Thurs. 09-20-07 -- Rome, Sorrento, and Capri, Italy
Got up, packed up, checked out, walked to train station and got on train. Next stop, Naples. Our train compartment had some interesting characters. One lady apparently had a sick spell (pregnant?) because she had to lay down for a while and then some time later she could sit up but she started crying. I felt really bad for her, but I'm not really sure what it was all about. There was also an old man who must have been playing a game on his cellphone, but the volume was up, so we had to hear phone dialing tones over and over... earplugs didn't help.
The ride lasted 2 hours, then we went below the train station and caught the commuter train to Sorrento (about 1 hour). We passed through Pompeii and Herculaneum (which we are visiting tomorrow) and I thought "Wow, I am actually here, in these towns I've seen so much about on TV!"
When we got to Sorrento, I had no idea where out hostel was, so we did the (now common) tour of the city with our packs on. Eventually we circled around and found our road, and then our hostel. The desk manager gave us site-seeing advice, including that we must see the island of Capri. Our time is actually pretty packed with things to do, so if we were going to see Capri, it was today or not on this trip.
We walked through town toward the port, but stopped at a little café for lunch first. The town is up on a cliff, but there is a long staircase (or winding road) down to a little port area. We walked out to the cliff and we could see land way out across the water (Naples, Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius, etc). We walked down and bought boat tickets (one person, round-trip was a painful 25 Euros) and got right on the boat.
The ride was about 25 minutes long, and had great views of the Italy coast, and the approaching cliff island of Capri. We arrived at a similar port area like Sorrento, but a bit bigger and more touristy. We had no guide book or any idea of what to do here, so we wandered around aimlessly for a while. We saw that there was a funicular, so we bought tickets and rode up even though we had no idea what would be up there. When we emerged, we found beautiful views, and the rest of the town!
We walked all around the town and got good views of the towering cliffs above and the shore on the other side of the island. We stumbled across a nice park that had overlook points down the coast along the see cliffs, it was all very beautiful. After a while of soaking in the views, we headed back to the funicular (long lines) and got on the next boat that was leaving (very crowded, standing room only).
Once back we hit a supermarket to buy water and coke (cans of coke are 55 cents in the supermarket, 1.50 Euros at tourist stores and delis, and 2-3 Euros at restaurants!) We went back to our hotel and relaxed for a while, then went back out to see the town and find some dinner. We walked all around the old town square (no cars allowed at night) and ended up stopping at a pizzeria for dinner. At the end of the meal, we ordered limoncello, a very popular lemon flavored liquor in these parts. It came in a chilled shot glass (VERY cold) and it tasted very sour and sweet and strongly alcoholic. It was a sensation overload that was very pleasant.
We walked home and used the internet at our hostel and were very happy to find that we have a room in Venice on the 24th. It's 105 Euros (about 40 Euros more than we've been spending) but we were happy just to find a place during this busy time (I probably got back 10 emails from places saying that they're fully booked!) Ok, off to bed, we're getting up early to see Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Mt. Vesuvius tomorrow. The street noise outside is loud, so it'll be an earplug night!
