Month: June 2022

We were up and out early today for our trip to Pompeii. Mom made me egg and cheese sandwiches (I could totally make it myself, she just loves me too much to let me!), which I scarfed down quickly before we set off walking to the train station. We had to catch the train to Pompeii and meet our tour guide outside of the entrance gates.

Everything went smoothly, no uncomfortable encounters, and we got to have seats.. all pluses. At first I was irritated with myself for making us take the early 8:45 train, but then we had a few delays making our arrival time closer to the meeting time than we would have liked. If we had chosen the later train, we would have gotten there about 10-15 minutes late. Yay for OCD I guess. Lol.. while we had about 15 minutes to kill after we checked in with our guide, Chiara, we used the restroom and got slushees from the cafe across the street. It was already in the 80s with no cloud coverage. Today is going to be HOT.

Chiara took us through the ancient Pompeii ruins, explaining this and that about the area. The city was right on the ocean when it was created, and it was a harbor city. The city itself was spread out over 93 acres of land, all surrounded by mountains, which made for a natural border wall for protection.. they just didn’t know that the one mountain was actually a deadly volcano.. until they did..

She took us through the Roman bathhouses and brothel, which showed painted pictures of the sexual acts you could pay for, along with Roman numerals. She said this is because the general public was uneducated, couldn’t read or write mostly, and with it being a harbor town, many people from many different areas with different languages or dialects came through.. and men of all areas usually always want the same thing-sex-so they painted the scenes to make it easier to “order.”

Also, the prostitutes didn’t have the same stigma as they typically do now-considered poor and just trying to get by and whatnot.. these women were the most beautiful of the beautiful, chosen to be in this profession because of that, and they were paid and able to keep their earnings. They would go out into the town wearing their stunning jewelry and get the attention of new and returning clients. Chiara also pointed out that there were male prostitutes at that time, too. Also depicted in the paintings.

From the brothel and bath houses we walked up the huge hill to the main square with its huge pillars. It’s incredible that so much survived. When archeologists discovered Pompeii, they rebuilt the structures based off of the stones and bricks in the areas surrounding the few parts that didn’t collapse after the eruption. They started rebuilding in the 1700s, so even the rebuilt parts are ancient to me. It was quite fascinating.
We walked the original streets past shops and houses, a bakery and the first ever “fast food” joint.. the made clay pots that sat on counters with areas for heat to come through, so the food could all be cooked in the morning, put in the pots, and kept hot all day as patrons came and paid for their meal. Pretty dang neat.

We saw the home of the emperor, or who was thought to be the emperor based on the size and the different colored marbles found inside.. the mosaics on the floors are jaw dropping today, in their partially reconstructed state, I can’t imagine how it must have looked back then.

As we walked through, hiding in the shadows from the sun, Chiara told us of the story of Mount Vesuvius erupting, and how just as of 2 years ago, archeologists found proof that it erupted in October and not in august as previously thought.. anyway, the volcano doesn’t have an opening at the top where you can see lava moving and for the gases to escape. This makes Mount Vesuvius a very dangerous volcano because they can’t predict where the molten mud will spew when it erupts again. Plus, the mud moves faster than regular lava, and the initial eruption causes the debris to fly out and is deadly in its own right.

So all those years ago, it erupted and demolished the city of Pompeii (along with others in the area), and for days ash rained down. With the initial explosion, rock and debris flying though the air at top speeds was enough to kill people immediately. When the inhabitants saw this happening, most retreated into their homes to hide. Then, the weight of the ash over the next few days made the rooftops collapse.

Archeologists found ash casts of the people.. the ash hardened around the bodies over the centuries, and the actual human remains decomposed inside.. so they carefully made molds with the ash casts to see what the people looked like and to learn what their last moments were like. The people that were able to escape death came back days later to attempt to locate their homes and treasures left behind, but when they dug into the ash, it let the gases escape that suffocated them quickly. The others that saw this happen retreated back to safety and told the people in the new towns they settled in that the area was cursed by witches. This is why Pompeii wasn’t built on top of or scavenged for treasures after the gases escaped.. the people of the area thought it to be cursed-unlike the surrounding cities where people just rebuilt on top of the ash. Cities on top of unknown buried cities. Which, this is also why so much of Pompeii was able to be preserved and reconstructed, it had been vastly untouched from the eruption in 79AD until the 1700s when artifacts were found and the archeologists fought to save it.

