November 2008
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 16th November 2008
Judith 18 Nov 2008 | : Holiday
I woke up and my whole body ached. I still felt bad, and Geoff had courteously developed sympathy symptoms, although not as bad as mine. We were due to leave the hotel that morning, but considered if we shouldn’t stay. It was going to be our one chance to go up Vesuvius (no rain forecast), and this enticed me out of bed. The thought and smell of food made my stomach heave, but we made it to the train station and on to Ercolano (Herculaneum) where the Vesuvius bus leaves. Our Rough Guide is a little out of date, so we walked through Ercolano to the ruins to get the bus, only to find that the bus leaves from the train station. Modern-day Ercolano is a dump. Full of rubbish and dog crap. The route up to Vesuvisus is a national park, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the municipal tip. On arriving at the car park you have to pay to walk to the crater, another 800 metres, which is definitely worth it. It’s still smoking. The crater is a proper caldera and the views over the bay of Naples, Capri, etc. are breathtaking. We only got just over an hour at the top before the bus departed again and had I been feeling better we would have had more time on top, rather than me having to slowly drag myself up the hill and wasting time because of it.
We got down and went to Naples to find our hotel. It was near the train station, which is the seedy part of town. The Hotel Garibaldi was a 3 star hotel, so nice, but we got there and I went straight to bed. I still couldn’t face any food and we both slept for about 14 hours straight, so we missed any sightseeing in Naples.
Saturday, 15th November 2008
Judith 18 Nov 2008 | : Holiday
The forecast was for sun in the morning, but rain in the afternoon, so climbing up Vesuvius was a non-starter. We could have gone to Herculaneum, but it’s a much smaller version of Pompeii, so we decided to go around the Amalfi coast. Amalfi is an hour and a half by bus, so we opted for Positano instead. The coast around the area is rugged mountains with few beaches. The road from Sorrento to Positano goes over a mountain and then along the coast next to a sheer drop, several hundred meters high, all the way. On the way up the mountain the bus driver would cut up other road users and then stop to spend time having loud arguments with lots of wild gesticulating. He would make up the lost time driving round the bends like a maniac. At particularly sharp bends he would hoot his horn to give oncoming cars the chance to choose between crashing into us head-on or driving themselves off the side of the cliff. It was like Alton Towers for the bargain price of 1.80 euros.
Positano is beautiful. Built on a very steep sided cove, it straddles its way up the mountain side. There is a small beach at the bottom. As we arrived the sun was shining, but on arriving at the beach it had clouded over. We spent the morning and lunch time there and then headed back to Sorrento. We walked down to the harbour at Sorrento when the heavens opened and we scuttled back to the hotel for more movies while the rain lashed the windows.
Once the rain had a break we went out for dinner. We chose a local (i.e. non-touristy) place where the owner enticed us with deep fried bread balls filled with cheese and rocket. The pizza was great and we ate about as much as we could. She over-charged us for the meal, but she had been so nice, we didn’t quibble. On getting back to the hotel I started to feel decidedly off. Stomach cramps, sore kidneys, waves of nausea and cold shivers later, I decided I probably had food poisioning. It was a long night.
Friday, 14th November 2008
Judith 18 Nov 2008 | : Holiday
We went to the ruins at Pompeii. What a brilliant place. It is massive and because it was buried by the pumice and dust of the volcanic explosion of Vesuvius in 79AD it is nearly completely intact. The roofs caved in and many of the statues have been removed to the Archeological Museum in Naples, but any restoration has been done to the benefit of the place and brings it to life more.
We arrived early to make the most of the day. We’ve been to enough historical sites in Italy to know that there is ususally no information (never mind in English), so you need to have a guidebook, an audio tour or a tour guide. We chose the tour, as you can ask questions. Our guide was a friendly elderly Italian gentleman and we were the only non-Americans in the group. He knew how to work a crowd for tips. You only need to mention the words ‘2000 years old’, whilst pointing at something, to Americans and they go into raptures of delight. Our guide did this a lot. He was pretty knowledgeable and after more than 2 hours we had seen the highlights of Pompeii.
