172 Sorrento

Day 33, 01-08

I have now reached the halfway point of my travels, one more month to go – ugh! The thought is scary, exciting, home sick and anti-homesick all at the same time. This morning I unintentionally held us up by 3 hours…  It was a Rome to Sorrento day (via Naples) but I didn’t realise until too late that it was one of the prereserved tickets I had already booked, for 7.30 am! Which was about the time we woke up to eat our last free but crap breakfast at Mosaic Hotel. We got to the station around 9am which was when I realised! Obviously thrown off, we caught one which arrived at Naples just before 12. From there was a local train ride to Sorrento – a horrible smelly and hot train vandalised on every spare surface. Sorrento at first seemed like a bit of a hole, but it turned out to  be really lovely and relaxing. Such a change from the big cities, this was a beach town just above the start of the Amalfi (West) coast of Italy. We stayed at Seven Hostels, which was in 2010 rated one of the top ten hostels worldwide! It did not disappoint, the most exciting part being the roof top terrace bar which would be more suited to that of a four or five star hotel. The views were stunning and there were couches for everyone to chill out on. We checked in then had a pretty chill afternoon, walking around our quiet area (very cautiously as there are no foot paths for most of it!), getting some lunch from the supermarket which was the only place open, and overlooking the cliff tops of the Sorrento beaches. Beaches in Europe are nothing like the ones in NZ, most of them have very little or no sand, and you have to pay to get onto the beach, and to use a little patch with a beach lounger (for the rich) or sun umbrella! Our room mates were awesome thank goodness – one we ended up having a drink at the roof top bar with, then dinner at a 10 euro drink, antipasto, all you can eat pizza and dessert! We very much buckle for value for money deals around here… She also managed to convince us to spend a lot of money on a Capri Island trip tomorrow; she had heard raving reviews and now we are very excited! And our other room mate – turns out she was in Nush’s sister’s year at St. Cuth’s! It’s crazy how close to home it get on the other side of the world.

Day 34, 02-08

Our free breakfast was very satisfying, at least the milk was semi cold, and there were croissants. A group of us met downstairs at 9.30 for the trip out to Capri. There are 13 girls from our hostel going and a couple from another place. Most the girls were from Australia, a couple of them living in London, one from USA, and us. Which was pretty funny. We were driven down to the port where we hopped onto our boat. Had the most amazing day! The boat took us firstly around the Sorrento coast line, right up to where it meets the start of the Amalfi coast. We had techno dance music pumping (Alors on Dance!) and our guide told us a bit about the areas and little beaches. We stopped the boat to have a quick swim where there was a natural fresh water trickle (mini, mini waterfall) coming into the sea. The water was amazingly clear and the perfect refreshment for such a beautiful day. We made our way over to Capri, and island probably around 40 mins away with no stops, famous for its grottos, or little cave like things. The three famous ones are White grotto, Green grotto and Blue grotto, named after the colour of the water and rocks which form the openings. There were a few other tourist trips around but I felt we had a pretty good deal! We stopped at a less famous grotto which our guide recommended, and went right into the cave hole on the boat. You can see red coral forming around the water line on the rocks.  Next up was White Grotto which is named after the whiteness of the rock formations. It had a very organic form, and there were little stairs up the cliff with a walkway that went right up and inside the grotto to look down on the water! We didn’t stop to get out though. The boat went around Capri some more then stopped at Green Grotto, named after the greenness of the water. Not a gross green, but a crystal clear turquoise colour. Jumped off the boat and had an amazing swim! This is soo the life… We passed by a beautiful white mansion up way up on the cliffs. This was the richest house on Capri, suitably owned by none other than Dolce and Gabbana. WTF! We then passed through a famous hole in the rock situation Faraglioni Rocks (similar to Bay of Islands), famous for its natural formation. The next grotto was not so much a cave but a wee little hole, just big enough to swim through to the other side. The boat dropped us off while we jumped in to swim through. Lunch was served (tomato, basil, mozzarella rolls) while we made further progress around the island. Blue grotto was the final one – a private grotto which costs 10 euro to swim in, attracting queues of up to an hour or two wait. Screw that! We already had amazing memories of the other ones. The boat dropped us off in Capri’s port, where we had 4 free hours on the island. The island itself was not extremely exciting – overcome by tourists it is full of expensive high end shops and eateries. Got a gelato (take away, double to eat here!) to cool off our walk and pretty much meandered for the rest of the time. There were wonderful views down on the houses below, which stagger down the steep cliff popping out in whites and light colours amongst the masses of greenery. We met back at the port at 5 where our guide picked us up. After making a couple of stops to look at some little beaches, a few had their last swim then we made our way back zoom zooming SO FAST towards Sorrento. Definitely a top 10 day of my trip, possibly top 5. After cleaning up at the hostel we had dinner down at the hostel’s restaurant with a couple of girls from today. Epic value – for 6 euros I got a massive chicken burger, fries and salad. Pretty exhausted after such a big day out so we had a quiet night.