Spring Break

Our Sorrento vacation has been off to an interesting beginning. Friday morning we hopped on a bus, and then a train, and then another train, and 6 or so hours later made it to Sorrento. When we first arrived, we were all very happy to be here—the whether was lovely, and the part of town we wandered through to find out hotel was cute and nice. We were all happy and excited when we arrived at the address of our hotel. The sign on the door said to call the number listed, and a man from the hotel came to meet us, and told us that he was taking us to our beachfront apartment, which had a kitchen and internet. It sounded great, but when we got there and he opened the door, it was not what we had been expecting. First of all, while the property was near the beach, the beach could not be seen from the apartment itself. In fact, nothing could be seen from the apartment; there were no windows. It was painted an uneasy light aqua blue, and the beds we nothing more than fold out cots. We were not pleased. We asked if he had a different apartment, and he showed us the one next door, which was almost exactly the same. The guy was clearly trying to make the sale, and didn’t really understand what we didn’t like about it. He was on the phone with his boss, and as the saga progressed we all began to feel more and more uncomfortable. So we left. With no place to go, we wandered back into town—and into the Hilton Sorrento Palace. Like mom always told me, sometimes the best solution is to throw money at the problem. We originally only got the room for the night, since we were all tired and hungry and wanted a place to stay. Now let me say, the Hilton Sorrento Palace is waaaaay nicer than any Hilton I’ve stayed in in the states. When we entered out rooms, we were all just so happy to be somewhere nice and clean, and not to mention the terrycloth robes and slippies! So I decided to do a quick calculation on the Hilton Sorrento Palace notepad, taking into account the shared cost of the room and the cost of the other hotel we had booked for the rest of trip (which, luckily, are guide book recommended, unlike what has come to be know as “the dungeon”) and our transportation costs to and from Siena. And we decided that, given the 600 euro stipend Lewis and Clark had given us for the week, it was reasonably (albeit, barely) within our budget to go ahead and stay in the Hilton for entirety of the four nights we had planned in Sorrento, since we’d planned everything else economically. We were all ecstatic about this decision. And so far, it’s been great! Breakfast in the morning was incredible: a huge buffet spread, featuring both Italian cold cuts and scrambled eggs, which is an unheard of breakfast in this country. And real American style coffee! And they even had HP and Tabasco sauce! Now I know we’re supposed to be enjoying all things authentic and Italian, but these Americanisms are quite the exciting novelty at this point. And not to mention that the brunch room had huge windows and a balcony with a perfect view of Mt. Vesuvius. NO BIG DEAL. 

Our first day in Sorrento, after our wonderful Hilton brunch, we decided to just putz around Sorrento. We wandered down to the water, grabbed some pizza for lunch, and stopped at a little grocery to pick up some olives, artichoke hearts and cocktail supplies for the hotel before dinner. When we were ready we headed out for dinner (prawn risotto, mmmmmm), and hung out for a while before started to head back. But as it happens, on the way back to our hotel happens to be a bowling alley. And, feeling the wine from dinner a bit, we decided to stop in. So far, aside for making the Hilton Sorrento Palace our home, this has been the best decision we have made on this trip. We had a great time; it was really silly and fun.

Positano!

This morning we had another slow start and another nice breakfast before hopping on a bus to Positano, a little town on the Amalfi Coast. Unfortunately it was raining and overcast, but the sea and the views were still nice and it was fun to walk around. It’s still the off-season, though, I’d be interested to see the town busier and sunnier. 

Tomorrow we’re planning to heading to Herculanium and maybe Pompeii. It looks like we probably wont get a chance to get to Napoli, which is too bad because I really wanted to see it, but then, there’s chance I might end up down here again this summer. And there was nothing there in particular that I wanted to do, really, I just would’ve liked to get a sense of the city and grab some pizza. Allora, we’ll see how the next day goes before we head to Ischia. The good news is, no matter what we do we’ll have fun, and ever since the dungeon escapade it has been nice and relaxing, to say the least. 

