A mixture of ups and downs

For our last day in Italy, we took the train to a place called Sorrento, a very popular touristy town, and hour away from Naples.

Forgot about the second last day.

So for the second last day, we went to this place called Puzzuoli. First impressions was that it was quite a quiet unremarkable town. There was no one about, but then again, it was a Sunday.

We had got off on a different station to the one initially planned, so it's kind of convenient that Dad had a GPS thing on his phone.

So..... as my Mum proudly displayed her knowledge, this is a market. It's really quite weird. You can't go in, so it's just kind of there in the middle of a random sleepy town.

This attraction lasted for about 5 minutes, as there was no shade. Oh wait, there was lamp-post in which I did pose under, squinting hard, and running away after the photo was taken.

Hmmm, then we started walking up a slope, heading towards a Volcano. And with our high-tech GPS thing we figured after only about 15 minutes of walking, which in that weather equals 75 minutes worth, we were only about a quarter of the way there. So (this may be hard to believe) we voted against seeing this volcano. Harvey's and my reasoning being we didn't want to walk for ages to see a piece of flat land with no shade. I know it's a volcano, but in the guide book it looked like a flat piece of tarmac on a hill.

So, minds changed, we went to the amphitheatre, which meant retracing most of our steps.

This is how amused and patient I was about it.

However the amphitheatre was pretty cool, we could go underneath the stadium bit, where all the performers would be before going up.

Imagine how spooky this place would be in the dark.

Of course we looked the stadium itself, but it was unfortunate we couldn't go up into the seating area.

Nonetheless, here I am in the middle of the amphitheatre:

Ugh, and yes, for some reason my belly is showing.

Something great happened though on the way back to the hotel, we bought ice cream and it was so very delicious. Not as delicious as when I had pineapple and coconut gelato, but delicious.

By this time, we had been quite sick of pasta and pizza, so we found this small Filipino place just round the back of the hotel, which did very decent kebabs. The first time we went, we bought some kebabs, then when we walked past again one of them invited us in to look at their small 'buffet' (in a very casual term). We kindly declined. However, to that day, we really just wanted to eat some vegetables and something that wasn't creamy or had tomatoes. So, the next day, we went there to actually eat. And they recognised us. At the end they struck up conversation.. the kind of conversation you strike up with someone that goes to your restaurant for the second time?

And we walked past again, and they go 'heelloo!' and we go 'hello!' and then it's a little like a venus fly trap because we ended up buying kebab AGAIN.

We nicknamed the place the 'hello' restaurant.

We walked past AGAIN, and we ate there, AGAIN.

And now I am a little embarrassed if I ever walk past again. Because now there is a bond, and I don't want to bond with a restaurant.




For our last day, we took the same train to Sorrento, about an hour away from Naples. It's a very touristy town, which actually has a supermarket that sells fruit.

It's also famous for lemons. I wanted to buy souvenirs, but I don't think plastic lemons for a ridiculous price is great personally.

Also, the lemons are dead ugly.

We went to a special exhibit of Salvador Dali's works, 'The Dali Universe', which was actually pretty good. It was a small exhibit, but his works were truly interesting and different.

However, the best thing that happened that day (possibly that week) we went to a really swanky restaurant for lunch.

The restaurant itself had a very grand atmosphere and it was playing operatic music. Classic stuff. And the main waiter had a really nice suit.

Before we even ordered we were bombarded with complimentary champagne and bread and pizza bread.

Another huge pro about this place is, they turned the air conditioning right up when we arrived.

So, we all had a four course meal.

And these are the highlights.

 ^ So above was the pasta course, with this fish paste inside, which was quite logically lovely. But, the clams. Oh my word, I am still gushing about the clams because they were the most fresh and sweet thing on earth. And eight of them was not enough.

< That was fish, (can't remember what fish, I think it was sea bass), which was cooked so that the flesh was light and and fairly flakey, and it taste beautiful too.

Above was Harvey's dessert, which was a coconut-ty thing, which is pity because I like coconut. But I put it up even though I didn't eat it as, it looks just so quirky and balanced.

And, on the right, is my face from trying the limoncello. The first sip was really nice, very zesty and fragrant. But perhaps I'm a lightweight, but the alcohol was far too strong for me, and I can only remember it as lemon detergent.



And of course, after visiting an awesome restaurant we want to remember it. So what better way than to have a photo in front of it?


Unfortunately thing went a little downhill from then on.... a coach journey, and our attempt to go home. But that can go in a different post to his one.

'You haven't even got a title!' - H

Argh, mental block.

