Sorrento

Well after a particularly uncomfortable but thankfully fairly quick train ride, we arrived in Sorrento. Seats on Italian transport seem to have their contours in all the wrong places.

I am lucky that I have The Princess to delve into the minutiae of scheduling and stuff, because she found that the train to Sorrento actually starts from a small station (Porta Nolana) before arriving at 'Garibaldi' Centro in Naples. There is no luggage compartments or overhead racks on the Compania Expresss and so when we arrived at Centro we had our big bags stowed under the seats and were able to watch all the other over-baggaged tourists freak out trying unsuccessfully to stow theirs.

Barely anyone over 35 it seems, and women outnumbering guys about 5 to 1 and this has continued to be the case in Sorrento and Capri. I suspect that they all have their hearts set on becoming an international 'Influencer' by the number of selfies and the outfits... Ay Carumba! Sorrento and Capri seem to be the vital destination for credibility and well... influence. We had a nice walk around the town last night and a very pleasant dinner (which can always be relied upon it seems, here in the South)

Later, it started to rain and this was a very welcome relief as it brought the temperature down about 5 degrees and made sleeping a bit easier in a surprisingly noisy little town.

With a bit of internet magic by The Princess, we secured a couple of tickets to the Isle of Capri and set off on our next little adventure. We started early, but Italian efficency soon imposed itself and we spent an hour at the wharf trying to find where to catch our boat and being given incorrect advice by every single employee, despite all of them ringing a secret number to the Fat Controller who would give them the good oil. Luckily we had struck up a conversation with a couple of young Brits from Waterloo who were more fleet of foot and eventually we worked it all out and set off for the Isle of Capri. Vish and Darya, lovely people. Here is a photo of us.

The guy next to me in the photo, name of 'Hal', a Yanqui out of Connecticut. His wife went to Capri when she was younger and would never go back due to it's crass commercialism. Thus, Hal had never been to Capri. His wife died last year. She was probably right, but we had a pretty good time.

Again, the secret is the scooter. We dived into the first rental shop and manage to get our hands on an 80cc orange meanie that sounded like that Sunday morning leaf-blower we've all grown to love. Given Capri's vertical terrain, I was a bit hard to convince, but it was cheap (for Capri - nothing at all is 'cheap' on Capri except maybe some influencer perfume...), it was there, and the tout was very confident that this mere nothingness would convey both of us over hill and dale easily and with good grace.

And with that, we totally didn't take a photo of the orange leaf-blower. I know who to blame! Here's the best we can do...

So, off we set and sure enough at full throttle, scattering leaves blithely, the Princess and I moved on and up toward our destiny. The Blue Grotto. Famous around the world for it's... well, 'blueness', unfortunately it was closed due to rising sea levels and the recent unseasonal storms. Nevertheless the good burgers of Capri didn't break the bad news to the hundreds of tourists paying thousands of dollars for expensive tupperware boats to see an amazing blue colour of the sea until they got there and saw the sign. DOH! The Big Print giveth and the Small Print taketh away...

However, not only did we scooterites see the blueness, but we also got to sample the coffee in the ubiquitous cafe bar that was conveniently co-located. We were winning so much we almost got sick of winning!

Well I'm just about over this, but I know you just want to see photos, so here are some of the better ones of The Isle of Capri