L'isola di Capri

March 25:

After a leisurely breakfast at our suite in Sorrento, we headed down to the marina to catch a boat to Capri.  We just made the 1:00pm boat over, which was a bit of a rough ride, since it was another windy day.  But Oliver especially enjoyed the ride over, and pulling into the island, this is what we saw...

sailing into Capri

We hiked a little ways up the hill, before we realized how daunting it would be to hike all the way up... so we went back down to the marina for a relaxing (though costly) lunch.  

Marina Grande, Capri

lunch at the harbour

After lunch, we took the Funicolare straight up the hill to the town of Capri.  This is the more touristy of the two towns on the island (Capri and Anacapri).  We did a tiny bit of window shopping, and purchased a bottle of limoncello (glass bottle in the shape of a cello)-- we struck an easy deal: Oliver would drink the limoncello, and I would keep the bottle.  It came in handy later that afternoon on the chairlift...

Funicolare from Marina Grande up to the town of Capri

view from town of Capri

From the town of Capri, we got on a bus to the other town, Anacapri.  If we'd thought the roads in Sorrento were narrow, these seemed about half that width, clinging precariously to the cliffside.  It was a spectacular view down to the water.  I'd asked the bus driver about the chairlift in Anacapri-- since we'd been told it might not be running that day due to rain and wind earlier.  The bus driver told me it was closed today, though he gestured to us when we got off the bus... we walked over to the chairlift (seggiovia) entrance to find out that it was in fact open and running now, since the weather had just cleared up.  Perfect timing!  The chairlift was the #1 reason I had wanted to come and see Capri...

It was a fun and scenic 13-minute ride to the top of Monte Solaro... I got on the chair in front of Oliver, and behind a large tour group of Australian students (guessing by their accent).  No one was coming down the other way, since the chairlift had just reopened.  I took so many photos that my camera was giving me a dangerously low-battery warning.  We floated over trees, houses, and gardens, and Oliver enjoyed some bread and limoncello along the way...

view of Anacapri

Limoncello time!

We were up in the clouds at the top of Monte Solaro, but the view was still spectacular.  

We took the chairlift back down, and walked around the town of Anacapri a bit, before taking the bus back down to Marina Grande.  The last ferry sailed back to Sorrento at 5:40pm, and as we got to the marina, we could just see the moon starting to rise over the island.  The ride back was much less of a nautical rollercoaster than the ride over, and we got back to Sorrento before sundown.  

map of Anacapri (on ceramic tiles)

moon rising in the distance, over Marina Grande, Capri

Arrivederci, Capri!

Arrivederci a Sorrento, Sant' Agnello, Capri, e Campania... it's been a lovely time!  I wish we could have stayed longer.  But tomorrow we catch the train back to Rome...

moon through the olive trees

Ciao di Sorrento!

March 24:

It's early afternoon, and I'm sitting on the patio of the suite we've rented in Sorrento, Italy, listening to the birds chirping, wind rustling the olive and citrus trees, and church bells tolling in the town below.  I'm enjoying some vino, a small lunch (fresh bread, mozzarella, and tomatoes), and a stunning view of the ocean out to the Bay of Naples.  Earlier this morning, Oliver and I walked into the town square of Sant' Agnello, which is basically straight down the hill-- the town is built up along the cliffs from the water.

View from our patio over the Bay of Naples-- Mt. Vesuvius in the background

neighbourhood cat begging for lunch

front door to the villa

It is Palm Sunday, and everyone was emerging from the church in the town square carrying olive branches.  We stocked up on groceries and vino, since the supermarket closes at 1:30pm on Sundays.  After a small breakfast on a patio in town, we hiked back up the hill to our place.  It is so peaceful and gorgeous here that it's hard to find the motivation to leave the patio!  But there is so much more to explore in the area-- I think we're planning to walk over to Sorrento and check out the marina later.  Hopefully a trip to the island of Capri is in the cards for later...

church in the town square- Sant' Agnello

Later:

We spent a lovely afternoon exploring the town of Sorrento.  We saw all the typical sights: lemon and orange trees, ceramic tiles, tourist shops with limoncello and more ceramic items... and of course the impressive views over the water.

Lemon trees and mosaics...

We also checked out the marina from above, but didn't walk all the way down-- I think we're planning to take a boat over to Capri tomorrow.  After enjoying an early dinner in town, we did a bit more walking around and exploring... it was quite windy and cold, but what a beautiful town!  

narrow roads through town

All the sidewalks in town were just as narrow as the roads... many times we had to walk single-file.  But the roads themselves are pretty amazing... twisty and hugging the cliffside.  Small cars, tiny 3-wheeler trucks and scooters are the norm.

One of the patio views from a cliffside hotel in Sorrento.
It was a bit too windy and cold to be sitting out there today, but we were able to check it out...

memorial to Torquato Tasso

Oliver leaning against an old door

Yes, it was windy!

Marina Grande di Sorrento

Arrivederci...  domani vediamo l'isola di Carpi!

The longest day...

