La Locanda delle Donne Monache Maratea

... Happy Feet" for one ecstatic 3 year old. Not so "happy feet" was Stu who decided to go for a 3 hr mountain bike ride..take the cable car up 1300 metres and pedal down using their map based upon kilometers - easy! Except the italians true to form hire out bikes without milometers. Step 1 - set your milometer to 0. "Where the f**** is it?". 8 wrong turns later oh and did I mention the chain kept falling off.Not a happy bunny.. 

 

... note- that night in Salerno we ate at a small, local restaurant located on a back alley. We had read about it on the internet as having the best local food and pizzas. The place was called Vicolo della Neve and they truly had the best pizza we had in Italy- the sauce was amazing with tons of oregano and the toppings were simply cheese and a few capers. The crust was thin and the flavors of the sauce, cheese, and capers were out of this world YUM!!!!

... you can find some really nice accommodations.

A real gem I found is Hotel De Rose in Scalea: Scalea is a little village on the Mediterranean Sea, in Calabria. The hotel is renovated and the front desk constantly helped me to tour these ancient lands. The rooms were really charming: enjoy the Hotel De Rose video on YouTube and you’ll understand ...

... samples. After a few free samples you are really thinking about lemons, soon we have lemon tea towels, lemon soap, lemon candies, and oh yes do we have limoncello! It is a relief to have a relaxing day, with no schedule and we really do enjoy the leisurely pace of Sorrento. We stroll through the market, we enjoy sitting on beautiful terraces drinking wine and eating wonderful pasta. This is la dolce vita.

... town of Maratea, swam in the sea in the little bay there (in October, not bad going - great idea for us to head south for autumn) and then climbed a steep switchbacked road to the top of the mountain where there is a massive statue of Jesus, highly reminiscent of the statue on the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio De Janeiro. What a place to see an awesome sunset. We wound back down in the dying ...

... had great fun all afternoon snorkeling and diving off the rocks. We stopped to do our weekly groceries in Ragusa so grant bought Cam a net, as she believed she could catch all the fish she could see in the ocean...well she was out there 3 hours and still the fish eluded her, but it gave us three hours of utter hilarity, she was so focused on her task! We then continued our journey south and were utterly disgusted with the dirt and filth everywhere. Just loads of rubbish dumped ...

... for the first couple of hours. Assisi was a very moving and peaceful town, the streets are beautiful and the views from the Rocca Maggiore were unbelievable. I would recommend anyone travelling through Italy to try and get to Assisi. It blew us away. We then travelled through temperatures reaching 45 degrees, rain, hail, and thunder and lightening to get to Pompeii. Apparently the rains had hit Naples and Pompeii just before we arrived and had nearly flooded the entire town ...

... sao a unica forma de eu saber que esses lugares existem!". Creio que ele nao teve a nocao do impacto que essas palavras tiveram pra mim. Porque eu e nao um deles? Porque nao era ele mostrando as fotos para mim? Nesse momento, olhando paras as pedras na praia, percebi algo que me chamou a atencao. No meio de milhares de pedras na praia, todas negras e praticamente iguais, havia uma pedra verde. Procurei e encontrei outra mais. Sera que aquela pedra ...

Train rides in Italy are always an adventure. They almost seem to try to make it as complicated as possible so that if you're a tourist you are always getting lost. On the day we left Pompeii for Sapri, we got on what appeared to be the right train. It showed up at the right time, was going in the right direction, but was not in fact our train. We got as far as Sarento when the train ended. We decided ...

... taken my complaint. He had a five-euro note in his hand, which he gave to me and said, "Please come back." He left and our train departed. That's how I feel about this trip. I knew it would be hard work; I knew there would be problems; I knew I would be lonely and homesick. But, every time I got to the point where I thought, "This is nuts, just go home," some magical day would occur and I would remember why I was here. Thanks, Mr. Cabernardi.