Our trip to Italy this time around was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. I should really start this blog quoting Charles Dickens “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.” We spent a week in the Amalfi coast and had some pretty high expectations of our last trip sans baby. I think we both hoped the area would be a lot like Cinque Terre where we were married.
The trip started out well. We flew into Naples on TUIfly. It was our first time on that airline and we were surprised how pleasant the flight was. We even got fed on our two hour flight and didn’t have to pay to check our baggage. After almost exclusively flying German Wings where you have to pay for a drink, to reserve a seat and to check 1 bag, I felt like we were in business class.
Upon arrival we unfortunately missed the 4:30 bus to Sorrento which Jim of course reminded me wouldn’t have happened had we not checked our luggage. We have an ongoing dispute regarding the checking of luggage. At the end of this trip we decided that we would have saved about 3 hours if we hadn’t checked our baggage. This is by no means a victory for Jim’s cause. To have checked our baggage we would have had to do laundry at least once or twice during the trip because the size of the bags they allow you to carry on are minute and realistically fit a pair of shoes, toiletries and 2 outfits. According to my tally, we are still in a dead heat on the question of to check or not to check.
Since we had about 90 minutes to kill before the next bus, we sat outside the airport at a café. It was the perfect temperature for sitting at an outdoor café and a good strong Italian coffee or glass of wine would have made it perfect. I unfortunately ordered aqua.
The bus trip to Sorrento was over 90 minutes on incredibly congested 2 lane roads hugging the coastline. The road dropped off steeply to the water and the bus would beep around the hairpin turns to warn oncoming traffic to get outta da way.
We managed to find our accommodation without too much trouble. I had checked Trip Advisor earlier in the week and found that some very disparaging reviews of the place had recently been posted. Unfortunately by that time it was too late to cancel without losing our money. So walking into the place I already had some reservations.
Our “B&B” was located in an old apartment complex and was a single apartment which had been converted into three separate rooms with cheap modern décor. Our room was the blue room and had a lovely view of the train tracks below our window. On line of course there was no mention of train tracks right outside the window and Emily must have used some tricky photography because the rooms looked huge on her website.
We both felt a little dejected by our first impressions of Sorrento. It was a busy, tourist laden, congested city that didn’t have the same quaint charm of Cinque Terre. As it was so late by that point, we decided to grab a pizza for dinner at a rundown spot around the corner with a T.V. blaring a soccer match.
The next morning after a restless sleep, we were served our “breakfast” which was a couple of packaged croissants and a coffee which we had to eat in bed because there was no breakfast table in the room (not particularly comfortable when you are 7 ½ months pregnant). Thankfully, we had a mini fridge in the room so we were able to go grocery shopping for some fruit, yogurt, juice and muesli so we told Emily to skip the breakfast for the rest of the week. I didn’t want to waste my caffeine intake on her paltry espresso.
We set out for the tourist information office and to get Jim a proper coffee which I hoped would put him in a better mood. Someone, I’m not mentioning any names here, doesn’t do well without much sleep (a fact which is getting more and more concerning the closer I get to giving birth). The tourist information office was closed so we decided to come back the next day.
We decided to have a low key day in Sorrento rather than battle the tourist crowds on the buses and boats going to other towns. After doing some grocery shopping, we headed to Marina Grande for some lunch. We had a long leisurely lunch at Delfinos. It was located at the end of the marina on a long pier over the water. It was a picture perfect location with a great breeze off the sea and put both of us in a great mood. We decided that our vacation was finally coming around.
I ordered the seafood risotto which was full of squid, octopus, clams and mussels while Jim ordered the local specialty – Gnocchi alla Sorrento (gnocchi in a tomato sauce with melted mozzarella). Both dishes were great and the ½ bottle of wine Jim had put him in a very relaxed mood.
After seeing that I was pregnant our waitress gave us little Catholic miraculous medals of the Immaculate Conception to protect our family and help us be good parents. She must hand them out to a lot of people because she had a tin of these medals in her pocket. It felt like a very Italian gesture which the cynic in me figured was probably the desired effect. However, being on vacation I decided to give my
cynicism a rest, and gave our waitress a big tip instead as the rest of the wait staff had also been quite entertaining.
After lunch, we wandered around town looking for a shop selling hiking maps but didn’t have any luck. We did however find lots of limencello, ugly plates decorated with lemons and I love Sorrento t-shirts.
We attempted to find a hiking path without a map using only the description in our lonely planet book. However, after walking uphill on busy roads for about 30 minutes, we decided to cut our losses and go back to the room for a nap.
That evening we ventured out and were surprised to find the town just as vibrant as it had been on Saturday night. Most of the retail shops were open even though they hadn’t been open during the day. I think the shops have realized that the tourists leave on day trips during the daytime and then return in the evening to shop and eat. During the week a lot of shops would close for the afternoon and open up again from 5-10 at night.
