Shop, Shop, Shop on Saturn Saturday

May 30th

Today we simply Shopped, Shopped and Shopped some more. Guilia, Rosa, and Luca took us to Euroma 2 the largest shopping mall in Europe…it was insane. So we were able to buy some stylish Italian clothes and shoes for me. Then we stopped for lunch… What an ordeal for a couple of kebab panninni’s. I learned this trip that with a bunch of Italians everything is a bit of an ordeal, it’s just the way they are.

After lunch, we did a little more shopping and headed home for a short rest, before yep you guessed it, MORE shopping.

They took us to the center of a small town on a Saturday, the entire town was there, and more since they were having a flower festival. The children of this town covered one of the streets with murals composed entirely of flower petals and plant materials. It was remarkably beautiful. (The communist party of Italy was also there soliciting support, which was extremely odd, I was unaware they were trying to make a comeback in the country).

Then we returned home for dinner, Scuie Scuie with Peas, followed by MORE OYSTERS (are you kidding me?). Then we took a family outing to Castel Grandolfo (the Pope’s summer Palace), for gelato. We basically ate gelato on the Pope’s porch, it was severely cold for gelato, but super tasty. While we were eating our gelato their was an astronomy lesson going on in the Piazza, which of course we couldn’t understand. They had some telescopes set up though where we were able to see the moon in detail, and then a tiny Saturn with its spec of a moon, which was pretty amazing. Another day done, one more before we head home.

The Pope's Door

Our Nuraghe Quest

May 29th

Today was our last day in Sardenga and we were pretty wiped out from the last few days. We decided to enjoy another morning at the beach, despite the remnants of Wednesday’s sunburn. So we spent the morning on the beach, and then headed back to town for some pizza and Gelato (in the small amount of time we spent in Stintino we visited this Gellateria 5 times).

After lunch, it was time to find a Nuraghe. The Nuraghi are the remnants of an ancient island civilization and are scattered all over the island. They are small bee-hive/igloo resembling huts constructed from stone that served as shelter. The problems with these little huts are that there are no roads to many of them, many are on private property, and they are just hard to find. We spent an hour or so trying to track down a Nuraghe and we were only able to see it from a distance (it was on private property with vicious signs posted about ravenous german shepards and no access allowed). This time our quest to find a Nuraghe was pretty much a failure, next time we will stop when there are signs present and not try to find them based on the map.
The tiny igloo shaped bump in the background is the Nuraghe

Sella and Mosca Vineyard outside Alghero

After our failed quest we were running extremely early for our flight and decided to stop at a vineyard of a local wine we had enjoyed while in Stintino, unfortunately we found it to be slightly fortresslike and were unable to gain access. We continued heading for the airport, where we ran upon a Necropolis from 3300 B.C., Anghelu Ruju, which was pretty interesting.

Then off to the airport to return the car and head back to Rome. We arrived earlier than planned due to our failed attempt at discovering a Nuraghe, which ended up making for a long wait in the airport because boarding was delayed 1 hour. I feel delays are to be expected at some point in the travels, hopefully this was our delay and all our flights home will be on time since we both have to work on Tuesday.

Rich filling up the Lancia

Once back in Rome we waited for Luca to get home to eat dinner, which ended up being after ten, so famished and exhausted we enjoyed an enormous feast of mussels and oysters. By the way if you love raw oysters, don’t ever tell an Italian that! I love oysters but I have my special way I like to eat them (i.d. ketchup, salt, lemon, and a cracker). Here it is just sucking down a slimy raw oyster, the taste is very good, but I don’t so much care for the texture without the cracker.

Costa Smeralda

May 28th

View from our Hotel in Palau

This morning we planned on visiting the famous Costa Smeraldo, we just didn’t know how we were going to see it. So we started out driving to Porto Cervo, which was a very rich town (like Beverly hills), with immaculately kept streets and much newer buildings than the rest of Italy, and a beautiful harbor filled with massive yachts and an exclusive yacht club. We quickly determined we were in an area we could not afford, snapped some pictures and moved on.

