Day Twelve: ...Beautiful Sorrento

After breakfast in Rome we packed up for a bus ride to Sorrento.  I was expecting chargers at each seat as we had on the England trip. But no such luck and in no time everything was low powered.  I was so tired that I kept dozing off which infuriated me as the landscape was quite remarkable. This part of Italy grows everything  California grows which was a surprise.  We had times when it poured so much the driver could barely see and we couldn't see out our windows and minutes later bright sunshine.  We stopped at an olive oil production place in the rain and got a guide that took us up the hill....think narrow road, hairpin turns, enormous bus, tight sphincters!  At the top there was mostly sun.  We visited a castle/ fort that was hundreds of years old and where still five hundred people lived.  It was occupied by the Germans and I am sure bombed by the USA even though our little guide named the Germans as the culprits.

We were there to see an ancient olive oil mill....the kind that crushed the olives under a stone, ground by a huge stone that donkeys pulled to rotate it.  They used hot water to add to the oil to separate the oil and water and the waste was pumped outside and used for fertilizer.  Many small farmers brought their olives there to be made into oil as late as the 1970's. Now the mechanical "donkeys" down at the modern mill do it in twenty four hours. 

The people in this little walled city are extremely religious and most attend mass every night.  I didn't see any thing else they could do for entertainment anyway. Mother can modernize inside their homes but are forbidden to change the outside to keep the historical integrity alive.  The young girl who took us around lived there growing up with her great grandmother.  Now her mother lives there but she has an apartment out of the "city".   She said when it has been very hot her mother wanted to install air conditioning but it was forbidden so she just uses a fan.  It was very quaint...lots of flower pots outside the door and many churches....all Catholic, but only one is used regularly.  Perhaps mass is their chance to see friends and get news afterwards.

We then went to the EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL FACTORY.  They pride themselves on being the best and only take the best olives for themselves and have gotten blue ribbons at olive oil "tournaments"?? In the USA and other countries.  She taught us the proper way to taste olive oil. Once the oil was in our cup we had to warm it by rubbing our hand around the cup.  She asked us then to smell it and tell her what we smelled.  Some smelled tomato, but I only smelled pepper and lemon.  Then we had to warm it again, put some of it on our tongue and suck through our teeth.  It made us sneeze from the pepper.

Afterwards we had a feast using the olive oil.  First antipasto.....salami, grilled zucchini, eggplant and red bell pepper all drenched in olive oil. On the table was focaccia with pizza favor,  plain focaccia with olive oil on it all to eat with the salamis, and other meats.  Then came wonderful cannelloni with tomato and sausage, caprice salad, and two kinds of cookies....the almond-coconut was of course my favorite.  There were multiple bottles of wine and sodas and a really good fizzy lemonade we all loved.

Back on the bus we waddled   We arrived to our hotel...one very close to the city center and quite wonderful.  We arrived in time to freshen up for...guess what....??  DINNER with our guide at an included restaurant.  We were each given a salad and our own plates-size pizza.  It was delicious, but I left half of mine in pain.  More wines, birthday cake from one of our fellow travelers...like chocolate zucchini cake and a sweet pizza dough slice of pizza covered with Nutella and crushed hazelnuts!   OMG they are killing me here!  Furthermore my activity went from five miles to barely two!

We got back to the hotel for card playing for hitting the sack.

Ugh!!    Grove

Day Thirteen:  ...Pompeii and Naples. 5.1 miles, 14,963 ...   7 floors

Early this morning we loaded up on the bus  to Pompeii.  It is another beautiful day, not too cold, not too hot.  We visited  the same main roads of Pompeii but we saw different rooms; they were neither as colorful or as off color as those we saw with Kathy and Mike.  We spent a lot of time there however so were not able to shop.  When we got off the mountain it was time to go to Naples. 

I had asked Alana if we could hit a guide to go to Naples .  Since Pompeii is half way there and we would go on the train.  She said the cost would be €250 which I felt was too much for just the Fishers and us to split.  As it turned out we had 18 but Fishers backed out at the last minute.  That was fine though as we had 16 which is a lot to keep track of.

A Plaster Cast Of An Actual Body That Was Trapped In The Volcanic Ash From The Eruption

I was hoping to walk on the area by the port which was where my painting Aunt Rose had given me took place, but  she said it was too far and the train didn't go there from where we were. Still the tour was a bargain at €15 each!

We saw three of the four big obelisks and the squares around them.  The new train station was quite amazing. It was a darn good thing we had a guide or we would all have been lost.  First we wouldn't know when to get off the train and in the train station we would have still been there wandering around.  Our guide was really cute.....reminded Carol and I of Melinda Miguel.

A Crosswalk... You Step On These Stones To Cross The Street...
When In The Street Is Running Water And Sewage

One of the places we went down was the area that makes the elaborate Christmas nativity cribs.  There were characters that were bread makers, wine stompers, clothes washers and the like and many of them actually moved to show what they do.  Joan really wants the little guy that bakes the bread , but they would need electrical plugs that go from ours to Italian and all ours here are the other direction.

