I knew I made the right decision to travel to southern Italy when we were on the hour train ride between Naples and Sorrento. On my right, I was able to see the Bay of Naples and the beautiful coastline while on my left, I was able to see Mount Vesuvius reaching up into the clouds. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and although we had traveled overnight and we were tired, it made the frustrating trip worth it just looking out the train window.
When we arrived in Sorrento, we called Mario and Hugo, the father and son who owned the bed and breakfast, Casa Mazzola, where we were staying. The bed and breakfast was on a high hill so they offered to pick us up with their car when we arrived. Mario picked us up, a charming Italian man with a thick mustache. He drove us up the mountain to the B&B and the view was worth the inconvenience of not staying close to town. It was great staying in a B&B as opposed to our hostel. It felt like a true vacation.
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| The key to our room. |
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| Mario and his son Hugo. |
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| Our room. Mario was a self-titled "crazy artist" who decorated everything uniquely in the rooms. |
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| The lemons in Sorrento were huge! They're known for their Limoncello. |
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| The view from our balcony. |
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| The oranges were also ginormous and delicious. |
The next day was supposed to be the only day when it wouldn't rain, so we decided to take the ferry over to Capri for the day. Capri was a small island about 30 minutes away by ferry boat. We had wanted to see the famous Blue Grotto, but the waves were too strong and there were no boats heading there that day. We were disappointed but we had such a great day exploring Capri that it did not seem that big of a loss.
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| View from the ferry. |
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| View from the town center of Capri. We didn't realize that we had to walk up 500 stairs to get to the center, so we were all sweating by the time we got to the top. But the view was worth it. |
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| The best drink. Orange juice with lemon slush. Delicious. |
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| The Faraglioni rocks behind me. |
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| The water was electric blue in some parts. |
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A small beach area by Marina Piccola. It was beautiful and we had a great afternoon relaxing and swimming in the water.
Soon after this picture was taken, a wave snuck up behind me and drenched my skirt.
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| Enjoying the water. |
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| The view from the top of Anacapri. |
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| We walked the 1,000 steps from the top of Anacapri back down to Marina Grande, the main harbor where we ran to catch the ferry back to Sorrento. |
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| Another harbor in Sorrento, where we ate seafood for dinner. |
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| Italian fisherman were mending their nets, cigars in their mouth, as their grandchildren ran around. |
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| I don't usually eat seafood and I'm a picky eater in general, but I was trying to be adventurous and ordered the "Fried Mixed Local Fish Platter". I figured anything fried would be good. I was a little surprised when I saw this plate come out. I never knew fish had teeth. After a few minutes of staring, I was able to eat some of the meat off the fish. It was pretty good, but it's probably the one and only time I'll eat fish like that. |
The next day it was raining but that didn't stop us from heading to Pompeii. It was something I remember learning about in Elementary School and I've always wanted to visit it. It was similar to Ostia Antica but everything in this ancient city was preserved by the volcanic ash after Mount Vesuvius erupted. We were able to see some actual bodies they recovered frozen in time, but most of the artifacts had been moved to a museum in Naples. I was a little disappointed because I thought that everything was left untouched, but I guess that it was naive for me to think that. It was still an amazing experience though.
Even though it was pouring rain at the end, Pompeii was amazing to see and another place to check off of my bucket list.