A lot of the houses still have frescos and mosaics intact and you can see gardens and temples. We even visited a Roman brothel (lupanare) with the ‘menu’ frescos still visible above the doors to the rooms. As the tour ended the skies opened and we sheltered in the amphitheatre before making our way to more of the site. We left just as it was closing, still having only seen a fraction of the whole area.
It poured most of the evening, so we only ventured out for a quick pizza and then back to the hotel for a movie.
Thursday, 13th November 2008
Judith 18 Nov 2008 | : Holiday
We had a 5.30am start and we didn’t sleep much; as you don’t when you’re worried about sleeping through the alarm. The holiday didn’t start very well – in our early morning stupor we went off the wrong turning and had to turn around to get to the airport. When we got there it transpired that I had printed off the tickets wrong, so we had to get them redone at the Ryanair check-in desk. She wanted to charge us, but we persuaded her not to. On the plane they made an announcement for passengers Mole and Minshull (cringe) as we had given them our return tickets, which were now torn in half. At this point we hadn’t even left Spain yet.
On arriving in Rome we got to Naples and then Sorrento without a hitch, with thunder and lightning entertaining us most of the journey on the train. Sorrento is lovely and our hotel was just off the main Piazza Tasso. We wandered around a little, but were keen to check in, being very tired from the early wake up and journey. We walked round the square three times but no Hotel Belvedere. We asked a selection of waiters who had never heard of it and then phoned the hotel but got no answer. Geoff blamed me for being scammed on the internet, booking a hotel which didn’t exist.
We decided to try the tourist information instead and see if they could help. We followed the signs and the tourist office was a big building off another square, but not open until 4pm, after the siesta period. We went for a sandwich and a coffee and returned to ask about the hotel. The lady there hadn’t heard of it either. Hmmmm…. We looked at each other, then at her, when she said “Better to ask at the tourist information, this is a travel agency.” Tourist office, tourist information – it was so obvious, how could we have been so stupid? We walked another 100m and there indeed was the tourist information, except it closed at 4pm.
At this point we were running out of ideas and getting a little worried, so we phoned the number on the reservation again. We got through and they assured us in half Italian, half English that the hotel was in the Piazza, near the bar Ercolano. We walked all the way round the square again, and all the way around the bar. No hotel!
In the end I asked in the bar and they said ‘Of course, ask in the tobacconist’. Doh!
The woman in the tobacconist’s closed the shop, then took us through a scruffy door, a few doors down, with no sign whatsoever, 86 steps up a dingy stairway, but a lovely room and a great roof terrace with views of old Sorrento and Vesuvius. We collapsed into bed, had a sleep and went out to explore later.
Wednesday, 12th November 2008
Judith 12 Nov 2008 | : Boring stuff
Rubbish weather today. We’re off to Italy tomorrow morning, so no blogging till next week.
Tuesday, 11th November 2008
We had a meeting this morning, so couldn’t get out early and by the time we were done, the wind had turned west and the front was approaching. Going east was going to give us the most sunshine, so we decided to be beach bums for the day.
We did the bay of Roses two and a half times by bike/blades, with a nice three course lunch on the sea front half way through. I threw the glider in the van just in case, but the balise on Sant Pere de Rodes was giving west, so no chance of a flight.
Monday, 10th November 2008
The forecast was for slightly windier conditions today and Geoff hasn’t flown the hangie for weeks, so we went to El Mont. Originally we thought that I would just drive for him, but we put a message out on the parapente forum and Oriol joined us, so we had a second car to retrieve the one up the mountain. It looked breezy in the landing field and I wasn’t optimistic. On arriving at the top, we found Marti and Pedro already there with their hang gliders. It was indeed too windy for paragliders.
Pedro and Geoff flew but the wind trashed the thermals somewhat. It was warm and sunny in the landing field, so perfect post-aviation beer weather, which we had in Besalu.
Geoff’s comments: about half an hour or so; it was thermic, but they were very broken with the wind, which was also switching to the west, which complicated it a little. And there was an inversion. On the good side, it was hot and sunny, I had a good launch and landing, and it was a lot better than just a top to bottom. I fly the hang glider so rarely in Spain, it’s good to get it out again. I need the practise.