To Sorrento and beyond

Our next destination is Sorrento. Brad suggested we come here and I am glad he did.  Sorrento is about 1 hour from Naples by subway/regional train.
Let me first start with the train journey.  We departed Camucia on a regional train.  These trains are notorious for being late but ours was right on time.  With only 17 minutes to change trains in Chiusi, we let ourselves relax for the hour before we had to change.  The train stopped, just before Chiusi (we could see the town) and sat there for what felt like forever before starting up again.  We arrived at Chiusi with only 2 minutes to spare.  The train system is very clear, you purchase your ticket at the window, then you go to the platform, put the ticket in a validation machine, then you get on the train.  Luckily we had pre-purchased our ticket so all I had to do was validate it. I must have looked like a crazed woman when I couldn't find the validation machine.  (the conductor screams at you loudly in Italian and sometime fine you if you don't validate, and we had seen it happen a few times now and I was not interested in experiencing it for myself).  A very sweet older Italian man saw me running around with my ticket and he directed me downstairs to the machine.  At this point, the train was pulling into the station.  I told Joe to get on the train and I would validate.  Luckily the machine was right at the bottom of the stairs so I ran back up and onto the train for our 4 hour journey to Naples where we would change trains again.  The scenery down through central Italy was beautiful.  Mountainous in spots then we started catching glimpses of the ocean so we knew we were getting close.  About an hour before we got to Naples we started to notice the city sprawl.  This didn't look like any of the other towns we had been to up until this point.  Naples is the 2nd largest city in Italy and well known for being the most dangerous.  Graffiti littered every wall of ever apartment block and it seemed dirty to us.  I am not a huge city fan in any case but this one really didn't seem like one I want to spend time in.  As we got closer to the centre of town I remembered thinking that this is what it must look like in a sketchy part of New York or some other big American city.  This is a new experience for me and to be honest, I wasn't terribly cosy with it.  Travel days for me tend to be on the stressful side, (you'd wonder why I travel at all if you knew how stressful) but if nothing else it makes you feel alive and very in the moment having to keep your wits about you.  We got off the train in Naples and young man on the train showed us where we had to go to catch our subway. The main train station in Naples is quite clean and new with trendy shops and fashionable people everywhere.  Going down to the subway was another thing all together.

Underground train

The atmosphere just changed.  Even Joe's non existant spidey senses were going off.  There were more than a few sketchy people we paid close attention to.  One young man, maybe mid 20's kept trying to get close to my back pack.  He had a sweater he kept flicking around and swinging and Joe had to keep circling me to watch what he was doing.  We finally got a break in the crowd so we moved down the platform where an even sketchier (more desperate man) made no effort what so ever to conceal his intentions.  Anyone that had a handbag, or camera, or luggage like us were approached and thoroughly checked over.  If we moved down the platform, he moved with us.  So we made a plan that we would get on any car that he wasn't getting on.  The train ride from Naples to Sorrento was about 1 hour so we found a corner on the train that we could stick our bags into then stood in front on guard for the rest of the trip.  We met a couple on the train, Jim and Jane from Virginia USA who also thought Naples looked less than ideal and weren't in a big hurry to go back.  They were on an 11 day trip to Italy, and thought it was incredible that we only had 2 tiny little bags for 10 weeks! 

Town square

When we arrived in Sorrento it was dark and we had no idea where our hotel was so we decided to get a cab.  This was the first time since we arrived in Pisa that we haven't walked but I was exhausted.  Our hotel is right in the middle of the town centre and is completely decorated in Ikea!  The lamps, the bed, the lights, the bathroom, everything is from Ikea and it all matched like one of those little showrooms!  *note to Katie, our bed even has your ikea shawl blanket on it!

Ikea special

It certainly was different from any of 16th Century rooms we had grown accustom to!  You cannot beat the location and Sorrento is a fantastic little town. 

Grey and gloomy harbour

Oranges grow everywhere here

We arrived on Saturday Nov 6th so the town was full of tourists mostly from Britain. We got ourselves set up in our room then headed out to see the sights.  We ended running into Jane and Jim in a little pizzaria which tells you how small the town is. We meandered through some shops and for some reason we stopped to talk to some British woman who were choking on Lemoncello.  I told her she was supposed to sip it, not shoot it which made them both laugh.  We chatted for a while and they suggested a great trattoria we should try.  They had been the night before and said the food was great and the people that owned the place were lovely.  We parted company and we went to look for this place they recommended.  We found it easy enough and the owner was certainly friendly but we weren't quite hungry so we just kept walking.  We looked through the shops and found a couple more restaurants but decided to go back to the original one the brits had recommended.  Because this is a sea side town, seafood is on most menus.  We had the most amazing seafood risotto. We getting ready to leave when I had to use the bathroom, but who should we run into but our British friends once again. (I told you it was a small town)  Mich, Deb, Justin and Kath were just about to have their meal so they invited us to join them for a drink...or 6.  What started out as a glass of wine turned into some poisonous blue drink, then gin and tonic, then limoncello to finish off the night.  I don't have to tell you what the result was.  A very bad head ache then next morning!  We were supposed to meet them for breakfast at 11:00 but we were still asleep at noon.  Now that hasn't happened in a very long time and I don't see it happening again for a very very long time to come!  We were sorry that we didn't get a chance to send them off (I personally would not have wanted to get on a plane that day) but they have gone back home now and I hope we are able to keep in touch with them.  We had a blast!
We are planning to use Sorrento as our base while we explore Pompei and surrounding area so I will most likely do another blog from here.  We are moving into an apartment for a couple of days after we leave our Ikea place.  We are trying to outlast the incredibly ugly weather we have stumbled upon.  It has been raining cats and dogs for days now and seeing that everything we want to see here is outside we are just staying put until the sun shines!

Soggy Joe

Oh, and most exciting of all...I got my hair coloured today!  They spoke no English and I spoke no Italian but I did make them understand that I was a hairstylist too so they gave me their colour book and I gave them the formula that I wanted them to use.  It was all very comical.
More to come from Pompei...