Napoli, Sorrento, Capri, Oh My!!

Research done, hotels investigated, Trip Advisor checked, tickets bought, rooms booked, bags packed, Kika and I took off on our adventure to Southern Italy.  Thursday night I raced home from work and we hopped on a plane to arrive in the "beautiful" city of Napoli.  For the two years I've lived in Italy, I've heard nothing but bad things about Naples.  The city is full of trash, it's dirty, it's controlled by the Mafia, it's full of corruption, etc.  So you can imagine there was a bit of apprehension as we were arriving in the city at 9pm at night.  But we put on our big girl panties and caught the Alibus that was to drop us off at Piazza Garibaldi where our hotel was located. 

We stepped off the bus into the exact picture painted by all the warnings I've received over the last two years.  There was graffiti on every door, window, and wall.  The TRASH was piled everywhere.  We have been told the trash workers have been on strike for years and the city is so controled by the mafia it has been unable to get anyone in to take the place of the workers and do the job.  It looked as if a big festival had just taken place and they forgot to clean it up.  We immediately began the search for our hotel, amid the hundreds of people wandering, sitting, and loitering around the piazza.  This was not the loitering and wandering that goes on in San Marco's Square in Venice where people are strolling and taking in the moment as a string band is playing a romantic melody.  These were locals sitting, congregating, just hanging out on a Thursday at 10pm, for no reason.  As soon as we spotted the hotel, my bag tucked tight under my arms, my head up and alert, I took off running power walking to safety!  The place gave me the heebie jeebies!

Beautiful...makes you want to visit, huh?

And the trash is piling up...

But we made it safely to our hotel.  We stayed in a chain that I had previously stayed at in Florence that was gorgeous.  The hotel in Naples didn't quite live up to the standard in Florence (shocking) but it was doable for the night.  We did our sightseeing of Naples from our balcony that night and considered the city seen.  We took off bright and early Friday morning to start our trek south.  We hopped on the train in Naples and made our way down to the Ercolano ruins and Pompeii ruins.  These are ancient cities from the first century that were "destroyed" when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.  But instead of total destruction the volcanic ash actually preserved the cities in a better state than most ruins ever hold up.  It almost left the city "frozen".  There are people and pets completely preserved as they were when the volcanic ash covered them...kind of morbid, but an amazing discovery for the archaeologists who dug out the city.  We had to opportunity to wander the city and look in the various homes, buildings, and churches.  Some of the marble and wall paintings were still in tact.  Despite the grueling heat of Southern Italy in mid August, it was quite a neat experience.

Kika and I at Pompeii with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

After withstanding all the heat and sunshine we could bear while carrying our belongings on our backs, we headed back to the train and took it down to the beautiful city of Sorrento.  It was like traveling to a different country from Naples/Pompeii area to Sorrento (30 minutes away).  We stepped off the train in this city to walk into a tropical paradise with beautifully landscaped parks, palm trees, unique shops selling limoncello and homemade sandals, and glimpses of the ocean below the cliffs of the city.  This was how we pictured Southern Italy!

Beautiful Sorrento

We wandered to our hotel to check in and clean up before exploring the city and looking for some food.  As we approached our hotel we were becoming a bit concerned because it was not looking ANYTHING like the pictures...hmmm.  We all know how this ends up...and it did.  The gentleman at the desk walked us up to our dorm room and wished us a pleasant stay.  He left us with our jaws open as we took in our cell block.  Literally there was dorm room wood furniture in the room with one sky blue wall, not a picture on the wall, and a window that looked into the interior stairwell of the hotel.  Sweet.  Our twin beds were separated by a night stand and the armoire was unable to open as Kika's bed was pushed against it.  My backside hit the wall of our alley way bathroom every time I bent over to wash my face...yes, we were living in luxury.

