It was a big holiday this year. We wanted something a bit different, and the idea of a city and sea break coincided with the desire to visit Italy for the first time. We booked up 3 nights in Rome and 7 in Sorrento with Barrhead Travel. They did book lovely hotels and arranged for the flights, but we then had to arrange all of the travel in between.
So preparation involved booking tickets for the trains in between Rome and Sorrento, and transport from and to the airports. And also some excursions. We booked a day excursion to Pompeii and Vesuvius for while we were in Sorrento, and a Rome Tourist Card for the days in Rome. However because I was a bit late (still a couple of weeks before we went) in booking the Rome tickets, we ended up with the Colosseum, Forum and Vatican Museums on the same day. More of that later.
We flew out from Glasgow early on Thursday morning, and arrived in Rome airport in good time. However we had to join a huge queue to get through passport control, which wound up one stairway, around the upstairs for a bit and back down to the floor we started. My passport didn't work in the machine for some reason. I had to join the slow queue for manual checks, and was busy typing a message to Cate to say I was in the slow queue when I noticed she had also joined. Claire got through and had to wait for us, but got the cases while she waited.
We got tickets for the express train (The Leonardo Express) into Rome Termini station (weirdly not called that becasue it's the end of the line, but because of the thermal baths which used to be there) and arrived in the city centre. The queue for taxis was huge, so Cate used her Uber app to get us transport. However we spent a good 20 minutes trying to find the pickup point. When we eventually found the driver, I got in the wrong side and sat in the driver's seat. Anyway, he was nice enough and gave us some tips for the days ahead (including not to go out of Naples station as it's full of dodgy folk, but we didn't ever find out how true that was).
Anyway, arriving at our hotel was a big relief. It was 35 degrees outside and the hotel air condidtioning was always welcome when we entered the foyer. We stayed at the Hotel Tritone, which was lovely, with spacious rooms (two twin beds for 3 people), a top floor breakfast room (very hot despite the air conditioning) and an amazing location.
We were literally right round the corner from the Trevi Fountain. Cate and I had an initial wander around the area, admiring the amazing buildings round every corner and ending up at the Trevi. I'd heard that you have to pay to see it, but that's a bit misguided. The square is free to walk around, and while packed, you get a good view of the fountain, but you have to pay if you want to go down to the water's edge, maybe to toss a coin into the water. We weren't bothered with that, and found on the next day that you can get down to the water for free after 10pm, so were happy with this.
The Trevi really impressed. It's a big sculpture and looks like the whole thing is carved out of the rock. Definitely worth a visit.
Each night we had to find somewhere to eat. There are loads of restaurants around the area, especially along the streets where most of the tourists flow, and we tried a few of these. The first day they plied us with extras which we didn't ask for but ended up paying for, but generally they were very good. The quality of food was good, and we had entertainment from an old guy one night, who sang opera in front of us.
We had tickets for the Colosseum and Forum area, but had to collect the tickets at the tourist office. This was on our way, so that was fine. We watched a video of the buildings in ruin and how they would have looked when new, then headed down the road. Our entrance for the Colosseum was in 2 hours, so we thought we'd go through the Forum area first. However the queue at the side entrance was huge. Ironically the queue for the ticket office was non existent. So everyone had bought skip the queue tickets, only to have to wait in a huge queue to get in. We didn't fancy waiting for an hour in the boiling sun so found a cafe to get some ice cream, and wandered down to the Colosseum.
The Colosseum is just at the bottom of a road, easy to get to, but it seemed slightly out of place that this ancient structure was just off a main road. We were early, so wandered about, and found that there was an entrance to the Forum area that was much quicker to get into. However, you can't visit twice, so we left it until after the Colosseum.
Because it's timed entry, it's fairly quick getting in. And nice and cool once you are in. We got some good view of the walls, the underground passages, and what it must have been like visiting for a show. It's impressive that it has stood so long, though some of it had tumbled down due to earthquakes and been restored at various times in the past.
Now we could go into the Forum and Palatine Hill area. This has a lot of the government buildings, temples to various Gods, and memorials to various emperors in various states of repair. We thought we could make our way through in pretty much a straight line, but ended up doubling back several times, getting hotter and more tired as we did.
