Sorrento and Capri

May 18th--We got up and moving this morning in order to catch the 9:40 train to Naples. Our plan was to stop in Naples for lunch and some shopping before heading to Sorrento. We arrived in Naples around 11:15, checked our bag at the station, found an information booth to get a map, and headed out walking to find some lunch. The map was not very good. It did not have all the street names on it and we spent most of our time in Naples wandering in the trash and traffic. The streets were covered with trash and we soon found out why. There were no trash cans to be found. This is where the long garbage strike occurred and we don't know if this is a result or not. The traffic was going every which way on the streets. When we went to cross the street, we felt like we were playing a game of frogger. Although my favorite ATARI game, I still don't like the thought of actually being inside the game. We quickly nicknamed Naples, Nasty Naples. Anyway, we found the pizzeria we were looking for and sat down to eat. We decided on pizza since Naples is the birthplace of pizza. We ate our lunch and then went looking for Via San Gregorio Armeno. This street was the main reason for our visit to Naples. Mike had found it on the Internet as the Christmas street lined with nativity scene workshops. I was hoping to find a Santa Claus made in Italy, but no such luck. By this time, we had had enough of Naples so we walked pretty quickly back to the train station to pick up our luggage. We then got in a taxi to take us to the port. There are two ways to get to Sorrento: by train or by boat. The kids really wanted to take a boat plus it's a shorter trip to Sorrento. So, we boarded the boat at 3:00. Naples was basically a been there, done there, got a postcard kind of place....now off to Sorrento. The boat ride to Sorrento was pretty uneventful. Upon arriving in Sorrento, we had to purchase bus tickets at the tobacco shop and board the orange bus. Well, the first orange bus was completely packed full. So, we had to wait on the next one. The next one ended up being crammed full, but only after we were on it. We took a short, windy road up to the main plaza where we had to change buses heading for our hotel on Via Capo. Luckily, the bus dropped us off right at our hotel, Settimo Cielo. The hotel is set high on the cliff above the ocean. You enter off the road and go down the elevator to the lobby and rooms. Our room was set into the side of the cliff with a great balcony. It was about 4:30 by the time we entered our room and the kids wanted to go swimming. So, we all went to the pool. Abby was the only one that actually got in the water for the temperature was about 70 degrees. We hung out by the pool before heading to dinner. We went to a restaurant about 100 yards from our hotel and sat outside on their outdoor patio overlooking the water. It was wonderful scenery and food. I ordered the "catch of the day". Well, little did I know that the whole entire fish (head and all) was going to arrive at the table. Luckily, the waiter filleted it for me before putting it in front of me. Despite my original thoughts, the fresh fish was really good. We also enjoyed a wonderful lemon cake since Sorrento is known for it's lemon trees. After dinner, we strolled back to our hotel. The kids went to bed and Mike and I enjoyed some wine sitting out on our balcony.

May 19th--We woke up this morning to the beautiful sun shining onto our balcony and the kids saying "we want breakfast". Luckily, we got breakfast with the hotel. After breakfast, we all got ready and walked down to the main plaza in Sorrento. On our way to the plaza though, we dashed into a lot of lemon shops to get some free samples. We sampled: lemon chocolate, lemon chocolate covered almonds, and lemon cream. They were all very good. I'm quickly falling in love with anything lemon. We walked down to the lemon grove garden. It was not at all what I had pictured. I expected this beautifully manicured park with lovely lemon trees growing on it. Not at all what we saw...it was just a small area with lemon trees on it. The grounds had weeds all over it. It must strictly be for producing lemons, but we did see several lemon/orange trees combined. That was pretty cool. After exiting the garden, we walked across the street to eat lunch at a pizzeria. We then picked up some drinks and snacks from the local grocery store and took the bus back to our hotel. At this point, we had waited long enough to go swimming. So, off to the pool we went. This time, Mike and I both got in the water, but only for a short minute. It had not warmed up from the day before. The kids loved the pool and it was still relaxing just being by a pool that overlooked the ocean. Amazing scenery! After the pool, we decided to head down to the marina area for dinner. In order to get down there from our hotel, we had to take the path through the local campgrounds and then stairs down to the street and then walk the street down to the marina area. Going down was nothing like going up. After enjoying another wonderful seafood meal, on the water, we had to go back up the way we came down. The big difference this time was we were doing it in the dark. We climbed the steep stairs back up the campground in the dark. It was dark with no lights and lots of trees and brush around that made it sorta spooky. We questioned our logic on the climb but we made it back to our hotel room just fine.