After having such a large lunch, we decided to have a low cost dinner and get a quick pizza at Da Franco’s. The restaurant is very casual with cafeteria like tables and benches. They serve their drinks in plastic Dixie sized cups and the pizza is served in tin pans with wax paper. They can get away with a complete lack of ambiance because their pizza is so good. We ended up eating there 3 times during our trip.
On Monday, we decided to take the boat to Positano. When planning this trip I mistakenly forgot about Jim’s motion sickness on boats and buses which was going to be our main mode of transportation for the week. Oops! Since all of the seats outside were taken, Jim had to stand at the back of the boat for the entire journey. I went out to check on him once and for the first time during my pregnancy someone offered me their seat.
Positano looked a lot more like Cinque Terre and was set into a ravine with houses built up high on each side of the steep hills. The beach was a pebble beach with no sand and was lined with brightly colored umbrellas and lounge chairs that one could rent for the day.
Our first agenda was lunch. We walked the waterfront to evaluate our options and settled on a Rick Steve’s recommendation – La Cambusa. It was quite hot so I ordered a Salat Nizzardo Jim ordered the seafood pasta which was simple but very good.
After lunch we wandered the narrow, steep pedestrian only streets of which there were only a few and did a little window shopping. There wasn’t much to do in the town besides that so after a refreshing lemon granita and a 5 euro pareo purchase, we went back down to the beach to take the boat home.
We had some time to kill before catching the next boats so we decided to put our feet in the water to cool off a bit. The water felt amazing and we regretted not bringing our swim suits.
We were able to get rock star seats on the top deck of the boat for the 90 minute ride back to Sorrento. It was a slower boat so was more relaxing. Jim even fell asleep in his lounge chair on the ride home while I took pictures of the coast.
On Tuesday, we had planned to go to Capri. However, after another sleepless night and feeling the water in Positano, we decided to have a beach day. We went to Marina del Cantone which was a tiny little marina on the other side of the Sorrento Peninsula and off the tourist circuit. We had to take a bus there and although it was only about 20k away, it took an hour to get there. The roads are so narrow and curvy that it wasn’t a pleasant drive for Jim. We were amazed with the skill of these bus drivers. In some instances we had only a centimeter between us and another huge bus.
Marina del Cantone was a tiny marina with one hotel and about 6 restaurants. We rented beach chairs and an umbrella for the day. It was another pebble beach so you needed to have a sun lounger to be comfortable. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the fact that there was no sand to get between your toes and in other nooks and crannies.
Unlike Positano, this marina didn’t have large ferries and boats coming into port so it was much more tranquil. Since it wasn’t peak tourist season, a lot of the restaurants were closed. For lunch we settled on a small place lining the beach which looked to be the only restaurant with customers. We didn’t have high expectations but were pleasantly surprised. We got the best seafood of our trip at that restaurant. The mussels were huge and I assume caught that morning.
We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and sunning ourselves and caught the 5:00 bus back to Sorrento. About half way through the ride, a group of about 20 teenage girls filled the bus with their non-stop chatter. Jim and I both looked at each other thinking the same thing; we are going to have one of these soon and hopefully we will be able to survive our daughter’s teenage years.
Once in Sorrento, we couldn’t wait to get off the hot, noisy bus and take a cool shower back at our hotel. Sadly in my rush to get off the bus and away from the noisy girls, I left the camera on the bus. However, I didn’t realize it until that night when I went to charge the camera and it wasn’t in the room.
That night after dinner at a disappointing tourist trap we wandered around town and solved a smelly mystery. During our walks in Sorrento we kept encountering the smell of dog poop even if there wasn’t any in the vicinity. We realized that it was a berry on a low palm tree. Watch out Franken Berry Crunch, there’s a new breakfast cereal in town – Poo Berry Stench. Now the only remaining mystery was why our hotel fridge smelled of mothballs.
Wednesday morning our first priority was getting our camera back. We were doubtful that anyone would have returned it since we were in Italy and in a very touristy spot. Surprisingly though when we asked the people at the bus station, they made a call and were able to track it down. Apparently a woman in St. Agata had found a camera the night before so we got on a bus to St. Agata which was about 40 minutes away to meet her. We were so elated that we had found the camera and would have all of our pictures from the trip so far. However, when we met the woman she handed us a camera which wasn’t ours. Disheartened we took the bus back to Sorrento. It was bad enough to have lost the camera in the first place but now we felt like we had lost it a second time.
We decided to go to Pompeii for the afternoon after wasting our entire morning chasing after the camera since it was only a 30 minute train ride away. We should have eaten before getting to Pompeii because as soon as we got off the train, we were bombarded with men trying to get us to eat at the little restaurants lined up outside the site of Pompeii. One guy wouldn’t leave us alone, insisting that we look at the menu while he kept repeating, “look, look, you must look at the quality.” Sadly, they weren’t even able to make the pictures of their food look appetizing so we looked but didn’t stop.
We decided to wander down the road to see if there were any better choices. There weren’t. We ended up getting a terrible pizza and eating it along the side of the road.