At the end of this tour, Chiara sent us off with our next guide, Sofia, who drove mom and I plus a couple from Norway to a winery. Their names are Thomas and Helena.. they are in their early twenties and quiet, but we enjoyed their company all the same. We had lunch at the winery and got to sample 5 different wines with plenty of refills of each. Mom shared her fresh glasses with them as well as me, so I wouldn’t be “forced” to drink so much 😉 They loved it as much as I do!

After lunch, we went to the stables to ride horses! The winery and stables are on Mount Vesuvius, so the ground is more like loose ash compared to regular dirt. It was gorgeous! Sofia and her people put us on the horses (mine was named Mary, mom’s was named Beauty), and we followed Sofia in line around the winery grounds for an hour and a half.. up and down the rows of grape vines and down little paths between the fields and the villas on massive property. I had so much fun! Mary kept trying to eat the vine leaves. I learned how to steer her away, but at the same time, I was like, I get it girl.. I’d wanna snack if I had to lug me around too.. hahaha

After our tour was over, Sofia dropped us off at the train station. We rode back to Sorrento and walked to the apartment to get showered and ready for dinner. We were both so exhausted that mom called and ordered a pizza instead of attempting to walk around without reservations again. I was quite happy about not having to actually get dressed to go out. I ran an awkward mile through the apartment and a very slow pace, and then got in my jammies.

We attempted to watch TV, but none of the channels had anything other than the news on, so we ended up just eating our food and going to bed early. I’m quite happy about laying down, honestly. Tomorrow is another early morning, a boat ride to explore the island of Capri, plus our dinner reservations at Donna Sofia (so funny that this was our guide’s name today lol). So, off to sleep I go. Morning is going to come early.

Well, I slipped off a boat first thing this morning.
Mom and I got ready for our day trip to Capri, ate breakfast in our little kitchen and walked down to the marina hotel we were getting picked up at.. all before 7:30am. We. Are. Tired.

When the driver picked us up, we were the second group of people, and the couple already in the van is from Texas. That lady was chatty as hell for it to not even be 8am. Mom kept shooting me looks like I was the one talking, haha, at least we know I come by my morning irritability honestly. When we picked up everyone else (a total of like 10 people in our van) and finally got to the doc, we had to check in and get our group numbers. Chatty lady and husband are in our group.

Mom disappeared to find coffee, it was too hot already so she got me a coke.. when we went to get on our boat, there was a drop to the deck.. I was holding my open glass coke bottle in my left hand, my waterproof bag with our wallets was looped around my right arm and my cell phone was in my right hand. I thought briefly that the boat deck looked slippery, but mom handled it fine.. plus the captain holds your arm to steady you..

The captain held my left arm, I stepped down with my right foot.. and it slipped out from under me directly into the water. So picture it: this man is holding my left arm with my coke in hand, my right leg up to my waist is in the sea, my left leg is splayed out in front of us trying to make connection.. I’m in a bathing suit and a coverup dress. Lord have mercy. What a scene. As my left arm goes into the water, I toss my cell phone onto the boat praying to connect with cushions and not slide off the other side.. then I fling up the bag, the whole while the captain isn’t letting my big ass go-I’m telling him to let go, I don’t want to pull him in with me, and y’all-I’m going down.. it all happened so damn fast!

Someone else ran up and grabbed me too and between him and the captain they saved me from a complete submersion. How? I really have no idea-they stand me up, look me over-my hair is dry, my coke it upright without a drop spilt, my left arm is starting to bruise a bit and my right shin is starting to swell and bleed a tad-but overall, with all the adrenaline I guess, I was fine! Mom had missed the whole thing from when I slipped until I was yanked up and put back standing, it had to have been less than 10-15 seconds of pure chaos. Hahahaha

So, from that moment forward: I was not trusted to walk alone on the boat, step on or off the boat without my hand being held-that poor captain, Gianluca, looked like he was going through flashbacks every time I moved anywhere.. it was pretty damn funny. The couple I sat next to (which I think they may actually be friends or siblings) Juan and Caro, checked to make sure I was actually ok once everyone seemed to calm down.. mom kept staring at me and asking if I was ok, like I was suddenly going to freak out or something lol.. ahhh, good times.

