all view
points due to the weather - heaps of wispy fog around the peninsula so distant
views not so clear. We used the funicular railway to get between the port and
Capri. The rest of the week was
fine, sunny and very warm with cool mornings and evenings with sea breezes.
Tuesday, we
caught the train to Pompei (fun working out the Italian timetable
ensuring we got on the correct train), arriving at the entrance gate at 8.30am,
walked around Pompei for 6 hrs - so interesting seeing all the ruins. Mid
afternoon we caught a bus up Mt Vesuvius then walked the rest of the way
(a good climb after walking around Pompei for 6hrs) - 27.5k steps on the
pedometer that day! Slept well that night.
Wednesday, we drove around the western end of the Sorrentine peninsula –
really enjoyed calling into all the little villages that not so many tourists
visit eg, St Agata, Nerano, Marina di Cantone (delightful little
fishing village), St Maria, Annunziata, Massa Lubrense and Marina
della Lobca (delightful bay).
Thursday, we
drove around the peninsula to Positano and Amalfi (nice seaside
town) – visited the Duomo while a wedding was taking place (nice experience),
got some good photos of the happy couple who drove away from the cathedral in a
little “Smart car”, also visited an historic paper mill. Drove up the
interesting narrow winding road to Ravello for great views.
Many of the roads on the Amalfi Peninsula were very narrow and
windy - great fun, Italian drivers are very good at taking advantage of you, if
you allow it - they seem to have little fear or guess they are more
accustomed to the conditions than we were, but Graham gave them a good run for
their money! We were surprised at the number of children in cars who
weren’t restrained, sitting on another adult on a front seat!
Walked
around Sorrento a lot and found something different each time we were walking -
loved the place.
Visited the
Sorrento webcam
site
(http://www.sorrentoinfo.com/webcam.asp) on a number of occasions and talked to Paul and Robyn on the phone while
they viewed us early one morning.
Sorrento was full of Limoncello, and lots of lemon trees everywhere - had
many tastes. The last day we were at our villa in Sorrento the front door
blew shut and locked us out. We were very concerned, as Graham had put a
pot of water onto boil on a gas element – no such things as kettles in Italy.
I went over to the Pizza Restaurant next door, found the owner's wife (no
English spoken) but she eventually realised what had happened and kindly phoned
the owner, who came down and unlocked the door. That evening we dined at
their Pizza restaurant next door and gave her a small NZ gift for her kindness
that morning. When we left she
responded and gave us two Limoncello shot glasses.
On the last day our villa owner left us a bottle of Limoncello –
we are almost addicted to it!
While in the Sorrento area we had one morning of rain otherwise the weather was fine and sunny ranging between 19 - 28 deg C. In the evenings the breezes were slightly cool as they were off the sea.
On Saturday, 30 April we
reluctantly left Sorrento and drove
north to our villa in Castiglion Fiorentino in Tuscany calling
into the Royal Palace in Caserta – huge place but not nearly as
spectacular as Versailles (French Palace – Chateau de Versailles) in Paris.
We also called into Monte Casino (12.25pm) but it was just closing for
"siesta" time.
