We left Rome in the morning and headed south. When we reached Naples we were not given a tour of the City as ’Chico’ said, ’It’s a bad place full of Arabs and Gangsters.’ I had been to Naples once before when we sail to Israel from the port. I knew that wasn’t true but if I did not know that I didn’t like hearing that and I told him so. He shrugged and turned his back to me and said nothing until we reached Pompeii.
POMPEII:
Pompeii is an ancient City full of restored ruins. It was a resort for rich Romans until Mount Vesuvius erupted, (in 79 AD), and buried the city is lava ashes. It is quite a large area and as we toured through the Forum, some Temples and the largest amphitheatre that was ever built by Romans. We went down the main street that had a lot of shops and saw the homes, (with a bathroom system that was amazing for that era), and saw a lot of frescoes and mosaics. This is when I thought that this looked more like a ’brotherly’ than a resort. I’m to embarrassed to tell you what the frescoes and mosaics were about.
We left Pompeii and headed east to the other side of Italy until we reached Sorrento. As we winded along the Almalfi coast with the rugged mountains next to the Adriatic Sea I was reminded of the coastline near San Francisco, California.
SORRENTO:
Sorrento is only one of the resort towns on the ’Italian Rivera’. We were going to be here for three nights as it was about half way through our tour. Sorrento is a quaint town with a population of about 15, 000 people. We stayed at hotel, (sorry I forget the name), that was on the top of the highest cliff overlooking the Bay of Sorrento. Everyone else on the tour had a room that had a ‘sea view’. MM and I had a room that looked at the mountain, (that was across the street from the Hotel’s entrance).
The Hotel had two pools with a small man made ’falls’ between them. There was a lovely garden surrounding the hotel. There was an inside and outside bar and cafe as well as an inside dinning room.
We only had a tour scheduled to see the Royal Palace that our local Guide told us was built by Charles III of Bourbon and has over 1200 rooms. We only saw the grand hall and the park that has the famous ’Diana’ fountain. We drove through the village and saw where the shops, market, bars and cafes were before we went back to the hotel.
Some of us had arranged to see the grottos on the ISLE OF CAPRI. MM wouldn’t go on a boat again so I left her with ’Chico’ sunning by the pool. Our tour took us back to the coast near Naples and a boat took us to the famous grottos. We entered the grottos through a narrow opening in one of the rocks. We then went from one chamber to another until we came out on the other side. This is a natural cave system that was used for thousand of years. We saw many of the cave drawings, (the Captain of the boat said there were 500 of them). The awesome ones are in the middle of the mountain. They were all drawn in charcoal and red ochre. We were told that Archeologists believe them to be about 35, 000 years old. In this area there were drawings of a fish, some horses and mountain goats. When we were inside we also saw stalagmites and stalactites, (they look like icicles). Stalagmites are my favorite because they drip from the ceiling of a cave while the stalactites are jutting rocks coming up from the ground.
OUR LEISURE TIME:
After breakfast MM decided we needed exercise because we were sitting on the Coach too much. She thought we should walk down the Mountain to the Village. The first morning we did this I wore sandals. Half way down the soles of my feet were so sore I couldn’t make it down. MM didn’t believe me and she and the ’group’ left me to hail a cab to go back to the hotel. When they returned I was sitting on top of the toilet with my feet in ice cold water in the sink, (we only had a shower in this room). My soles were covered with blisters. I sterilized a needle, broke them, ran hot water over them and was using the ice water to bring down the swelling. Luckily I had some cortisone cream and large bandages. I walked up and down the Mountain the next two nights and the one morning we had left, (wearing angle socks and running shoes).
The market was full bargains. We bought a few pair of shoes each and our Husbands a pair of slip on loafers, (we had traced their footprints before we left home).
Each night we tried a different bar and a different local wine. Every area of Italy makes great wines but if you don’t order the local one then they are as expensive as they are at home.
MY THOUGHTS:
As our coach left Sorrento I vowed to recommend the town to every client I had that was traveling to Italy. I kept that vow and every one phoned me when they returned home to thank me. I hope if you are taking a vacation to Italy you will try and spend some time in Sorrento.
©LL