We ended up in Capriciolli near the Cala di Volpe. We were driving down the main road into Capriciolli and saw a small sign that said boat rental pointing down a small dirt road in some bushes, so we chanced it and turned down. Where we discovered a beautiful shallow cove filled with small boats and a tent advertising rentals. We ended up renting a small inflatable boat for half a day for 100euro, it was very reasonable since it was low season. So we loaded up, and spent the next four hours exploring the Costa Smeralda by boat. The beauty of the water and coast and beaches is unexplainable, you just have to look at the pictures.

After the boat ride is where the day’s adventure really began. We ate snacks (pistachios, quadratini, and dried bread and jam) on the boat, so we were not immediately hungry for lunch, so we kept driving (big mistake). The only time Richard and I fight are when we are hungary, hot, or giving directions, or any combination of the aforementioned scenarios. So finally we decided to stop for Pizza, but you can’t get pizza in Sardenga on a Thursday (both pizzerias that we stopped at in some tiny town were closed), so we kept driving. We ended up taking several detours through tiny towns looking for food, getting in a huge fight, and finally eating a subpar pannini, chips, and cardboard icecream at a bar in Berchidda (still better than yesterday’s lunch).

Finally, with full bellies but still recovering from the fight, we tried to leave Berchidda and a Police officer refused our entry to the highway… Now what? Crystal decided that it would be best to get on the road anyway, so we illegally headed up an onramp. Once driving the cars on the other side of the road started flashing their headlights at us, we weren’t sure what was going on, and proceeded with caution until finding Sardegna’s largest traffic jam. So we turned around and headed for the detour (the same place we were 20 minutes earlier), and headed for Sassari (Sardegna’s second largest city), which we bypassed and headed to Argentiera, where we planned on staying the night.
Richard in front of Argentiera's mine

I had read about Argentiera being an old mining town, and it having this old mine right on the beach, yadda yadda very picturesque….Would have been great for a day at the beach, unfortunately as a place to stay the night for a tourist in the off season it was a GHOST Town. So we were getting hungry and didn’t want a repeat of this afternoon, so we decided to head back to Stintino where we knew a hotel and had already scoped out all the restaurants. So we basically ended up where we began, with lots of adventures and driving in between. We ended our day with a great meal at a marina front restaurant. We sampled some local cheeses, I had Zuppetta di Cozze (mussel soup), and Rich enjoyed the linguine con vongole, followed by veal Milanese and salad, and another trip to the Gellateria.

Our Sardegna Cheeses

CapoFREAKIN Testa

May 27

We started off the morning with a trip to La Pelosa beach. We were on the beach by 0900. This was a beautiful white sand beach with crystal blue and turquoise waters, it was only a five minute drive from the center of town. The only downside was that the beach was littered with golf-ball to tennis-ball sized jellyfish. However, based on the reaction of the other beachgoers they were relatively harmless. Our neighbor picked one up and enjoyed tormenting his wife and taking photos, and none of the parents seemed concerned that their kiddos were playing in the jelly infested waters. I was not willing to investigate further by potential self sacrifice.

After three hours on the beach we decided it was time to move along, so we packed up our little Lancia and headed down the road along the northern coast. We travelled through Porto Torres, and ate lunch at a roadside restaurant (by far the worst lunch we have eaten thus far). Oh well, on to the beach, we stopped at a beach called San Pietro where we sat and watched some impressive kite surfers. Then back to the car and headed toward Castelsardo, a beautiful town situated up on a hill with an ancient castle at the center, unfortunately the streets are ancient as well, making it very difficult to get around. We drove down a seriously narrow dead end street with no signage and Rich did some heroic reversing narrowly missing some very steep steps resembling a street. Once we got off this street we drove around in a circle for 15 minutes trying to find the way out of town. Finally we got out, and continued along the coast to the Costa Paradiso, another 2 star attraction. Basically it was a coast of jagged red (grand canyonesque) rocks, with a thrashing turquoise sea at the base. Also, well worth the two stars, we enjoyed sitting and watching the giant waves crash against the cliffs. Then some more driving…
The elephant rock (got 1 star), not quite worth a detour, but kinda cool if its on your way

