After leaving Pompeii we stopped in Sorrento for dinner at a lovely little restaurant set in a garden, and our meal ended with some Limoncello. Perfect! For those of you that are not aware of what it is, it is a lemon based liquor very popular in Italy.
This post continues on the journey I took with my son in 2010 around the world. If you would like to see the story so far you can start it all here.
LINK: My First World Trip : Where It All Started
Nothing like it to lift everyone’s spirits after being worn out being good little tourists. One of the great things about a bus tour is that no-one has to watch what they drink because no-one has to drive.
After dinner we had an hour to wander around the streets, so many restaurants, shops and bars were still open, people were walking their dogs and others were just chatting in the street. Such a happy place.
Our tour guide met up for coffee with some of her local friends and told us that this was a favorite place of hers because it was a little away from the normal touristy areas. This left us free to wander around the place on our own.
A short distance from Sorrento was our hotel for the night. As we were travelling with only carry-on luggage we needed to do some washing. So we found where the local laundromat was and got the coins we knew we would need. Always handy to keep your spare change for laundromats while travelling. In more advanced laundromats you can just use your credit card but it depends on the country and size of town really.
Maybe there is a reason to learn a little of the local language even when only being a tourist. Then we bolted down the road to the laundromat before any of the other passengers realized where we were. As you know it was always a rush to get to the laundromat first but as we only had a half full bus, not quite so bad as it could have been.
I can only imagine the lord of the flies scenario that would have happened with a full bus. In the end I think the other people on the bus knew we were the quickest to get the low down on the local town and ended up just following us. Heading down the road that was cut through solid rock, the path was only wide enough for one person, so we followed one another in single file hoping there wouldn’t be too much traffic.
When we got to the laundromat all the instructions and names of washing powder and conditioner were in Italian of course. There was a lady doing her washing so I asked her if she could help us. She started to shake her head and got very agitated, grabbed her little boy and bolted out the door.
We struggled on, trying to work out which one was the powder and put what we thought was conditioner into the other slot. It smelled a bit weird to me so I checked it and we’d put bleach in instead. That would have been a fun experience with all white clothes or tie dyed clothes for the rest of the journey. We then spent 10 minutes wiping it out with tissues and then hoping we weren’t going to end up being hippies for the rest of the trip.
No dryers, so we went back to the hotel and draped all our clothes over anything that would hold them. This seems to be something we have done all over the world. One advantage of colder climates is there is always a radiator handy to dangle something on to get dry.
We then went down to a little grocery shop we’d seen while we were out and bought a bottle of wine to settle our nerves. We could see the ocean from our balcony and also the house next door with those enormous lemons growing all around the house. The old couple were having a family barbeque and making quite a racket.
The moon came out shining on the sea, we had wine, we were in Italy, so we started to sing “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin. All’s right with the world, so we thought until our tour guide poked her head around the wall of the next room and told us to quieten down. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Lol we always seem to be told to stop enjoying ourselves everywhere we go.
The next day we took a ferry over to the Isle of Capri where I have never seen such blue water. It is a lovely place with heaps of boats in the harbour, small shops, and very small cars and trucks for deliveries or so we assumed.
We found out exactly why as we got into our small bus and drove up the winding road to the top of the island. Only a single one way road with pull off sections if traffic came the other way. The streets through the town itself were also narrow and the car and truck size would have helped there as well.
A lot of horn blowing going on all the way up and from those coming down letting anyone else on the road know they were coming. Luckily there was a safety fence to stop any wayward bus, truck or car from tumbling off the side. After the harrowing drive up the road we stopped for some pizza for lunch with the now necessary glass of wine.
This is where we had a local tour guide to show us around town who I thought was “A bit alright” if you know what I mean. Much to my dismay he mentioned he had a wife and so my little fantasy was crushed.
He did know his stuff in the town and I learned a lot about its history though so that kind of made up for it. As usual I found the gardens with flowers and food along the way to take photos of. At this point we ran across an example of the regional love of lemons as well that had everything you could think of with lemons on it. Someone is very passionate about lemons me thinks.
The tour guide took us to a look out to see where we would be later in the day taking a boat tour around the tip on the island and it was a beautiful view.
As the tour around the town was wrapping up the usual prompt to buy some local merchandise always comes up. So we went to Carthusia, a perfumery on the island to sample their perfumes.
As we were only halfway up the mountain at this point we could either walk to the top or take the chair lift which only had room for a single person on each seat. We chose the chairlift as stairs are one of my enemies. One advantage of only one person per seat was that we could take photos of each other on the ride up. The view when we got to the top was amazing. Another photo opportunity, like I needed encouragement on this trip.
We took the chairlift back down and another hellraising bus ride down the hill had us back in the harbour where I found a great little clothes shop that had just the colours I like. We were back here to take a boat ride around the tip of the island that we had already seen from both lookouts.
No matter how many times I am on the water it always relaxes me and having to be used to going out with my husband fishing it always brings back good memories. The houses around the island were beautiful and the natural rock formations where something to behold.
Eventually we walked out onto a scene out of a movie. Lovely park with flowers everywhere and houses built into cliff tops and right down to the seashore. What a dream. We didn’t want to leave, but when the ferry started blowing its horn it was time to wake up and go back to Sorrento. What a beautiful place.
NEXT STOP: Ferry To Greece And Olympia