Okay, shower - tick, yesterday's clothes handwashed and hung off balcony like a local - tick, husband ready by 715am - amazingly tick. Rightio all the odds were for once in our favour for our prepaid guided minibus tour to The Famous Amalfi Coast. Although I'd had diuretics i was still suffering from big leg syndrome. So I dragged myself in record time (20mins) to the railway station ( last night it took us 35 mins), Eric patiently strolled by my side - bloody Italians with their genetic fast walk! At intervals he crooked his arm so I could Indo jog!
Due macchiato ai due cioccolata cornetti was our breakfast order, while hubster was paying, I was hit up by two beggars but I have a heart of steel. In Vietnam I was a soft touch, and in Paris last year it even cost me my phone SIM card which a refugee used to the value of $262!.
Alrighty we were on time to buy our tickets at the machine, this time there was no English translation option so a lovely Italiana helped us. She told us our Binari was numero tre, our ticket choicewas for 8.24 we got to the platform at 8.19 and boarded the train, no biggy. Next second train takes off still no cause for alarm. Ahhh cause for alarm when we arrive at the terminating station - Napoli!
Panicking much!! I rang the booking agency. The dude was very gruff and said "catch a taxi or they'll leave without you, they go exactly at 9.30, you can't inconvenience everyone else and you can't get a refund because you have a reserved seat!" Fricken A - well the day was certainly not starting well! MR Grumpy told me that the cost would be approximately €30. Well matey not for tourists. I'd heard on a travel podcast that Naples Taxi prices are mafia controlled. So guess what it is correctimundo!? We run outside the station and IL capitano strides over and wants to know where we are going.
He beckons over a driver and says "Pompeii ", we follow the driver. I ask him to put the Metre on and he shows me a laminated price list and sure as the sun rises Pompeii is on there listed as €90 ritornò. Eric tells him in Italian that it's a solo viaggio but he explains that he won't have a fair back. We'll anyway life's an adventure and we had a no alternative. This guy was the stereotypical crazy driver, we were going at over 100km and often in the opposite lane. He spoke to Mr Grumpy at the tourist agency who was shouting at him to go faster. He put his pedal to the metal and honestly I was amazed that we came out alive. He charged us €70 and had an angry word with lying Mr Grumpy bècause our mini buses weren't even here yet.
Tick tock tick tock , bloody liar they didn't get there until 10.15am and we weren't put on a mini bus, they ran out and our group of 8 was put in a taxi, the driver of course wasn't a guide but it was fine because we weren't walking walking so it was a wonderful view and a well deserved rest. We stopped to take a photo of Salerno with the Vesuvius background. I did feel a trifle annoyed because Eric and I weren't sitting together and we were sitting one behind each other in the seats that were always next to the Lattari Mountain Range. So although we could see the visual beauty we couldn't take any photographs. However on the rarest of occasions when there was something picturesque on our side the French couple beside me would completely lean over me and take photos, not once did the say excuse me or ever offer for me to have a big lean on them.
Our first real stop was at Ravello, it was only 40 mins because we'd had such thick traffic, the Monday being a bridge day between the weekend and the Italian National Holiday on the 25th of April, our Anzac day. Apparently in Italy the bridge day is normal and unless you're working in the hospitality industry you have it off. Hmmm Australia please adopt this idea!! We had a quick nature call, and tried to get near the sea wall to take a photo but it was impossible to get down within our short time frame. We ordered porchetta rolls hoping they'd be filled with porchetta as delicious as we'd had in Roma from the grocery store. It was ok but no herbs used. I am extremely fussy with my food as I worked so hard to lose the 10kg before our holiday and since I've now thrown caution to the wind calorie wise it better be worth it!
Our next stop was the township of Amalfi the steep road to the centre of town was pointed out but we wanted to drink Limoncello in a restaurant with a view and look out at the world famous beach speckled with jolly umbrellas. A ship was in port. I joked to Eric "Oh look it's Gin's ship! I'd better get a photo of it!"
Gin later confirmed that it was indeed her ship! She had given me strict instructions on certain culinary matters. One was to go to Bar Trevi in Rome - which I obediently did. And the other was drink Limoncello on the Amalfi Coast. The snooty waiter (for a moment I thought we were in France) inquired whether we were dining . I thought we better affirm this question or the prime balcony seating wouldn't be given to us. Once settled we perused the menu it was actually less expensive than a restaurant like The Raw Prawn or Barnacle Bills on the Cairns Esplanade!
However I'd eaten half of my porchetta panino (Eric had obliged me by eating the rest ) so unfortunately we in all honesty weren't hungry. So I ordered Zuppa di Cosse (Mussels in a tomato based sauce ) -Eric said there was no way that he could eat - and two Limoncello Spritzs. It was a fantastic choice. The Spritz had Lemon Sorbet in it as well as Prosecco and a smidgen of soda water it was like a liquid alcoholic lemon sherbet lolly.
My husband who had no room for food had by then polished off the bread basket and needed to wash it down with another round of spritz! The bar tender was extremely pleased and doubled the limoncello, woah it was difficult to even contemplate walking! I looked at my watch and lo and behold it was time to settle up, I gave a last lingering look at the stunning view and put my best foot forward, so to speak!
