Rome - 10/06

Mainland Europe - Day 46
Sorrento --> Rome

Rome stands apart from all other cities we have visited.

While other cities boast and promote there specific attractions, whether they are buildings, canals or ancient city walls, Rome doesn't need to try. The city itself is a living breathing museum.

Ancient ruins lie everywhere. Alongside main roads you discover sunken structures; discovered, excavated and just left there. You don't have to get the map out and navigate yourself to the cities landmarks, all you have to do is ramble through the streets. Around every corner you will sumble upon a breathtaking view, building, church or structure of some kind. It seems never ending.

After an afternoon and evening of strolling in awe we decided we should take in the major sites. We did a tour of the Colleseum with an Italian guide. Those Romans were a gruesome bunch! In the first 10 weeks of the Colleseum being open over 5,000 animanls and humans were savaged and killed!! Yikes!!

The following day we did the Vatican City. Gorgous and amazing but all a bit religious for us. The display of wealth and excessiveness was a bit off putting.

Of course being in Italy you expect great food and Rome didn't dissapoint. Yummy pizza they sell by weight and cold beers kept us satisfied.

After two and a half days of sightseeing we are a bit jaded. Some sun and pool action is called for I think.

Naples - 07/06

Mainland Europe - Day 43
Sorrento --> Naples --> Sorrento

Naples, famous for it's pizza, the Mafia and rubbish lined streets. Well we didn't see any gangsters, I don't think, but we certainly ate an amazing pizza and saw loads and loads of rubbish.

I think we hit Naples at exactly the wrong time. We'd had a lazy Sunday morning at our camp site in Sorrento, then took the train into Naples at around 2pm, thinking to grab a late lunch or an early dinner. However, when we arrived everything was shut and the streets were practically deserted. I think that quite a lot of shops and restaurants are simply closed on Sundays, and the ones that do open take 3 or 4 hours off in the afternoon.

Even so Naples was still an interesting place. We walked heaps, saw plenty of beautiful old buildings, loads of graffiti and piles of rubbish. But mostly we were looking for a restaurant and our long awaited Naples pizza. We eventually found what looked like the perfect part of town. Lots of cute little streets and pizzeria signs on every second corner, but alas, everything was still closed. Finally, when we were about to give up we stumbled across a place.

The menu was in Italian and we thought we'd done a great job of ordering until we saw what the table next to us had ordered. Our pizza was good, but theirs looked so much better. So we ordered another of course. It's not like we get the chance to eat pizza at it's birth place all that often. No need to say that the both pizzas were absolutely delicious, but I'm glad we ordered the extra one :)

Pompei - 06/06

Mainland Europe - Day 42
Sorrento --> Pompei --> Sorrento

Well if you like really really old stuff then you'll love Pompei. A quick 30 minute train ride from Sorrento and we were walking down streets that had been paved some 2500 years ago. For about 1700 years Pompei was buried under 20 metres of ash. It's only in the last couple of hundred years that they've been digging it out. They think they've found about 40% so far.

We wanted to have some idea of what we were seeing, so we paid our 15 euro and joined a guided tour. In keeping with what seems to be a trend, our tour guide was a grumpy old bastard. He certainly knew his stuff and he took us to all the main attractions, but you couldn't help but get the impression that he actually hated tourists and he wished he was someplace else.

It was a stinking hot day, so after walking around for nearly 5 hours we were buggered. All the old buildings, pillars and amphitheatres were amazing, but I think was most taken with the roads. You could actually see the groove marks in paved roads where chariots used to drive. And there were even pedestrian crossings made from raised stones so people wouldn't get their feet wet.

Oh .... and I shouldn't forget the ancient brothel that was covered in paintings that depicted different sexual positions. That was pretty memorable too!

The Amalfi Coast - 05/06

Mainland Europe - Day 41
Sorrento --> Positano --> Amalfi --> Revello --> Sorrento

We were actually planning to go to Pompei today, but seeing as we flattened the car battery last night we needed to take Pete for a nice long drive and give him a chance to recharge. And with the Amalfi coastline right at our doorstep, there couldn't have been a better place for a nice long drive.

The main part of the Amalfi Coast is about 50kms long, but the road that hugs the coast must cover twice that distance. If we weren't zigging we were zagging. You'd be hard pressed to find a 20 metre stretch of straight road. Every second bend had a big mirror mounted on the side of the road, so could see the buses coming and get out of their way.