March 23:

One of the longest days ever... a series of mishaps so comically horrible that it seemed like something from a movie.  We got up at 3:30am, and left the Livia Hotel in Tirana, Albania.  Our early morning flight to Rome was fine and uneventful-- it was after that that things started to go wrong.  Our plan was to take the train from Roma Centrale station to Napoli, but we accidentally boarded an earlier train leaving from the same track, which turned out to be a non-stop train ride to Milan!

Oliver enjoying a croissant as we watch the sun rise at Tirana International airport

Milano Centrale

(If anything, now I can say that I've seen Bologna, Firenze, Milan...)  We got off the train about 3 hours later, and went directly to the customer service desk, where we were kindly granted a free return trip to Napoli, after we'd explained our mistake!  We had to run to catch the train back, but we made it, and ended up in the business class carriage.

a bit of a detour...

Oliver slept, while I watched a movie on his iPad.  A bottle of raki we'd received as a gift kept us company.  We finally arrived in Napoli Centrale at about 6pm.  From there, we transfered to the local train line, the Circumvesuviana.  We were finally headed towards the suite we'd rented in Sorrento, and couldn't wait to get there and settle in... little did we know that our adventures were just beginning!

Our re-authorized ticket

views from the train...

more Italian countryside

Roma Termini

Napoli Garibaldi

We were on the local Circumvesuviana train for maybe about 45 minutes, counting down the stops from Napoli to Sant' Agnello, when suddenly everyone got off the train, and were telling us it was the last stop.  We were confused, since according to the map on the train, this was not the last stop.  There was one last train going in the opposite direction (little did we know that this would have been our last chance to connect to our stop that night), but we didn't take it, since it seemed to be going back towards Napoli, where we'd just come from.

Enter: the town of Poggiomarino.  This was definitely the lowest point in our trip.  We were supposed to get in touch with the owners of the suite we'd rented, to let them know what time we were expecting to check in so they could come over with the key, but I hadn't been able to use Oliver's iPad early that morning from the Livia Hotel, and we'd been on planes and trains all day since then.  So, we went into a few places around town (a coffee shop, a bar, and the train station itself) where I tried out my Italian by asking to use a phone.  At the coffee shop and the bar, I got a rude response and was told bluntly that there was no phone or taxi in town.  I should add too, that I had trouble understanding some of the people in this town, since they spoke in a different dialect.  Oliver was dependent on me, since he couldn't speak with the people there either.  I squeezed back tears of frustration.

Finally, an older woman at the train station had a cell phone, from which we were able to reach one of the brothers who owns the suite we'd rented.  He was very kind, and when I explained our situation, he sent a friend in a taxi to collect us at the station.  There literally were no taxis or public phones in this town!!  One of the people working at the station offered us a ride to another station (to connect to the Sant' Agnello train) after he finished work, but it seemed out of the way, and I was sort of getting a creepy vibe from him.  The taxi would be expensive, but seemed like a solid option.  By this time we were cold, exhausted, and I was reaching the point where everything was so bad it was starting to be funny... I couldn't imagine a weirder scenario, and everyone in this town seemed like a surreal, exaggerated character from a bad movie.

lowest point of our trip: stranded in Poggiomarino

So, Oliver and I waited around in the town for another hour at least, before finally the taxi showed up.  It was such a relief to be driving along the coast towards Sorrento.  The road was narrow, crowded and wound along the cliffs... we were imagining what it must have looked like during the daytime.  Finally, we arrived at our place in Sorrento (Sant' Agnello), and it was gorgeous.  We would have the whole downstairs floor of a villa to ourselves for the next couple of days, with a patio and spectacular view over the Bay of Naples.  We ordered pizza, and curled up by the TV before going to bed.  It was not the day we'd hoped for, but we'd made it to Sorrento, and waking up to the view from our patio the next morning was so beautiful, it was impossible not to feel totally alive and caught up in the present moment.

view from our patio in Sorrento

Getting out of town...

March 22:

Today was a beautiful, sunny spring day.  I was itching to get out of Tirana... I'd been hoping to visit a castle to the north, Kruja, and Oliver had been hoping to see the seaside town of Durres.  Both were only about an hour's drive away, but unfortunately the person who had offered us a ride was indisposed, and so Oliver and I decided to just wander around Tirana and shop.  We didn't buy anything other than a morning cappuccino and beer en route, but we did end up discovering a part of town I hadn't ever seen before.

It was a perfect way to get out of town, without actually going too far... we found a large park and walking trail through the woods, which snaked along beside a man-made lake, some cafés, a small amphitheatre (probably from the communist era), plenty of trees and park benches... finally ending at Juvenilia Castle, where we enjoyed lunch.  Today was apparently a holiday too, so everyone was out and about... the park trails were very popular.

After a delicious lunch, we wandered around behind the stadium, where we were ambushed by a flock of sheep!  Luckily I had my camera ready...

We wandered around a bit more, through the eastern part of town, and back to our street, where thankfully the exchange was still open, and we were able to change our remaining Leke (Albanian currency) back into Euros, in preparation for our flight to Rome tomorrow.  The work is done-- now it's time to relax and enjoy!  Faleminderit and mirupafshim, Albania!