Pompeii was absolutely massive and didn’t have a very ordered route through the site. They simply let you move through the site on your own which was a little overwhelming. We tried to follow along with the information booklet but after struggling to find the numbers corresponding to the descriptions in our little booklet, we decided to just wander around. I think that we were both a bit depressed after the morning’s disappointment so our hearts weren’t really into sightseeing. After about 2 hours in the heat battling the crowds of tourists, we called it a day and headed back to Sorrento.
We went back to Da Franco’s and had some more excellent pizza in an environment that doesn’t cater to tourists and doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t.
On Thursday we were again going to go to Capri but we didn’t get an early start. Plus after battling the crowds at Pompeii we weren’t inclined to go to another tourist trap so we decided to go back to Marina del Cantone for another relaxing beach day. The weather unfortunately turned cloudy after our late lunch so we left earlier than planned to avoid the rain.
On Friday, we awoke to pouring rain so had a lazy morning while planning our options for the day. We decided to go to Capri even though the Blue Grotto would be closed due to the inclement weather. I hoped that there might be fewer tourists than if the weather wasn’t as sunny and nice as it had been the rest of the week.
When we got to the Marina Grande, we took the funicular up to Capri. The town was pretty similar to how Rick described it in his book; a paradise for anyone who can afford to drop 500 euro on a night in a swanky hotel or 4,000 euro on a new Prada purse. I guess day tripping tourists just like to see what they are missing by not being famous or rich. Personally window shopping isn’t all that fun when you know that anything you see is completely out of your reach. It makes you feel a bit impoverished when you compare your Target outfit to that of the Gucci attired woman next to you. I guess that is probably one of the reasons I never look at those star magazines like People. How does looking at beautiful people with amazing clothing and a seemingly endless source of income make you feel better about your own life?
We wandered the streets of Capri and then made our way to the Gardini di Augusto. The garden was perched on a huge cliff with views of the sea below and the limestone rocks which rise steeply out of the water near the island.
Since it was already late in the day we decided to skip Anacapri and do a hike that was suggested in the Lonely Planet. We walked from Capri to the Arco Naturale which was a beautiful natural rock arch. It reminded me a lot of the arches in Moab except that there was crystal blue water in the background rather than dry red desert landscape.
The way down from the arch was a long, very steep set of stairs which wasn’t very forgiving on my knees and joints. However, the views we were rewarded with made it worth it. The trail was lush and almost completely devoid of people. We passed a cave that had been a temple for Nymphs as well as a villa where a Bridgette Bardot movie was filmed. Although we had low expectations of Capri, that hike turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. Unfortunately my sad little disposable camera wasn’t quite able to capture the true beauty of the place.
That night to celebrate our anniversary we had reservations at the best restaurant in Sorrento – Il Buco. We were seated next to a wedding party from Australia so it was a nice reminder of our own destination wedding.
We figured that this might be our last really nice meal for a long time so we splurged and got the five course gourmet menu. It was a delicious way to celebrate our marriage, and we both left the restaurant fat and happy.
On our last day in Sorrento, we decided to do a hike on the Sorrento Peninsula. We took a short bus ride up to Termini and after getting some coffee and a snack, set off for Campanella del Punto. The point was supposed to have the best views of Capri.
The trail was at first actually a narrow road through some olive and lemon orchards but then turned into an old, uneven cobbled path. As we walked through the olive tree groves, Jim tried one of the olives and discovered that there is a reason every olive you’ve ever eaten has been cured; they are bitter little suckers!
It was quite a hot day so after we had worked up a sweat on our hike; we went in search of a beach. We were able to find one on the map that wasn’t too far away. The trail down to the beach was quite steep and difficult to navigate so we hoped that the beach would be fairly deserted.
When we arrived at the secluded little bay we were happy to see that the beach was completely empty. Since we were all alone we decided to forgo the swim suits and go skinny dipping a la our wedding night in Portovenere.
The waves in this bay were much larger than on the other side of the Peninsula so we were cautious not to swim out too far. After a second swim, we got dressed and explored some of the caves nearby. Thankfully, I was able to convince Jim not to jump off a cliff into the water
The hike back up was a bit torturous and hot but we took it nice and slow for the pregnant lady.
Back in Termini we refreshed ourselves with ice cream bars and lots of water while waiting for the next bus to Sorrento.
While we were waiting, we witnessed a funeral procession ending at the very same church we had seen a wedding at earlier in the day. It was interesting to see the circle of life Italian style.
On our last morning in Sorrento, we went for a coffee before heading to the airport.
All in all, we had a pretty good trip. The highlights were our two days in Marina del Cantone, and the hikes in Capri and on the Sorrento Peninsula. We realized that for us a vacation means being close to nature and a bit off the beaten track.
We took a picture with the winner of the race. He was a really nice guy. He came over to talk with Jim and to thank him for coming. The guy was a former Dutch national cross country skier who now lived in Austria and was somehow involved in the organization of the race. 
