Southern Italy

Friday night, November 7th (last weekend of our mid-term break) Charlie, Josh, and I took a night train to Naples. It took about 10 hours, and it was so hard to sleep. We each had one seat in a six-seat compartment, and all the seats were full, so sleeping was highly uncomfortable. Charlie and I watched the Prince of Egypt on his Nintendo DS, and we ended up getting into Naples around 8am.

We took the Circumvisuviana to Pompei, which was where we started off our day. We rented audio guides and spent about three to four hours looking through the ruins. Pompei is a ruined/preserved city that was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. It was really cool to walk through the streets and see the houses that people lived in. Some walls had artwork that was preserved, and there were even cast molds of some people that had been buried alive! There was also a Colosseum. It was so exhilarating to stand in the center rink, knowing that many others had been there before, and fought and died. (Too bad I didn't get to go into the Roman Colosseum). We could see Mt. Vesuvius from everywhere, Naples, Sorrento, Capri, and Pompei. Around 1pm, we decided to head to Hostel 7 in Sorrento. BEST HOSTEL that I've ever stayed at. It was pretty much a hotel. We dropped our things off, and went into Sorrento to have dinner at Pizzeria da Franco. We then bought a bottle of limoncello, which Sorrento is very well-known for. It's 30% alcohol, so a bit less than vodka, and it obviously tastes kind of like lemon. I didn't really like it, but it did its job. We sat by the coast and finished the bottle off before heading back to the hostel where we drank more wine. Charlie fell asleep as we were watching The Office, but Josh and I had a great time.

Sunday morning, we took a ferry to Capri to see the Blue Grotto. It's this cave where the sun reflects off of the rocks in a certain manner, and where the light enters in a certain manner, that the water in it is blue. Not the blue of ocean water, but a beautifully bright blue that I've never seen before. The oarmen also sang while we were in there. We had to pay 11E to take a motor boat to the Grotto, and than anoter 10E to go into row boats that brought us into the cave. The cave opening was so small, I thought that we were going to hit the top. On rough water days the Grotto's actuallly closed because of this fear. Trying to get out of the cave, our rowboat was pushed out four times.

We didn't see any more of Capri because we were under the impression that we had to rush back for the Amalfi Coast. Our plan was to do Amalfi and then take the 9pm night train back to Milan. Turns out that there was a 24-hour strike, and we wouldn't be able to leave Naples until Monday. So we decided to save the Amalfi for Monday since all scooter places were closed anyway (Our plan was to scooter down the Amalfi Coast.), and took a walking tour of Naples instead. We had pizza for lunch at a really busy place, Trianon. It was delcious! We walked around and saw two castles and a lot of piazzas.

To head back to Sorrento, we took a crowded bus to get back to the main station. It was ridiculously packed, and there was a lot of commotion. Josh was by the backdoor since we got separated, and there was this one guy trying to cause a lot of problems. At one of the bus stops, four guys throw him off the bus, and one guy starts beating the crap out of him: throwing him against the wall, kicking his face, throwing punches. It was so scary! The guy that got beat up jumped back onto the bus, but continued to cause problems! He shattered a beer bottle on the pole and glass went flying everywhere in the bus. Apparently he was threatening someone....

And then Charlie got pickpocketed! He noticed someone was trying to take his wallet, so he shook that guy off, but then he went to check his other pocket and found out his camera was gone! He looked around him, and the thief was standing right next to him holding it....the bus door was open as well, but I guess he wanted to steal from more people. Charlie just points at the camera, and the guy says sorry and gives it back.... so messed up! And then I saw a guy unzipping Josh's backpack, and I just rip the zipper away from him and say "Scusa!" That guy immediately got off the bus...I think he probably got something from someone else and wanted to get out of there as fast as he could....what a day right?

We end up eating at this really quaint place in Sorrento for dinner, and then head back to Hostel 7 for the night.

Monday morning, we woke up thinking we would be able to visit the Amalfi Coast. Turns out the strikes kept the buses from running there, and all the scooter rental places were either out of scooters, or were closed. We decided we would rent a car, but then that place closed for 3 hours for lunch break! We literally walked all around Sorrento for +2 hours. Needless to say, it was very disappointing. We have lunch where we had dinner the night before, then we did a little shopping. We headed back to Naples for dinner at Da Michele, supposedly the best pizza in Italy. They only serve two types of pizza, so it's very simple, but it was really good. We took the night train back to Milan, getting in around 7am Tuesday morning.

All in all...we didn't quite get to see what we wanted to see. I would really love to go back to see the Amalfi Coast next time I come to Italy. It was a series of unfortunate events that kind of threw our itinerary off.