Anyway, we went straight to the Blue Grotto by the island of Capri from the marina. We paid €14 each to get into a tiny rowboat (Gianluca looked ready to have a stroke watching me do that), with a man that paddled us in through the tiny hole, took us around in a circle while singing, and back out again. And then he asked for a €10 tip. Uhhh, excuse me? Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful in there, the water literally looked like it was glowing blue and we did enjoy all 3 and half minutes of it.. but we were in there with about 10 other boats, all with men randomly singing in Italian (pretty neat really), and then boom, we were back out again.

When I go to give him a €2 coin, he says, “you don’t think I’m worth the €10? Haha, uh, honestly, no.. I don’t. So, I just said, “you can have the €2” and we stared at each other a second and he realized I was budging. The couple from Texas tipped a €10.. so €12 for 5 minutes seems pretty legit to me.

So, from there we got back on our boat and went to Capri. We arrived by 10am and didn’t have to be back by 3:15.. which sounds great, except we thought this was a swimming thing and here we are in bathing suits walking around a town. Yikes. We end up meeting another couple from our boat, Allison and Jimmy, and Mom and I plus Juan and Caro all kinda stuck together. We took a bus to AnaCapri, a town on top of the mountain of the island. It had gorgeous views of the bay that only got better as we went up the gondola to the top of Mount Solaro.

As gorgeous as it was, we all got bored a little quick. We had to take a timed bus back down into Capri, and there wasn’t anything really to look at while we waited. Mom and I got drinks and we all sat and chatted in the heat waiting for the bus. When it finally came, it took us into Capri and we had 3 hours to explore..

We all ended up splitting up, mom and I went and got drinks and split a pizza on a terrace with gorgeous views of the water.. the only issue-it was SO FLIPPIN HOT! We literally dripped sweat all day long. We all thought we’d be swimming and day drinking on this boat tour, this isn’t quite what we were expecting. Capri is stunning, but walking around in hoards of people during the peak part of the day was a bit-dare I say it-miserable.

I did end up buying a bathing suit and a cute coverup in one of the shops. Mom and I played the game of shopping only in the stores with very good air conditioner. It didn’t matter what they were selling, cigars? Bourbon? €3,500 sweaters? Yep, we wanna see every single one.. hahaha

We were thrilled when it was finally time to get back down to the marina to board our boat. Gianluca and Andrea, his skipper, took us around the island by boat to different scenic spots. We say the green grotto, the big rocks that jut up out of the water that Capri is famous for, heart cove, and a few other spots, one with a waterfall. We finally got to swim and have beer and listen to music! Now THIS is what we’ve all been wanting!

When it was time to pull back into the marina to end the day, I tell our new friends that this looks a lot like our marina-like that yellow building up there with a terrace looks like our apartment. Come to find out.. this IS our marina! We actually docked at our marina, and while everyone else walked to the van-mom and I walked up the stairs to our apartment! We were probably inside before they even made it to the top of the hill in the van! Wahoo!

We showered and got ready for our dinner at Donna Sofia. When we walked over, we were seated immediately, on the terrace outside. It was picture perfect out there! I ordered the seafood risotto, which I loved! Thankfully the seafood part was just shrimp, and nothing still had its head on it-whew. It was maybe too 3 of my favorite meals. Mom just got grilled veggies and I swear the waiter looked like he was actively having a coronary when he couldn’t talk her into adding something else lol-poor buddy.

After dinner, we perused the little shops on the way to a pharmacy. At the pharmacy I set up our appointment for our covid test to get into Malta for tomorrow at 6pm. Then we walked over to the lemon tree restaurant for kicks and giggles to see about a reservation for tomorrow. The line to get in was a long one, and when I finally got to ask, the lady said they were booked but if it was just the two of us we could come tomorrow at exactly 7 and try our luck with being sat-but she couldn’t promise. Hmmm.. ok, we have to be down the road a little at 6 for the tests, so this could work out!

We slowly walked around and meandered back to our room. Today turned out to be incredible, even after I busted my shin and took an unexpected dip first thing this morning. I’d say, all in all, today was a great day. Tomorrow is a free day, so we plan to sleep in and then check out the beach Juan and Caro told us about until it’s time for our covid tests. I think we’re both ready to sleep in after the last 3 early days!

Ahhh, what sweet sweet bliss it is to sleep in! My God it was lovely! We didn’t wake up until close to 11am! And I loved every second that I snoozed. After breakfast we got in our bathing suits and coverups, snagged our new Amalfi beach towels and our sunscreen and started the walk to the “beach.”