Okay, so as expected we continued to explore Italy as we could. I cannot honestly say that we were happy with waking up so early, especially as the housekeeping in the hotel never gave us any small milk cartridges for tea.
Nonetheless, we obliged our alarm clocks, woke up as early as the days before and went on our way.

We went further out, but still within the areas we could reach by foot. It's quite impressive that everywhere we turn are filled we remnants of the city it used to be. Or in other words how old everything looks and seem to be.

Of course, the van cutting a huge corner of the photo doesn't help my portrayal of historical city.

Something a little more modern, and practically the only thing open in the morning that we were there. Novelty stuff in the shape and colour of chocolate etc.

And the coolest thing to happen that morning was I saw monks. Monks and nuns. It's just that the city was overfilled with churches, but to see an actual monk dressed up as monks in Robin Hood made me very excited.

I think I managed to take some pictures.

Wow.... I forgot the monk wore sunglasses. That is so much cooler.

Okay..... so half as an excuse to put a picture up that I think makes my legs lookvery nice, and half just to show the graffiti on the church walls..

And then of course, what would a holiday be without going to a few museums?

First museum of the day, Museo Archeologico, which was a lot of marble figures.

My dearest brother, standing next to a slightly flat headed big marble guy.

Okay, so it wasn't the most exciting museum of all, but very luckily the second museum was pretty cool and made it all up. Not to mention it was free for that day, and modern, and... we weren't supposed to take photos.

But we took a few anyway.

 I'm not quite sure I'm posing like this, the last time I did it was supposed to look like I was balancing vases.

 Windscreen wipers that made a load of chugging noises.

A glimpse of the bursts of colours in one of the exhibits, in contrast to the white marbles of faces and heads and busts.

 Above ^ is me pretending to be hypnotised by the spirals, and Harvey not playing along as usual.

< Erm... chairs with a poker poking through? I think it was inspired by an assassination.

Oh and a big raincoat.

Believe it or not, one my favourite piece was a black rectangle on the ground. . It was just unbelievably dark, like looking into a deep hole. We kind of just stared at it for a while, trying to make out a surface of some sort.

Oh, and Harvey reminded me of a freaky naked people collage.. which is funny as I have a photo of him staring intently at it, though I've decided not to publish it.
 "Only cos I could hardly make it what it was..."

Whatever you say.

A little bit of browsing the stores in the alley. Every single store filled with similar souvenirs of chilli key-rings.

The first kebab we ate in Naples, which was to be followed by quite a few more. From a restaurant we soon became affiliated with, but more about that later.

Back to the hotel warm with a tiny bite of the one kebab we bought, and siesta time once again.

Harvey says he loves me.

Capri-sun.

As beautiful islands go, I think Capri is pretty darn gorgeous.

So, keeping with the pattern, we woke very early to catch a ship (sounds weird) to Capri. In usual fashion, I feel asleep within minutes of the ship sailing, and a lovely morning nap on the gentle waves for 45 minutes before reaching the island.

It's pretty hard to find a sky and a sea bluer than this. The sun was glaring down, and we were slowly sizzling.

We took a cable car up to the top, where the many village is, because the other choice was to walk. Or to take the bus, which is us squashed into a little vehicle winding up sharp and narrow turns - no thanks.

So that's the cable car we went up in, there's a really cute photo of my mum, dad, and my brother poking their heads out, but they probably wouldn't let me put it up.

Damn it.









The village itself is a little like something out of a movie set, but an old movie.

This place is stunning, but we had to walk an hour in this sun to a place that was possibly less stunning. The walk was enjoyable as I forced them all to play the alphabet game with me.
An hour walk later we arrived at Villa Jovis, after passing a man who kept trying to force is go see him garden with great panorama which is 'no prawblem'. We ended up going in there but that was after going to Villa Jovis and chilling out on the marble in the shade.

I had to change my pose as my pose was always the same.

 Erm, so the villa is nice I guess, but it's mainly ruins. The view was nicer.

Ooooh, okay and then we went for food. No wait, we passed some wild goats..

And then they started urinating.

So we went for food.

No, we didn't, that guy who kept saying 'no problemo' made us feel so uncomfortable we went in to his garden thing. Which had a nice view of the sea. But then again, everywhere had.
We escaped somewhere else by climbing over a broken wall in order to avoid him.

Food. We lovely spaghetti with seafood, and seafood, and pasta that was green but very nice.

Oh and then we were going to go on a chairlift... but its metal seat dangling in the air for 26 minutes, so 26 minutes of shrivelling in the sun, so once again - no thanks.

Which is a pity, as it would have been awesome to get a view of the beautiful island from above.

















I have a baby's face on my knee.