Our guide walked us miles as you can see above; with the miles we had already walked it was obscene and standing most of the 45 minutes in the train nearly killed me.  Marilyn is in her 80's and she refused to take a seat.  I offered mine when I got it after a half hour, but she didn't want it so I flopped down and boy was that a relief.   From the station we still had blocks to walk and stairs to climb to the hotel.  ugh! 

I opted out of a card game to soak my feet and massage my feet and legs.  From my waist down I was in pain! Once I got to sleep I was out!

Signed off the next morning!   Grove

Day Fourteen:  ...The Beautiful Amalfi Coast

After breakfast we were all on the bus to ride along the Amalfi  Coast .  That was the most narrow road and most crooked road I've been on .......think of the Grace Road along the Jenner grade!  People turned their rear view mirrors in to pass us!   The bus took most of the road and when passing another both had to nearly scrape the rock walls on either side.  There were many hairpin roads and some times the buses had to back up several times and go over curbs to turn. Many cars would stop and back up to facilitate a bus!  To make it even more scary, there were so many motorcycles zipping in and out between cars and buses!  I am AMAZED that nobody got in wrecks....us included.  I was afraid to get carsick so I sat in the front!  Wow! 

The only things that kept me from horror was that the bus moved slower than usual, the carsick meds I had taken were making it hard to keep my eyes open, and the scenery was the most beautiful coastline I have ever seen and that even includes the  beautiful California and Oregon Coasts! HOWEVER California and Oregon coasts are accessible  to more than the rich owners or boat riders.  (People must ride in a boat to land along the coast ,and the beaches are minimal). For those reasons my west coast beaches will forever rule!

I think what makes the Amalfi Coast so alluring are the beautiful vineyards and lovely old homes are terraced up the hills.  The sea is so blue as was our sky that day and the houses sparkled in the sunlight.

Our lunch was unremarkable so I won't go on about the fish or pork we could choose.  We walked less than three miles, which was a big change from other days. 

It was late when we got home but we had to hurry and shower and change as some of us were attending a meal with a folkloric show.  The dozen singers, dancers and musicians were excellent and were determined to get the audience to participate.  We all sat in the  front  row so we couldn't doze if we wanted to and I did get dragged along in an Italian Congo Line until I was breathless.

It was good to get home and hit the sack! tomorrow The Isle of Capri!

Bona sera!   Grove

Day Fifteen:  ...Isle of Capri

I wrote a long journal about this island but forgot to send it.  When Ken told me he didn't get Day 15, I checked it before I sent it.  As I started to make an addition I accidentally erased, not trashed, the whole thing and now my only choice is to rewrite or just skip it.  I have a little time before my walk in Montacatini, so will try to remember Isle of Capri. Most of my traveling partners found it a very underwhelming place, but Michael, Janet and Jerold went on the chair lift and got some good shots from the top of the mountain.  Still not worth the money....for us just expensive shopping. 

We had to wait in the Sorrento center for two little busses to take us to the hydrofoil to the island.  We got some pretty shots looking up from the port to the city of Sorrento. This was the day that we went on the hydrofoil that didn't seem like one, but then I was asleep most of the way over. Came back on a ferry that was just as fast and more comfortable.

The local guide was kinda weird....he called us "family", called Elena " Big Mama" and asked us to call him "Daddy"!  It is a good thing he didn't call me "Big Mama" or I would have squashed him like a bug! 

Mostly what his message about the Isle of Capri is that there are three levels to the island.  The highest area, where we ate our lunch, is where the normal workers live, and is expensive to live there.  There are steep narrow paths to houses. Imagine buying a refrigerator and having to haul it across the sea, up the "Mamma Mia" road, up the narrow path and finally into the small apartment!

Our next stop was the middle of Capri.  Homes of rich and famous who don't come out until the reams of tourists go back to the mainland.  In the meantime a soda in the mid section of Capri is twice the price as what we are used to.  Michael and I bought gelato and found an out-of-the-way step  by an apartment door where we could eat our Ice cream, but not be showed off the step by the carabinieri. We would try to guess which of the people were rich enough to live on Capri and it went  a lot like this:  "heck no... no way... probably not ...could be ...maybe ... and probably!"

From the middle (we had free time at each level) we all got a free ride down to the bottom at the port on a fanicular. More free time for some shopping and we were ready for Sorrento again.

Yes there were a lot of high end shops to look at, and yes, the blue sea was clear and beautiful, but we were glad to get on the ferry and in the same amount of time beat the hydrofoil back to lovely Sorrento.

I have no idea what we did for dinner as it all blends together.  That is the problem, and why I write these journals in the first place. 

So 'nuff said... for the second time.  I hope I don't erase this again!

Grove