It was another scorcher of a day, and the heat and hills were starting to get to mom. When we got to the top of the main hill our apartment is on, we had to walk down to the area that has the steep slopes all the way down the cliff side to where the beaches are below. It took maybe 20-30 minutes total, but we both looked like we had already gone swimming thanks to the heat, sunscreen, and sweat.

At the bottom, there are “beach resorts” that look like long piers out into the water, where you pay for a sun-bed or sun chair, with or without a mattress, and then you have a designated space on the pier.. you walk to the steps and swim out into the water from there, never being able to touch the sea floor. There are waiters to bring you food and drinks and then you can also pay for towels and umbrellas. The sun beds have sun visors attached to shield your face if you so choose. Pretty neat!

However, at first, we didn’t know about this. In between these “resorts” there are free beach spots, with small sandy stretches of beach and you walk into the water like normal. We walked down to a couple of these, and people were already packed in on their towels, so close that people had to have their knees bent-they literally didn’t have the room to stretch all the way out! Plus, because of the cliff jutting straight up directly behind the beaches, the sand was all in the shade already.

We ended up walking back to the resort place we first saw when we walked up. I asked for 2 sun beds. The man said they only had chairs. I said never mind, mom was getting irritated and he heard her say, “alright, let’s just go back to our marina beach, this is too much..” and the man told us to wait a minute and he’d try to find us sunbeds.

Within a couple minutes, he was ushering us past several other people waiting to our sun beds on the back part of the pier-in perfect view of the sun! It was glorious! We got settled and then quickly went to get into the water. It was the most perfect, refreshing temperature, without being too hot or too cold. We swam and laid out in the sun.. I drank Prosecco and read my book on my kindle (The Paper Palace, by the way..).. it was awesome.

I realized I lost service on the pier after I was messaging with Juan and Caro about meeting up on the beach area and getting lunch together. Here I thought I was telling them where we were and when we wanted to eat, and nothing had actually sent. Whoops. I got hit with messages when we were walking up the steps of the cliff around 4:45.. I felt so bad for missing them!

We had to hustle home and shower, to get ready for nose swabs and dinner. We made it to the pharmacy at a minute before 6pm, had our tests done by 6:15 and told to come back in 20 minutes to get the results and our travel paperwork. We went next door and had a drink at a cafe, to cool off some, then went back and got our negative results. During that 20 ish minutes, I was googling our apartment and other hotels in the area, just in case one of us was positive and we couldn’t fly to Malta tomorrow..

Thankfully that wasn’t the case-although mom and I both agree that Sorrento is our favorite location so far! After we had our paperwork tucked away, we walked to the lemon tree restaurant. We waited in line, and as we got closer and closer to the hostess, the views of the place just got prettier and prettier. When it was our turn, I was fully expecting a “we have no tables” from the man, but instead he told us to wait to the side. Less than 5 minutes later, we were sitting at a table with gorgeous lemon trees and a garden of flowers behind mom. It was stunning!

I ordered wine and seafood risotto, I know-I have a problem.. it’s just so flipping good! The seafood was shrimp and clams, and y’all-I don’t actually like clams-plus I had to pluck them out of their little shells, but it was actually really good and not too chewy. Mom got lasagna.. I asked our waiter if it was customary to put eggs and peas in the lasagna, and he told us it’s a Sorrento tradition, the boiled egg anyway, not the peas.. so her lasagna had an egg in it-but it was actually really good! She just picked the egg out.

After dinner we walked through the garden area of the restaurant taking pictures and being silly. We’d offer to take pictures of couples we saw trying to get decent selfies, too. It was so fun and so many laughs. From the garden we wondered the tiny roads for the last time, knowing we’d be leaving for Malta in the morning.. making sure to love every minute. We found a little shop selling purses and mom and I both found one we had to have-so ridiculous, but when in Sorrento!

On the way back towards the room, fireworks were going off! We watched the show from the top of the cliffs beside the pretty hotel we walk past everyday. When they were over, we carried on to the apartment. We poured glasses of wine to celebrate our last night here (not that mom drank more than a sip), and as I was about done pouring, more fireworks started from our marina!

We sipped our wine while watching on the terrace! It was the perfect ending to our time in Sorrento. I literally couldn’t have asked for it to have been any better, even with the terrible meal thrown in the mix. I truly think I’ll have to come back and spend more time here some day. Ah, I’m actually really sad to leave.