This time we were headed for Capo Testa another 2 star location, at the northeastern tip of the coast. On our way we stopped in the nearby town, Santa Theresa di Gallura looking for Capo Testa. Unfortunately, when we got back to the car we could not turn the key. After repeatedly trying and unsuccessfully attempting to read the Italian manual we went to a nearby hotel where we were directed to Avis. Luckily the town was small enough we walked to Avis, but the employee was the only person there and there was a serious language barrier, but he told us to come back at 1900 when he could close the shop. So slightly defeated we headed back to the car to do some more reading, but while Rich read I decided this would be a good time to call Dad…he knows it all, and he speaks the same language, but my cell phone was dead. So I went back to the hotel and asked to charge my phone, and the women (knowing my distress) kindly helped out. It took 15 minutes of charging before I could make a call, but finally I was able to call my dad. He told me what to do, I went back to the car and we tried again with some new suggestions, and within minutes we were headed to Capo Testa. Thanks Dad!!! So we were only detoured for about an hour.

Once we arrived in Capo Testa we didn’t have a lot of time or tennis shoes, so we definitely were not able to enjoy it to its fullest. It is basically a giant rock playground (when I say playground I don’t mean it literally, it is a natural rock formation), that you can climb all over.
After Capo Testa we headed to Palau, a city near the top of the Costa Smeralda, by the Capo d’Orso. We stayed at the Vanna Excelsior hotel, outside the city center situated on a hill overlooking the harbor and the archipelago. We paid 80 euro for a room with a beautiful terrace with a panoramic view, breakfast included. Once we got situated we headed into town to find some dinner, and after some failed attempts we landed in Zio Nicola’s. This restaurant was facing the harbor, had the second best food of our trip, including extremely fresh (caught this morning) seafood, and we received a 15% discount, and enjoyed 1.5 liters of local white wine for 14euro.

Capo Testa

My most delicious fish dish

Finally a Grotto that Delivered! (I was slightly intoxicated while composing this)

May 26

So today we awoke in Rome only to fall asleep in Sardenga. We got up in Pavonna, where Luca lives and he drove us to the airport and we boarded a RyanAir flight to Alghero. When we arrived 40 minutes later in Alghero we headed straight to Neptune’s Grotto.

Neptune’s Grotto is one of the most amazing things we saw here in Sardenga. We bought a map in the airport with a star rating on where to go, 2 stars being extremely worthwhile. Neptune’s Grotto was 2 stars and deserved every bit of both stars (and we didn’t even pay the 10euro’s each to go 400meters into the cave). Just the walk down and the portion you get of the cave for free were absolutely amazing, definitely like nothing we have seen on this trip. Neptune’s Grotto was kind of like the Grand Canyon meets Carlsbad Caverns, meets the Pacific Ocean.

After the Grotto, we headed for Stintino (molto bello, per Carlo). We stopped at La Saline just south of Stintno, a white pebble beach (gorgeous). We laid out from 3:30-5:30 at La Saline, after which we drove out to La Pelosa beach to determine whether or not to stay the night or to keep truckin’. After seeing La Pelosa Beach we decided to spend the night in Stintino.

We found a hotel in town for a good price. Once we found a place to stay we started exploring the town enjoying the harbor, the mini harbor, the local pasticerie, before heading back to the hotel to bundle up for dinner. It was relatively cool with a strong wind, definitely sweater and pants weather in the evening.

Our little rental car

We ate dinner at San Antonio’s seafood, and both enjoyed wonderful meals. Richard had Linguine con cozze and Sausage and I had Spaghetti nero con cozze e prawns with pizziola. It was delicious, then on the way home we stopped for gelato, after our stroll down the pier.