Eric sped along ahead fueled by Limoncello, there was a soccer match going on down on the sand . Pele kicked the ball up onto the board walk and a middleaged Brit - who was definitely not Becks- thought he'd impress the ladies kicked it like a frickn halfwit right into me. I was nearly knocked over, I gasped in pain and held onto my upper abdomen. The group of Brits looked at each other , the culprit said "oh" and they sped off. I was holding onto the wall so I wouldn't collapse. Eric was already in the bus. I had to drag myself along the promenade back to our waiting tour group. Everyone was annoyed with me. I was in too much pain to talk.
It took a fair while before I could breathe properly and start enjoying the drive again. I pushed away my feelings of disgruntlement and sat back and relaxed. Since I couldn't take photos and could only see by looking either behind the drivers seat or out of the front window I dozed off intermittently. I heard the young Italian couple in the back with Eric talk about a boat. I presumed they were catching the boat back from Positano and thought hmmmm that would be a gorgeous view.
Originally when we were planning on going to the Amalfi Coast we'd only planned to go by boat to Amalfi and then Positano and return to Salerno in the reserved manner. This was going to cost €40. So the mini bus tour was a really good option especially since we were going the whole way up to Sorrento.
Anyway the taxi driver abruptly stopped on the middle of nowhere. There were two ceramic sales stores on either side of the road and a fancy circular resort. Everyone else had disappeared into thin air, we thought that they'd probably gone to the toilet.
Eric was smoking so was standing away from me . And an Italian speaking man gestured to me to come on a tour in the grotto. I explained that I was waiting for the mini bus and didn't have enough time. He asked me what my husband's name was. I said that he was called Enrico. The man had an animated discussion with Eric and then we were ushered towards a stairwell.
Eric said we were going on a boat tour in the grotto! I argued that the bus would not wait for us. He looked puzzled, and replied , "He's our driver, didn't you recognize him? "
I said, "No because he was wearing a blue woolen waistcoaty vest thing and now he has a white button up shirt on". Anyway we went down in the lift and when the door opened my eyes opened wide in shock. It was indescribably beautiful, the grotto was dripping with limestone stalactites and the water was a special deep sapphire blue. It was so beautiful I clapped my hands and started to cry.
My husband sympathetically said, stop your blubbering and get into the boat. We were the last on board so we were the nearest to the rower / captain and he made a big fuss over us being Australian and then sang Oh Solo Mio to us liberally inserting the word Australia whenever he could. I thought I was recording it but it didn't work which is such a shame.
We all came out of the grotto and once again everyone was gone. What was with these people? ? I took out my phone and luckily there was wifi so I looked up how to ask " where is our driver?" I used the phrase on one of the other drivers in our convoy ( I wouldn't have recognized him from a bar of soap but Eric had assured me he had been with our 5 vehicle convoy the entire time.) So apparently our driver was coming back in an hour because another taxi in our convoy had broken down. They had only told the italian couple in our group and although they were young and spoke good English they didn't feel they needed to let us know. I don't know why Eric didn't ask the other driver as he was chatting away freely in Italian to other tourists. He spotted a loquat tree on another terrace belonging to the café so we stood on the chairs and picked fruit, and sat there an ate it. We'd already had a coffee upstairs.
When our driver came back it was 4pm, the finish time for the tour was 4.30pm, luckily no one had an evening plane to catch. I asked the English couple who had been sitting in the front the entire trip whether we could swap spots as we hadn't been able to take photos. She said that she was a migraine sufferer and therefore was susceptible to motion sickness so had to have the front. I took out my prescription labelled packet of medication and sympathized , replying yes I fully understood and that I was feeling very unwell, and if her husband wasn't also in the same predicament could he swap with me, as I had the same medical urgency. He was very chivalrous and said we could swap seats. I was able to take a few photos but by now the light was shining in from the front of the taxi so it wasn't an opportune time.
The driver pointed out Positano and we stopped to take photos, however the 10 km drive took over 1 hour and we had missed our allocated parking time so we couldn't stop. We stopped at another town whose name I can't remember. Then we had an hour and 40 minutes in Sorrento. We went for a walk around the gorgeous little town. Eric bought a litre of Limoncello for €10 saying he'd make cocktails every night ( since I'm writing this in hindsight, I can say - we still have 750ml left and we're catching the plane to Paris this afternoon, so perhaps we should have bought the 4 x 250ml cutesy boot shaped bottles instead for €2 extra) we paid to go down to the Corso in a lift expecting to find a cafe to eat something as it was nearly 6pm, however nothing opened until 7pm as it was still siesta time. We finished our loquats and strolled about. Once up the top we saw people eating little savouries so we sat down there. However they weren't on the menu and were only for people drinking alcohol other than beer so we had a coffee and took in the stunning sunset. An enormous seagull who Eric gave the moniker Jonathan to, sat there on the wall just waiting to be photographed!
The time was soon over, so we were collected by our driver who had apparently been taking fares. I asked what time we'd be in Pompeii because yesterday when we purchased our tickets we were told the last train left at 9am, he said no worries we'll be there in 15mins. However the traffic was bumper to bumper and although he drove on the wrong side of the road as much as he could so that he could push in further up the line we screeched into the station at 5past. Off he zoomed, I ran in and thank God there were trains coming after 10pm. One at 5 past the other at 20 past. As luck would have it the ticket machine was broken so we walked around Pompeii for half an hour looking for a Tabbachi, they were all closed. I said to Eric let's just sit down and have dinner in the café where we ate last night and I'll buy tickets on line. So we did that and as luck would have it, the station ticket machine was working again, so the rest of the night was smooth sailing.
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