In our heads we were going on a beach vacation to southern Italy so after we got over the fact that 1) there were not beaches, but cliffs in Sorrento and 2) our hotel was not anything close to our "Florida" beach hotel we had in our heads, we found the humor in the fact that we could sleep in our own beds, but still hold hands in our cozy, tight little space.  So we showered, became beautiful, and hit the town.  We were both thoroughly impressed with the town and the cute little shops and restaurants that kept the town busy until late at night.  We had dinner at a restaurant on the cliff overlooking the ocean where we were treated like royalty and had about 5 different waiters welcoming us and helping us.  I'd like to think it's because we were two cute girls out to dinner, but it might have been because we were the only ones in the restaurant when we arrived!

Our view from dinner.

The next morning we took a cute little train ride around the city...as the train filled up we realized we were the youngest participants by about 40 years, but we enjoyed the ride before we made our way to the port to catch the ferry to Capri.  We boarded our boat to head over to the Island of Capri.  We were met at the port by the lady who ran the hotel we were staying at with her mother.  She picked us up and drove us up the terrifyingly narrow and steep road to the town of Anacapri.  This island was again, mostly one large rock with cliffs down to the ocean.  The road is so narrow about every 200 yards you have to pull over to let the oncoming traffic go by.  Multiple times while we were on city buses we had stand offs with other vehicles where the whole line of traffic had to back up to let the vehicle through.  All the while we are overlooking steep cliffs over the ocean...beautifully terrifying!  But I'm happy to announce our hotel was much, much better than our previous ones from the trip.  We walked in and met the lady's mother, and the lady who would be preparing breakfast and cleaning our room, it was a tiny little 7 room place, but very clean and cute.

These were all the taxis on the island...a modified convertible!  How cute is that?

We took off exploring the island by foot.  We hiked our way down to the Blue Grotto.  It was about a 45 minute walk along the water the whole way.  We climbed down to the cave in the water and took the ride on the little row boat to enter the cave.  I have to give major props to Kika here as she conquered her fear of not only the ocean, but boats as well to see the Blue Grotto.  We layed down in the floor of the boat as we went in the entrance that was only about 3 feet high.  After you enter the cave when you look down at the water it is an exquisite glowing blue from the sun shining outside the cave.  It was so gorgeous and well worth the little trip.  Loved it!

Hiking down the stairs...all the way to the water.

Our view during our hike to the Blue Grotto.

Stopped for lunch at a cute little restaurant on the water.



It's a small little world, we ran into Scott and Lindsey at the Blue Grotto, some friends from the Logistics squadron on base.  They are in the little row boat on their way into the cave.



Kika and I in our little row boat.

Inside the Blue Grotto.  The picture hardly does the scene justice, but you can get an idea of how beautiful it was!

Check out the entrance to the Blue Grotto...pretty small!

We then hiked BACK up to our hotel which was quite a feat as we were down at the sea level and our hotel was up the cliff...45 minutes UP the cliffs.  Props to Kika who was determined for us to hike it.  It was quite the hike, but who needs a bus when you have legs, right?  So we cleaned up at the hotel, made ourselves to be what we THOUGHT was beautiful and headed into town for dinner.  We had a delicious dinner in Anacapri and finished early enough with time to visit the city of Capri (the only other city on the island).  So we took the bus to Capri and stepped out into the world of the rich and famous...literally.  We start walking and passing these ladies dressed to the tens, walking gracefully down the cobblestone streets with their stilettos, designer handbags, and men in their high end suits.  We start passing Versace, Gucci, Prada, stores I can't afford to look through the window of, let alone walk in!  The crowd there was quite impressive and it was totally unexpected.  We felt a bit out of place, but we got over it as we admired the scenery and imagined us vacationing there one day when we make our millions!

The scenery from the boat tour around the island.

Orange coral living on the walls of the cave.

Our final day consisted of me taking a boat tour around the island while Kika visited Capri again.  I got some beautiful pictures and enjoyed the time on the water.  We met up again in Capri at our favorite ice cream shop that made homemade waffle cones while you waited in line!  Yummm...We then took the ferry back up to Naples and made our way back to the Naples airport.  We had a fabulous trip and thoroughly enjoyed Southern Italy, but agreed we are thankful we live in Northern Italy.  Another good trip on the books :)