Off to bed after a full day…

Day of many travels

May 25th

Today we left the isle of Capri by ferry and headed to Napoli. The trip was incredibly easy, clear signs marked the way to the ticket terminal and 45 minutes later we arrived in Naples…where the fun began…

I had done a lot of research in preparation for our trip and knew that their were buses to Pompeii from the ferry terminal, but we had our luggage and no hotel, so we had to get to the train station to store our bags before heading out to Pompeii. So naturally I thought we could take a bus, and there was a tabacci stand across the street, I stayed with the bags and sent Richard to buy the tickets. He came back with two bus tickets and NO idea which bus to get on in which direction or where the central train station was located. Guess what happened? We got in a fight that ended with us taking a 20euro taxi ride to the station with the world pushiest cab driver who tried to get us to pay him 70euro to take us to Pompeii and back.

Once we arrived to the station things cleared up nicely. Signs clearly marked the way to the luggage drop, and after the bags were secure we were free to figure out how to get to Pompeii. We asked at the tourist office and a less than friendly Tabacci vendor, and finally made our way to the Circumvesusian (regional) train line, where we found the bus tickets we had purchased earlier would also function to get us to Pompeii via train. We decided we better get some lunch before heading to the ruins and stopped in a pizzeria for some quick pannini’s, where we learned that even ready made sandwiches take 45 minutes in Italy.

After we ate we took a 45 minute train ride to Pompeii Scavi (the ruins). This was the highlight of the day, and well worth all the trouble it took us to get here. I have been fascinated with Mt. Vesuvius and the Pompeian ruins since my 8th grade Latin class, where the entire curriculum of the class was derived from the history and culture of this lost city. So for me it was really amazing to finally get to see and experience it for myself, I was also surprised at the facts I was able to recall and share with Richard. It was exhausting, I had no concept of how large the city was, it was much larger than I had anticipated. The highlights for me were the Amphitheatre, the forum, the house of Cornelium (it was a rather intact structure with both frescoes and mosaics that remained intact). The entire experience was really beyond what I could have imagined!

This is for those of you who know about Richard's Monumental Tradition

We returned to Naples, which only took us 30 minutes this time, and struck out down the sketchy boulevards in search of some affordable shopping. We found it, between a tiny China townish area and the street vendors, we were able to find some good deals. In the meantime we had been trying to find some quick, inexpensive food, and based on our experience at lunch determined eating at the McDonald’s in the train station would be the wisest bet, so begrudgingly we ate a McDonald’s in Italy, but thouroghly enjoyed it and were surprised at its authenticity. We met our goal of fast and cheap, had our bags and tickets waiting on the platform by 1940 for our 2030 trip to Rome.

Once on board we chatted with some nice American girls (currently living in DC, small world). Unfortunately at the conclusion of their vacation they will be moving to NC…go figure. We sent Luca a text message once in route, so hopefully he will be at the train station to pick us up? We will see.

The day of the boat tour

May 24

Today started with another breakfast with amzing views of the sparkling Mediterranean sea. After breakfast we quickly checked out of the hotel and headed out front to flag down a bus. Once safely on the bus with all our baggage we quickly made it to the main port of Amalfi (much quicker than our usual 30 minute walk).

On the Boat

At 1000 we boarded a massive speed boat for a tour of the Amalfitana coast and the isle of Capri. Here is the description per the website:

Our private full-day boat tour departs from AMALFI, MAIORI and MINORI. Aboard our traditional gozzo motor-boat, which we custom-built three years ago, your captain will steer away from AMALFI to take in the nearby seaside towns of MAIORI and MINORI. Just beyond MAOIRI is the marine cave called PANDORA'S GROTTO, which we can enter with our boat to experience this beautiful natural wonder. Onwards you will visit the nearby MARMORATA FALLS and view the majestical RAVELLO, the famous village of music, which is seated high on a cliff face towering over AMALFI.

