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Mediterranean Trail 2010: Sorrento, Capri and Pompeii

This is part 2 of my documentation of our Contiki trip in June 2010.  Check out the first post about Rome to get caught up.

Day 3 & 4:  Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii

Leaving Rome bummed us out.  We seriously fell for this city in the short 2 days that we were there, but our trip was just getting started.  We had about a 4 hour bus ride to Sorrento which left much to be desired.  I’m not sure if it was the Italian roads, the lack of air conditioning in the bus, or the driving of our bus driver, but I got crazy motion sick on this thing.  And I wasn’t the only one.  But if there is one thing that could make me feel better, it was when we drove along the winding highway and the beautiful cliffs of Sorrento came into view.

After stopping to take pictures, we continued on to our hotel where everyone was really happy to get off that bus.  After checking in, most everyone spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool and having a few drinks.  It was nice to relax for a little bit after a hectic few days in Rome.  One side note, our hotel had the worlds smallest shower.  It was 18 inches square.  You could barely turn around in the thing.  Anyway...

After relaxing by the pool and getting ready, everyone got ready and took a 10 minute walk into downtown Sorrento.  The square was full of life with restaurants and shops.  Amedeo suggested several places for dinner and the group went their separate ways.  Erin and I tried a pasta place where we had a decent dinner (not as good as the one in Rome, but still pretty good).  After dinner we were brought shots of Lemoncello, which Sorrento is famous for.  It was extremely sweet but very good.

After dinner, we headed down to the center of Sorrento for some shopping, then headed back to the hotel early.  When we got there Jess, Cloé and Katie (some of our new Contiki friends) were hanging out by the pool, so we joined them and had a few glasses of wine.  This brings me to one of the best parts about a Contiki tour...the people we met!  The experience wouldn’t have been the same without our new friends that we made on the trip.

The next day, we got up early and all headed down to the port at Sorrento.  We had an early ferry ride over to the island of Capri, which is one of the wealthiest places in the world.  While getting off the ferry, someone said “In Capri, even the poor are filthy rich” which isn’t far from the truth.  Either that, or the poor are the tourists (hint: us).

First up in Capri was a boat tour around the island.  Capri is famous for it’s rocky grottos, soaring cliffs, and crystal clear blue water.  The cliffs were absolutely amazing.  I tried to take some pictures, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of these things unless you are in a tiny little boat looking straight up at a cliff that is hundreds of feet high.  All along the coast there are openings in the rocks that form the grottos.  We saw 6 or 7 of them...all beautiful.

About half-way through the boat tour, we stopped at a beach to take a swim.  The first thing we noticed was that the beach wasn’t sandy.  In the place of sand, there were small rounded rocks that made up the beach.  It was kinda weird at first (and much more difficult to walk on) but it was still fun.  I jumped in the water as soon as we got our stuff put down.  There was a huge rock in the middle of the swimming area that you could jump off...yeah I had to do that.  It was awesome!  At one point I just laid there thinking... “I can’t believe I am swimming in the Mediterranean Sea right now.”

After an hour or so, we got back on the boat and continued on our tour.  We checked out a few more grottos then headed back to the main port.  We had a lunch of homemade ravioli while overlooking the bay, then headed off to do some shopping.  This place had every high-end shop imaginable.  Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Rolex.  You name the designer, they have a shop here.  While we couldn’t really afford any of that, there were still other very cool shops to look in.

One of the cooler experiences we had was at a store that sold Erin’s kryptonite...shoes.  Capri is also famous for handmade leather shoes, so we decided to check one of the stores out.  The clerk was really helpful (surprise, eh?) and Erin found her some white sandals.  While we were checking out, the clerk mentioned that the shoes Erin picked out were “Jackie O shoes.”  I was like, “Jackie O?  As in Jackie Kennedy?”.  The clerk nodded then pointed to a picture behind us featuring none other than Jackie Kennedy.  In that shop.  Buying the shoes Erin just bought!  Very cool!

After hitting up a few more stores and a gelato stand (don’t judge me people), we headed back to the ferry to catch our boat back to Sorrento.  After getting back, we cleaned up and then had dinner in the Hotel with the group.  It was pretty good food, but not memorable.  After dinner, we crashed and crashed hard.  We were totally exhausted and actually went to bed early.  The next morning we said goodbye to Sorrento and got back on that damn bus, heading north towards Naples and stopping in Pompeii.

In the shadow of the ominous Mt. Vesuvius, the remains of Pompeii holds some of the most well preserved ruins of the fallen Roman Empire.  We had a special tour guide take us through the ruins.  At one point in time, this city was bustling with life.  Now, there is an eerie quiet to the streets, even though it is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world.  When Mt. Vesuvius covered the town in ash, it froze the city in it's tracks.  Now it provides incredible insight into the lives of first century Romans.

The frescoes and mosaics were stunning.  I can only imagine the beauty of this city when it was in it’s prime.  We saw the remains of one of the city’s brothels, which had some not-quite-so-G-rated scenes depicted on the walls.  One of the coolest things we saw were the Roman equivalent of road reflectors.  When they constructed the streets, they inlaid pieces of travertine in the stone to act as reflectors so that the streets could be seen at night.  The ingenuity kinda blew my mind a little bit.  One of the things that we didn’t get to see was the stadium, but I guess we can catch that next time.

After the tour of the ruins, we had lunch in the square and did some shopping at the market.  I had a lot of fun negotiating prices with the vendors.  Erin rolled her eyes at me (she hates when I negotiate prices with people) until I scored a necklace for her for less than half price.  After shopping, we got back on the bus and prepared for an epically long ride to the east coast of Italy where we would eventually catch a huge ferry to Greece...and have one of the longest nights EVER!