Sorrento and Some Day Trips

We arrived in Naples quite late at night and we stayed at a small guesthouse in the city. The place looked fairly dirty and run down as we were on the bus from the airport but it was dark and everything was closed. Anyway when we got up in the morning it looked exactly the same. haha. I hear it has its charm though but we weren't sticking around to find out so we jumped on the train to Sorrento where we were staying at a hostel/cooking school called Mami Camilla.

It was a pretty cool place where some people stayed for months to do like a certificate or something. A few of them were already chefs and I think it was part of their apprenticeship. Anyway, all that matters is that we paid to get a 4 course dinner the first night and it was tasty. Oh and they put out all the left over desserts on the breakfast buffet so Nate got to eat dessert for breakfast, which he was fairly happy about.

Also they had the biggest dog in the world and the smallest. The small one is Lola and the big one is Spike. They were pretty cool although Spike didn't really move much, but yes he is alive (I checked).

We decided to head out to Pompeii but we didn't realise how massive it was! It is absolutely huge which maybe I should have known, but I am just a stupid tourist after all. We spent a few hours there but you really could have spent a whole day if that's your thing. Here's a pic of Nate on one of the streets.

And here's a picture of a plaster cast they made of one of the people that was killed. There was also a few animals and a couple of other people too. Basically they found cavities with bones at the bottom so they poured in some plaster and got these. Fairly spooky!

Anyway, it was hot and we were tired so we went to one of the tourist trap kinda places selling fresh juice. I had orange and Nate had a Lemonade which was fairly tasty. And here's me with a mutant lemon.

We went back to the hostel and stopped at a shop on the way to check what Italian treats were available to us. Well, we found this. It's a nutella snack with a drink! And it's a lemon drink too. yuk. But yes, we did buy it and consume it.

Anyway, my boss at a previous job (hi Gillian!) had told me how much she loved the Amalfi coast so we just had to check it out. We jumped on a bus from town and I'd read that it was an amazing bus ride along some really steep cliffs with jaw-dropping views. Well it was, but it was also absolutely vomit-inducing hell as far as my motion sickness goes. haha. We made it to Positano but there was no way I could have gone another 18kms to Amalfi!

Anyway, as much as it sucks that we couldn't see more (a helicopter would have helped) we had lunch and some gelato in Positano. Here's a couple of pics that we took. What a stunning place. I have no idea how people live on these cliffs though. It's hard work getting up all those hills.

So here's one from higher up...

And here's one taken from the beach...

On our last night we met up with some new mates from our Croatia cruise. They were also in Sorrento so we had dinner down by the waterfront. I had the most delicious ravioli ever. It had crab meat inside and was in a tomato/cream/prawn sauce. It was amazing.

Here's a shot of the waterfront at sunset.

Here's one of me and Jenny.

And here's one of James and Nate enjoying some limoncello which is sold in just about every shop in and around Sorrento.