The two big attractions on the coast are the towns Positano and Amalfi. Both have been amazingly built on the side of a cliff in a terrace fashion. Absolutely stunning, but some part of me kept coming back to the question, "why build a town in such a difficult place?". Well I guess it's a good thing that Italians don't think in such practical ways, because these towns are really a sight to behold.

Massa Lubrense - 04/06

Mainland Europe - Day 40
Sorrento --> Massa Lubrense --> Sorrento

Even though Massa Lubrense is only 8kms north of Sorrento, it couldn't be more different. Where Sorrento is alive with the buzz of restaurants, pubs, souvenir shops and thousands of tourist, Massa Lubrense was a quiet little sea side town with only one obvious pub and a couple of restaurants.

Franco, who we'd met on our trip to Capri, was a local from Massa Lubrense and he'd given us the name of a place that he promised had the best pizza on the coast. It was a bit of a challenge finding the place, street signs are a rarity in Italy, but the people we asked were friendly and helpful, so we found our way in the end.

It was only 7pm and the restaurant seemed closed so we headed down to the water, found the only bar in town and had a couple of drinks. After watching the sun set we made our way back the restaurant, which was now open.

The evening turned into one of those great holiday experiences. The owner of the place had a few words of English and we once again relied on Yvonne's limited Spanish. We managed to order two pizzas, one with meat, one without. I think the owner was a bit taken by us, as he pulled up a chair at our table and did his best to chat. He gave us some amazing pastries for a starter and took us out back to see the pizza's being made. The pizza's were delicious of course and when the end of the meal came he wouldn't let us leave without drinking shots of some locally brewed spirit.

It was truly a night to remember, only slightly soured by returning to our car to find that I'd left the lights on and the battery was flat. However, it turned out fine in the end. We returned the next morning, with borrowed jumper leads in hand, and by chance bumped into Franco (from the boat) who gave us a jump start. Massa Lubrense was a great find and I'd love to go back some day.

Capri - 04/06

Mainland Europe - Day 40
Sorrento --> Capri --> Sorrento

Capri is an island destination for the rich and famous, so obviously Yvonne and I fit right in. It was only 30 minutes by boat from our camp ground in Sorrento and from everything we had read we were expecting a lovely day trip to a beautiful little island hideaway.

What we found was interesting but somewhat different to what we were expecting. The island is actually quite built-up, lots of streets, buses, taxi's, bikes and people. So many people. The main town was a who's who of designer labels. Verasche, Gucci, Louis Vitton etc etc. One store I walked past proudly displayed a 350 euro polo shirt in the window. That's nearly $700 Aussie dollars ..... crazy!!

We had about 5 hours to kill before the boat took us home and both Yvonne and I quickly tired of walking the streets and looking at over priced menus. So we fell back into our usual routine of finding a grocery store, buying some cheese, meat, bread and beer, and then picnicing on the beach. It was a little overcast, but still warm and I had a lovely 2.5 hour nap.

One of Capri's big draw cards are the grottos. In Reservoir Dogs fashion they are strangely named something like the Green Grotto, the Pink Grotto, the White Grotto and the Blue Grotto. Our boat took us past each of the grottos, stopped so people could look and take photos, but I think the idea was to dive-in and take a look first hand. Some other smaller boats were doing this, but they looked like private vessels and as we were on a tour boat with the masses, we weren't allowed to get wet.

Capri was nice, but not mind blowing. Probably the best thing to come of the day was meeting Franco, who worked on the tour boat and gave us the name of a great local pizzeria in his home town of Massa Lubrense. Franco also came to our rescue, but I'll leave to for the next blog :)

Sorrento - 04/06

Mainland Europe - Day 40
Trani --> Sorrento

After a taxing drive from Trani we arrived in Sorrento, in the Bay of Naples, late yesterday afternoon. It wasn't all that far to drive, but the roads signs in Italy are truly abysmal, and we were lost as often as not. After such a crap driving experience we've decided to base ourselves in Sorrento for five nights, ditch the car as much as possible and do day trips. There's loads that we can do from here, Capri, Naples, Pompei and the Amalfi Coast are all on the short list.

We are staying in a cabin in a campground which has a great pool and views of Sorrento, Mount Vesuvious and Naples. Last night was our fist night here and around 10pm we ventured into town to check things out. Needless to say we ended up in a pub, drank way too much Peroni, and now we're both feeling a little worse for wear.

But there's no rest for the wicked, we're about to hop on a boat and head over to Capri for the day. The weather looks great and hopefully it should be a fun.