Napoli, Italy

Sunday, 2 September

Around 5am I (Michelle) woke up and started to drive to Napoli and Johny and I took turns driving as we were still both very tired.  We arrived in Napoli around 9.30am after we called Aunt Anna who said to come over as soon as we got to Naples. Aunt Anna was very happy to see us and her daughter (Frederika) also spoke pretty good English.  At lunch Anna cooked up Spaghetti Vongole followed by Buffalo Mozarella with Prosciutto... beautiful! After lunch both Johny and I fell asleep until about 7pm.  Anna was very good at reading cards (tarot) and she read me my cards... I was surprised at how close she came with a lot of things.

and lunatic drivers would overtake on blind corners and hair pin bends... stupido!!!

Around 10pm we headed out for Pizza with Anna, her son and her friend Carmella... by around 12pm we'd finished eating and headed back to Anna's for the night.

Monday, 3 September

35 degrees today.... whoa! We woke around 9am and headed to Pompei. We spent around 3 hours wandering through the ruins which were very impressively preserved, considering they were around 2,000 years old.  After we'd seen enough of Pompei, we braved the chaotic roads again and headed to Sorrento and had lunch by the water.  We got back to Anna's around 6pm and at 7.30pm Uncle Adamo picked us up to have dinner with him and his wife. We had pizza again!!! I couldn't finish half of it and Johny had to make up for my lack of eating (so we didnt look bad) and ended up feeling choked with food :( It was an interesting night as neither of them spoke a word of English and our Italian was pretty bad also. Eventually we managed to get the message across but ended up making it an early night, as it was a little frustrating not being able to understand what they were talking about. Sign language did help a bit.

Tuesday, 4 September

I (Michelle) decided to work up an appetite in the morning (we'd both been eating so much food lately) so ran up and down the 6 floors of stairs to Anna's unit for about half an hour. Around 10.30am we left Anna's place to go to Amalfi. When we got there it was pretty windy and overcast so we couldn't relax on the beach so had a wander around and had coffee and people watched... the italians have an interesting taste in fashion. After coffee we drove to Positano, which was quite a scary experience... there were really narrow roads on the cliff's edge and lunatic drivers would overtake on blind corners and hair pin bends... stupido!!! We ate lunch at a place called Cafe Positano (beautiful views and amazing food... fish parmigiaana for me (Michelle) and mussels for Johny.

That night Anna cooked us up Mexican food which tasted fantastic and she had a couple of friends over as did her children and it was a very roudy night with lots of laughter and crazy antics by the children. Around 12.30 we retired to bed, exhausted.

Wednesday, 5 September

We had a lazy morning and around 11am we went for a walk with Anna around Positano looking at the shops. I was very spoilt as Johny bought me a beautiful gold necklace (hand crafted) and earrings... we bought it from a friend of Carmella's (Anna's friend) who gave us a really good price...

Around 1pm we decided to go for a drive into Napoli... silly idea as the driving only got worse the closer we got to town... gridlock everywhere and lunatic scooters weaving in and out of the traffic... after a late lunch and wandering around Naples we decided to drive the 10kms back to Positano to Anna's place.... it took us 1 hour!!! Absolutely insane roads!!!!! That night for dinner we ate pizza AGAIN!!! Guess we couldnt' really say no, as that would be too rude. After Naples there'll be no more pizza for six months at least!

Thursday, 6 September

In the morning we headed to Naples around 9am and got on a ferry to Capri, it was about a 45 min ferry ride and when we got there the weather was lovely at 25 degrees.  We walked up the big hill (about 40 mins) through the little streets that you could only walk through and got up to the main centre of Capri. We started with a coffee (which was 5 euros each... ouch!) then wandered around the streets looking at the expensive shops which we didnt even dare ask the price... all designer shops with outrageous prices. After a while we worked up an appetite for lunch... (which was also very expensive) then after lunch we went for a drive up to a place called Anacapri where there were shops which weren't as expensive selling hand made shoes and lots of places selling ceramic wares.

We got back to Naples around 6pm and did the whole 10km drive to Positano and when we got there we were glad that all was quiet at Anna's place for the night.... peace and tranquility!