May 20th--Today, we decided to take a ferry over to the island of Capri. We walked from our hotel all the way down to the port area in order to get on the boat. We boarded our boat at 10:45 for the short 20 minute ride to Capri. Upon arriving in Capri, we let the kids play on the beach for a little bit before eating lunch right on the marina area. When we went to order our drinks for lunch, the waiter said "we have lemonade". Well, I have already mentioned how we are trying out everything lemon in this area. So, we all decided to get the lemonade, but the waiter proceeds to tell us that it's a little sour and suggested that we add orange juice to it as well. We thought, okay that sounds pretty good. Well, when we all took our first sips of this drink, our faces puckered up. The drink was so sour and was still very sour even after adding some sugar to it. We got our bill for the lunch and one drink alone was 6.50 Euros. The 4 drinks totaled more than the cost of our food. We were floored...the drinks were not that good and we had totally just been suckered. Oh well! We will stick with our waters and soft drinks next time. After getting over the shock of the drinks, we bought our tickets to get on the boat to take us to the Blue Grotto. The Blue Grotto is a grotto from the ancient Roman times and one of the main reasons for our day trip to Capri. We had to wait about 30 minutes before enough people had arrived to fill up a boat. Once there were enough people, we boarded the boat and took it partially around the island. The scenery was beautiful and the boat ride was about 20 minutes to arrive at the Blue Grotto area. We pulled up to this area and I thought "what in the world are we doing?". There were several big boats unloading people into 8 foot dinghies. A dinghy pulled up along our boat and told us to get in. Mike got in first, then me, then Abby and then Austin. We all piled into the back, sitting on the floor of the row boat. One single American lady joined us in the front while the guy was in the middle rowing. He rowed us up to a big boat where we paid for our dinghy ride and our entry into the Blue Grotto. The next thing we knew we were entering the tiny hole in the side of the cliff and the rower pulled fast and hard on a cable to squeeze us into the grotto. Upon entering though, we immediately saw the beautiful blue in the water from the sun reflecting on the limestone bottom and our rower began singing "O Sole Mio" while rowing us around for a couple of minutes. I'm pretty sure the kids were in shock from the minute we entered the Blue Grotto until we got back into sunlight. It was definitely something you don't experience every day. After exiting, we pulled back up to the boat and got back on for our 20 minute ride back to the marina. When we arrived back at the marina, we had a little time to kill before catching our ferry back to Sorrento so we got gelato and hung out on the beach. Once we arrived back at Sorrento, we made it back to the hotel in time to swim for a little while before heading to dinner. We decided to go up the hill from our hotel to a restaurant about 300 yards away only to find out that this particular restaurant is closed on Wednesdays. Yep, it was Wednesday. We tried to catch the bus back down to the plaza only to watch it drive right past us because we were at the wrong bus stop. So, we walked all the way down to the plaza to eat at a wonderful restaurant with outside seating under lemon and orange trees. By the time we finished up dinner, it was late and the kids were tired. We went to catch the bus back to our hotel only to realize that the main square was closed off at night to traffic and the bus wouldn't stop at this particular stop. A cop directed us up the street to where we could catch the bus. Well, we were having a hard time finding this particular bus stop in the dark and I saw a Line A bus coming so we hopped on it only to quickly realize it was heading the wrong way from our hotel. The bus driver ended up dropping us off way on the other side of town. We crossed the street and stood at the right bus stop for over 30 minutes. By this time, Austin had fallen asleep in my arms and Abby was on her way to meltdown. We decided to just walk back to the main plaza where we originally started all of this and caught a taxi back to the hotel. There have been several time where our money has been well spent and this is definitely one of them. Everyone was tired and ready for bed!

May 21st--We woke up this morning and packed up to head back to Rome. We took the bus to the train station in Sorrento and caught the 10:30 train back to Naples. This train took a long time because it stopped every few minutes, but we arrived in Naples about 11:45. We grabbed lunch and quickly boarded our train back to Rome. Unfortunately, when purchasing our tickets, we picked one of the slower trains back to Rome, but it turned out fine because it was either sit on a train or sit in the Naples train station. We would rather sit on a train. The train ride was uneventful. We arrived back in Rome about 2:30, took the metro back to our apartment and just chilled the rest of the day.