The Best Day So Far

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  Praiano, Campania, Italy
Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Take Two!

On my last night in Nice, France, I ventured out to dinner by myself.  I went to Restaurant La Mirador on the Place Magenta just around the corner from my hostel.  I had a salad with almost a whole avacado on it!  I really needed a salad.  Meal times are the hardest when traveling by yourself, but there were plenty of oppurtunities for people watching and the food was quite good!  I wrote in my journal some too.  Afterwards, I walked along the Promenade des Anglais one more time before the last night in my not so nice hostel, although it really wasn't too bad.  Nice is a beautiful place, but I think it would be a good day trip while staying somewhere else along the French Riviera...next time!

I arrived for my short stay in Pisa, Italy after a long day of traveling at 17:30 and the hostel owners came to meet me to let me in.  It was a breath of fresh air, clean and cute with a good location on Piazza Garibali. I went to see the Pisa Tower and it was definitely leaning!  I, of course, got someone to help me take some pictures trying to hold it up.  It was fun and even though it was a bit cloudy it was a nice afternoon.  I took the advice of the ticket guy to wait to climb the tower in the morning.  Got to love those tower climbs! 

I met Mylene, from Paris, but studying in Pisa for a year, and Laura, from Spain both staying at the hostel for the night and we went out to dinner together.  We had French, Spanish, and English and we were communication with each other in English and trying to order in Italian!  It was interesting, but quite fun!  Dinner was quite good; I had 'black' spaghetti.  We then met Mylene's friend, Catherine(I think) from Austria for gelato so we then added German too!  What a well rounded group!  Interesting, all those languages, but the common language...English. 

The hostel was nice, but it was unreasonalby loud at night.  The window was right above the square with guitar playing, singing, clapping (the worst part) and just general loudness until 5:30 in the morning!!  I didn't get a great night sleep that night. 

I was up early the next day to walk back to the tower and climb.  The weather was beautiful and I was so glad I waited!  It is not as tall as I thought it would be though, so the climb was easy, but I spent a good bit of time on the top enjoying the views.  A few times along the way up I felt a little dizzy because you are walking up the spiral staircase and there is that lean too!  Because it was Sunday I got to go into the Cathedral for free.  I love going into churches in Europe.  They are so big and majestic.  You feel the power of the building the minute you walk inside.  I felt like I saw just about everything to see without going into the museums along the Piazza, so I was satisfied with a few more pictures of the Tower in the great light!  I walked back to collect my bags and then on to the station for my 11:00 train.  My Pisa stay was short, but I'm very glad went. 

Getting to Sant'Agnello took a bit of time first to Napoli, then more than an hour on the local Circumvesuviana train.  I was relieved to finally arrive at the Seven Hostel.  It is a great hostel, the best one so far; a rooftoop terrace, classic architecture, gorgeous views, and clean too!  I met Meagan from Central Coast, Australia and had dinner at the hostel for only €5 with Emma from Australia too.  It is so nice to meet people to eat with!  Meagan was going to Capri the next day, and I had already decided to stay 2 nights at Seven especially to be able to go on the trip.  

We met for breakfast in the morning and thus began the best day of my trip so far!!  Just thinking about it makes me smile.  They picked a group of 9 of us up from the hostel and took us to the marina and our boat.  Our captain Augustino was great!  We took a slow hour to arrive at Capri.  The sun was battling with the clouds, but in the end the sun won! We had about 2 hours of free time on the island and Meagan and Ellen, from Toronto, and I walked down and back up the hairpin curved Via Krupp.  The views were so wonderful!  We got the best gelato I have ever had from a gelateria along the way before making our way back to the boat.  And that is when the fun really started!  We rode around the island first to the White Grotto.  We climbed up to the top of the cave and then went swimming down in the bottom.  The scapes and cuts from the rocks were well worth it.  The way the light hit the water when you went further back into the cave was so beautiful and that was just a taste of what was to come.  Lunch was served on the boat with wine and beer.  Then Augustino(with all his wonderfully handsome Italian charm!) offered to take those willing to go into another smaller cave.  We had to hold our breath and swim about 1.5 meters down and 2.5 meters across to a smaller cave area.  (More scrapes!)  It was awesome!  The Green Grotto was full of jelly fish, so no swimming there unfortunately, so we continued around the island.  The Blue Grotto was by far the highlight!  It is famous for a reason!  The rowboats that charge you €10 left just after we arrived which was so lucky!  We got to swim into the grotto!  Words really can't describe what it was like, and we didn't think to get a water proof camera.  The cave itself was so dark, but the water was a fabulous irredescent shade of blue that lit up the bodies of the people around you and the area around the entrance.  The further you went back into the cave the more of the water that was blue.  It was absolutely stunning!!  The color was amazing and the whole thing just absolutely gorgeous!  Just thinking back to it now, I can see it all again.  It was such a fabulous day!!

Meagan and Ellen and I walked the 20 minutes to Sorrento for a pizza and wine dinner at Il Leone Rosso.  It was delicious.  I was happy to get back and get to bed after such a long day, but I had forgotten about the fireworks for Saint Michel (I don't remember who the saint is exactly or why there was celebrating)until I heard them going off at midnight.  I got out of bed and ran up to the roof to see them forgetting about a jacket and it was freezing, but so worth it.  The fireworks were really really good! 

Today I was picked up by Luigi from the Hotel Le Fioriere in Praiano along the Amalfi Coast (on the other side of the pennisula from where I was) and got to ride along the coast.  Quite a curvy, thin road right along the water, but up high on the cliff.  So pretty!  Looking forward to spending some time here relaxing!

I LOVE ITALY!

Miss you and love you all very much!

Love,
Ali / Althea

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