---LATER---

So we made it home to Siena alive! Let's see, where'd I leave off... 

Herculanium and Pompeii were definitely one of the highlights. We went to Herculanium first, since it's better preserved, even though it's smaller since it hasn't yet all been excavated. It was almost like a scavenger hunt, wandering through the ruins and looking for cool carvings and mosaics in the different rooms and buildings. It worked out well that we went there first. because there was much more art and whatnot to see than in Pompeii. Pompeii was HUGE. What impressed me about that was the size and the feel of the city. It felt like a real, lived in place, yet the whole thing had been buried under volcanic ash. Crazy.

The next day we packed up and, sadly, had to move out of the Hilton. Our next stop was Ischia, and we got to take boats to get there!

We first took a hyrdofoil boat to Napoli, which was fun, and then hopped on another ferry to Ischia. Now, the thing about Ischia is that it's gorgeous and nice, but really more appropriate to go to in the summer. Whether aside (it rained on and off), in march everything is still closed for the off season.

The most disappointing example was a certain restaurant we had wanted to go to. You see, there is a bar in Siena that we frequent, and we have become friends with the owner, Dominico. When he heard we were going to Ischia, he told us his friend had a resturant out there, and we were all excited to go. But alas, closed. So instead, a little low in spirits, we decided to stop at a grocery store and improvise a feast in our rented hotel/apartment thing. It actually ended up to be a really fun night, we stayed in, ate, played yahtzee and watched mean girls while it stormed outside. It turned out to be a rather refreshing break from Italian style everything.

The next day was our last on Ischia, since we were only spending the one night, and we ventured over to the giant Ischia Castle. This was probably my favorite Castle I've been to so far. It was just so big and castle-y. Wandering around we happened upon gardens, wine making stations, and a bunch of cool tower and things. And the view! I didn't really get to learn a whole lot about the castle since the inside was closed (again, the off season), but it was cool just to be there, really.

We kind of hung around Ischia and the hotel for the rest of the day, since we were planning to take the ferry back to Napoli and from there an overnight ferry to Sicily. Unfortunately, it began to rain and the ferry we had planned on taking off the Island was canceled! We were able to get another one, but by that time it was too late to make our overnight boat. Luckily, we found an overnight train. Unluckily, there were no more seat reservations available. We were able to get on the train, but had to spend the night sleeping in the aisles. This is why we do these things when we're still young and spry. We made it Sicily in the morning as planned, but we all exhausted from the less than comfortable journey. We made it to the hotel, but of course it was much to early for our check in time. However, this turned out to be our favorite hotel of the trip. It was pretty and quaint, and the lady immediately let us drop of our stuff and ushered us upstairs to the breakfast room, which was cheery and pleasant and overlooked the water. We spent the rest of the morning sunbathing on the roof until our room was ready, which had balconies facing the sea. Once we'd gotten all settled in and cleaned up, we went out for lunch and wandered around the town in the sunshine. Later in the evening, a few of us ventured into the town part of Taormina (where we were staying on the outskirts) and had a fun time walking around and enjoying the view. On the bus ride back there was an old guy arguing about politics with the bus driver, which was really fun to see and hear. It seemed as though the old guy was a Burlusconi supporter and kept saying how we HAD to be smart because he spoke five languages. Even though they were arguing it seemed to be friendly and all in good fun.

The second day in Sicily, we really wanted to see the ancient Greek temples. However, they were a couple hours away. The hotel offered to set up a guided excursion for us, but that wasn't really what we wanted. So instead, we rented a car and drove across Sicily ourselves! It was a fun road trip and definitely worth it to see the temples, many of them were really well preserved.

Our last day we relaxed and wandered around town, and finally Sunday made out way to Palermo to catch our flight back to Tuscany. 

It was a successful journey, and I liked see the South. It is really different than the north, the look and feel are completely different, which I suppose makes sense since Italy was only unified 150 years ago.