Sorrento is a beautiful town in the Bay of Naples, though as is the recurring theme, we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time there. First we went into a showroom which was showcasing the beautiful inlaid woodwork that Sorrento is famous for. We spent a bit of money here but not a whole lot, just enough to pick up a couple of small things to remember the town and what it is famous for.
There were 2 more things we absolutely had to do at the first opportunity. Pizza and Limoncello. The pizza's here were good, I enjoyed my one more than Rome, and I enjoyed Nicky's one even more! We had a drive shortly after lunch so when the limoncello arrived we suddenly realised that we had to finish quickly and bolt for it.
Can I tell you that downing a shot of limoncello and then bolting up a hill in the hot Sorrento sun while full of pizza is about as pleasant as it sounds?
So then we all pied into the 2 mini buses that had been organised and went for an exhilarating drive along the Amalfi Coast en route to Positano. Boy was that fun - hat's off to my stepdad Jim who had the balls to do this drive, italians are crazy and there seems to be no rules on this road except "whatever it takes". The sheer drop off the side of the cliff had everybody suitably nervous considering we were in a bus and the locals had no problem parking their cars halfway out in the middle of the already quite narrow road. The views were spectacular however.
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| Positano as seen from above |
After an eternity of nail-biting we eventually got to Positano. This is one cool little town - not built for disabled access. Steep staircases everywhere but lots of cool little shops selling all the locally made crafts. They have amazing glazed ceramics here that the region is known for, if you can be bothered to make the trip and have the money to spare you can get your stuff customised and shipped to you. We bought a fridge magnet, it's really nice.
We went back to Sorrento where Nicky and a lovely lady Joanne from our tour group couldn't wait to get stuck into the booze while waiting to get back on the bus. After looking all over the immediate area and eventually finding a small bar/lotto ticket seller/TAB the girls got stuck into some Prosecco. I had an espresso, the woman behind the counter looked at me like I was the strange one and asked me if I was sure I wanted an 'italian' espresso. After I nodded and said 'Si' she was all amazed and said I was the only non italian to ever order that there.
I'm actually starting to really appreciate how large the coffee industry is in Australia when I compare the quality and diversity of offering there to Europe. We've got it good.
We then drove back to the hotel at Castellammare di Stabia.
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| Not bad I suppose..that's Mt Vesuvius in the background btw |
It's at this point I should mention that we had a whole rundown from MJ (our tour guide) on the Napoli mafia and how it works in Napoli compared to the Sicilian 'Godfather-esque' mafia we're all more familiar with. The mafia in Napoli is called the Camorra and is actually a collection of families fighting it out with each other for territory in Napoli, as opposed to the hierarchical nature of the Sicilian mafia.
As we drove past a particularly dodgy area, MJ pointed out that that is where the Camorra lives and that we should avoid the area at all costs. That's when Nicky and I both noted the train station we were considering taking to the Napoli Centrale station to head off to Venice away from the tour group for a week. Plans quickly changed to getting a taxi after we visited Pompeii in the morning.
Pompeii was about 15 mins from where we were staying. The first impression I had was how much our tour guide Enrico reminded me of Alan Rickman with an italian accent. Very droll, very witty, all delivered with a deadpan voice.
The second impression I had of Pompeii was, wow. If you're into ancient roman history and you have the opporunity to see Pompeii, don't miss it. You are literally walking through the streets of an incredibly preserved city from around 600BCE. Because of how well preserved this city is, it has become the yardstick to which all other ancient roman archeological discoveries are measured. Pompeii tells us more about the everyday life of an ancient roman than even Rome itself.
Interesting things like the cat-eyes in the road to assist with travelling in poor light, the tracks indicating that many street vendors had sliding doors to the entrances of their stores, the stoves and heating pots indicating that there were many takeaway food vendors and of course, the brothel. There were 25 brothels in Pompeii that have been excavated - keep in mind that a good 20% of Pompeii is still under the ground.
There was a lot of interest in how the girls advertised their specialties; some of the best preserved ancient roman frescoes feature women doing interesting things that that would later charge for. Of course given that they were slaves, charging for their time apparently amounted to about the same as the cost of a cup of wine according to our tour guide.
We of course saw the casts of the little boy, the dog and the person praying which was all very sad, though they were in a storage area that allowed viewing rather than being in the locations where they were found.
Once we finished at Pompeii we exited the segmented area to find that MJ our travel director had already arranged us a taxi to take us straight to the airport and all of our luggage was loaded and ready to go. She really is a legend.
So we waved goodbye to Pompeii and set off for the next leg of our adventure - 7 days in Venice!
More soon.
Brandon.
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