Encircling the cliff past AMALFI, your captain will cruise along to the pristine enclave of SANTA CROCE and its Lover's Arch and onwards to CONCA DEI MARINI where you can visit the GROTTA DELLO SMERALDO or the EMERALD GROTTO. Sailing west, your captain will point out the FURORE FJORD, a deep inlet where the International Diving Championships are held annually and then cruise along the twin-mountain town of PRAIANO.

Offering drinks to quench any thirst (which he did not), your captain will continue towards the gelati-hued village of POSITANO, before steering out to sea to visit the mythical islands of LI GALLI. The islands are legendary as it is said Ulysses had to tie himself to the mast of his ship in order to resist the singing of the sirens.

CAPRI is now within reach at PUNTA CAMPANELLA, where the AMALFI COAST officially ends and the SORRENTO COAST begins. Your motor boat excursion continues to CAPRI and your captain will circle the island, visit the famous BLUE GROTTO (we didn't go in it was WAY overpriced), the FARAGLIONI rock formation and the WHITE and GREEN GROTTOS. After circling CAPRI, your captain will dock the boat in the prestigious MARINA GRANDE of CAPRI Your captain with his local knowledge will take you for a swim in a picturesque location where it is possible to dive straight off the boat into the navy Mediterranean depths.

Planning a seaside vacation in May, we had anticipated only getting to enjoy the gorgeous views, and expected the water to be far too cold for us warm bloods to enjoy. However, my favorite portion of today’s boat excursion was our stop for a swim in a clear cove off the south side of Capri. Although the water was frigid at first touch, my body quickly numbed to the chill and I enjoyed the swim more than anyone. I guess Richard doesn’t have quite as much adipose (that’s FAT) to keep him warm because he was freezing the entire time.

Shortly after our swim we arrived in Marina Grande, Capri. Once there Richard’s pessimistic personality started to get the best of him, when my cell phone didn’t work and we weren’t sure how to get to Marina Piccolo on the opposite side of the island. But the fates were good to us with this adventure, at the end of the pier there was a tourist office, they phoned the hotel for us, and within 5 minutes we were on the hotel shuttle bound for the Weber Ambassador.

In the Grotto dell'Esmeralda

This hotel was/will be the nicest hotel we stay in our entire trip I’m sure. It is a 4 star, ocean front hotel in Capri. They greeted us with prosecco had a bellman escort us to our room, they supplied a free shuttle to the city center, and their staff was incredibly helpful and fully English speaking.

By this time it was 1430 and we ate breakfast at 0830, so I was at about 100 out of 10 on our hunger scale (the way Rich and I determine when to look for a restaurant). So we walked to a restaurant next door to the hotel and immediately ordered. This is the one instance that the Italian customs for meal time made me crazy! We finally started eating around 1515, at which point I felt so weak and exhausted I could have been eating rubber and not cared or even realized. By the time we had our second course I was slightly more aware I was eating and enjoyed our veal milanesse.

Too hungry to hold my head up

After lunch, we immediately headed for the beach, where we only stayed about an hour due to the impending sun poisoning that might occur. We headed to our room where I enjoyed a nice long bath (my first one since leaving home). Don’t worry, I’ve showered!

Rich on the way to the Beach...view from hotel.

We cleaned up, and headed into town to discover Capri. We discovered a plethora of ridiculously expensive designer stores, so we just walked around until we got hungry, then headed to the Isidora for dinner. They seated us on a tiny little balcony, barely big enough for a tiny table and two chairs, overlooking the pedestrian street below. Here we feasted on typical Caprese dishes including salad, ravioli, and pizza.

Dinner in our little cove.

On the way back to the hotel we stopped and bought some pastries, mild, and a bottle of wine, so we could continue the evening back at the hotel, where we had a romantic evening starting with milk and pastries and ending with a subpar bottle of Chianti (DOC), stargazing, and an interesting debate about bats.