We eventually managed to get out at the side entrance where the big queue was, and stopped again at the cafe we'd been to before. We were due to get to the Vatican museums by 3, but I was totally exhausted by this time and didn't think I could handle the heat any more, so we just took an Uber back to the hotel to recover. Sorry family, we missed out on a bit there.
Still feeling a bit ropy the next day, but the Pantheon was only a short walk away and we had tickets for that in the morning. However when we go there we discovered it had the same cover-your-knees rule that the Vatican had. We hadn't realised, and Claire had shorts on. A man kept bugging us trying to sell a scarf thing to cover the knees, but we ened up with just Cate going in, while Claire and I waited outside (and visited a chocolate shop). Cate got some photos inside and it looks pretty impressive. The Pantheon was originally a temple to all the gods, but was converted into a church at a later time. It was built with a domed roof, with a hole in the middle. The sun shines through the hole and makes a circle of light on the wall. At a certain time on midsummer day it shines on the door. We were there the day before midsummer.
The next thing we had booked was the hop on - hop off bus ride around the city. There are a number of these but ours were the red and yellow buses. We found the nearest stop and stayed on for a complete circuit. This was quite enjoyable, and relaxing after all the walking. I also got to see a fight between two ticket sellers for rival buses.
After our bus circuit we got off at the stop nearest to the Vatican. A quick walk across the bridge and we were on the approach to St Peter's. There are a surprising amount of tourist shops on the run up, including my favourite, a sandwich shop called 'Saintwich'. St Peter's has a big square in front for the faithful to gather, with a semi-circle of columned walkways flanking it. Anyway, that was it, so back to the bus stop and a trip round to the nearest stop to our hotel. We stopped at a gelateria on the walk back, for some tasty ice cream.
Cate and I went for an afternoon walk to some of the local sights. We found our way to the Piazza Navona, which used to be an oval stadium build by Domitian. It's a nice big open area, with fountains at each end. We followed through to the Campo de' Fiori, where we promised a man that we would return to his restaurant later, but not before we bumped into a museum with an exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci.
The museum was cool, fairly cheap, and really well done. They had lots of information about Leonardo, but also they'd made up models of a lot of his drawings and ideas. They had flying machines, armoured vehicles, giant crossbows, and lots of machines turning one type of motion into another, for instance a cam shaft that allows you to lift a hammer that then quickly fell on its nail.
So that was Rome. It was very hot, choc full of ancient buildings and fountains. It was very busy, with many narrow streets that cars and mopeds insisted on driving down. We were accosted by many African men wanting to give us free wrist bands, but then insisting on a donation, and also a man who wanted us to sign a petition "against drugs". But it was also charming. Most of the shops were high end clothes shops or artisinal leather goods. Our favourite drink while we were there was Lemon Soda, a delicious lemonade with a real fresh sharpness to it. And my favourite thing about the city is that if you carried your water bottle about with you, you could top it up from one of the many fountains around the city that just poured out cold drinking water constantly. Much appreciated in the 35 degree heat.
Sunday morning, and was time to check out of the Tritone, and head for Sorrento. A quick taxi to the train station and we were a bit early for the express train to Naples. But when we got on it it was lovely. Smooth and fast, with plenty space for our luggage. After a two hour wait in Naples central station, and an amazing sandwich from the food hall, we headed downstairs to the Circumvesuviana lines. We were guided to our carriage by staff who then came on the train with us. We put our cases next to one of the doors, assured that they wouldn't open at the stops, and the slower, more rickety train took us round the coast to Sorrento.
A taxi took us to our hotel in Sorrento, just out of the town centre a little and up a scary, narrow and very steep road. The Art Hotel Gran Paradiso was lovely, the rooms decent, lots of artwork on the walls, but the view was stunning. Because we were up a hill, we could look down over the Sorrento suburbs, the bay, and out to Vesuvius looming ominously across the water. We also had a good view across the hills outside sorrento, which provided a variety of weather patterns throughout the week, including a good lightning storm.
The hotel was fairly small, but for the first 5 or 6 days there it was very quiet. We could have breakfast at 9, bring our stuff down at 10 and still have our choice of the loungers. The pool was mostly crowd free for the first part of the week too.
Most of the evenings we took the free shuttle bus down to the town, and found a restaurant to eat in. Like in Rome, the food was generally very good. Mostly pasta and pizza, but plenty of seafood options for Cate. We were slightly worried about getting everyone back onto the shuttle bus on the way back, but when that did happen they just sent for the backup minibus.
After dinner and some shopping, our favourite place to rest was the little pool just down from the train station, with a gelateria nearby for some nice ice cream. We had also seen lemons hollowed out and filled with lemon sorbet, so Claire managed to get one of those one evening.
The market in Sorrento was advertised as running on Tuesdays, so when Tuesday came round we took the shuttle bus down in the morning, found the street it was supposed to be on and walked up the hill looking for signs of a market.
Nothing!
We eventually worked out that it should have been at a place that just had lots of buses parked, and it turned out that the market had been cancelled a few weeks earlier, when it emerged that most of the stall owners had not renewed their licenses.
So that day was a bit of a failure. Talking of failures, on the first morning I went down to the pool with the room key in my swim shorts. I forgot to put it in the bag and only an hour or so later started wondering where it was. I spotted it at the bottom of the pool, and had to dive down to get it back.
You'd think I'd learn, and I sort of did. A couple of days before we finished, I remembered to put the room key in the bag, and put my phone in my swim shorts pocket, because I definitely wouldn't forget to take that out. A few laps into my morning swim, a nice American woman dived down to the bottom of the pool and came up holding my phone.
It still worked!
For about 10 seconds.
So that was another hundred pounds added to the cost of the holiday!
We just booked one trip for our Sorrento week, wanting the week to be a relaxing time after the bustle of Rome. This was a full day trip to Pompeii and Vesuvius. It was the only time we walked down the steep road form the hotel, to wait for the bus which took us to Pompeii.
The trip was well organised. There were about 40 of us in the bus, and we split into 2 groups in Pompeii. Julio took us around the place, showing us various different buildings and explaining what each was for. We spent about 2 hours in Pompeii, and thankfully the walls were high enough to get some shade most of the time. It wasn't quite as hot as Rome, but still round about 30 degrees. The tour was very interesting, even the dodgy area of the town.
Back on the bus, and we drove to Vesuvius. The bus was going to take us up to near the top, but stopped part way up at a restaurant for lunch. We had a selection of street food for starters and a pasta dish for mains. The restaurant was kind enough to throw in a second bottle of water when we drained our first.
After lunch the bus climed up the slopes of Vesuvius. The tour guide called it the Mamma Mia Road, but it was well paved and not too dicy, if quite narrow, such that the driver had to beep his horn at the tight corners.
The bus stopped about a kilometre short of the summit, and we got out and walked. It doesn't sound like a great distance, but it was steep, and we soon found it pretty tiring. Claire was feeling the pain from her dodgy knee, but determination got her to the top. We had a good view down into the crater (no lava unfortunately) and across the bay down below.
We did spend a couple of nights at the hotel for dinner. Like every dinner we ate outdoors, and it was lovely to have our meal and watch the sun go down over the water. Oh! We did have one indoor meal. One evening we found a Thai restaurant, and had a nice change of style for dinner, though still with the obligatory Lemon Soda.
Sorrento was very pleasant. It was still quite busy, but not as crowded as Rome, and there were fewer people trying to sell us water, umbrellas or wrist bands. An awful lot of scooters and mopeds though, and not the safest driving styles. The shops were mainly selling lemon-based mementos.
I'd booked a bus for the journey to Naples airport on Sunday morning. It was waiting at the train station when the taxi brought us down, and was a pleasant ride to the airport. Our flight was delayed for a bit, and we had to wait an age in a queue in the departure lounge. When we finally got on the plane, we had another long wait for everyone to get on, and then the pilot announced we had at least 50 minutes more to wait before we could get away. The sun was baking us despite the air conditioning, and it was a relief to finally get off the ground. Back in Glasgow it was a nice cool 18 degrees.
Good to be home again, but we did enjoy our trip to Italy. I was worried that my usual exercise regime would be stymied by all the pasta we ate while away, but hooray! 5 pounds lost despite that.