Travel Day to Nerano

This morning involved some needed sleeping in before we packed up and left our apartment behind. We dropped our bags off at the main part of our hotel and got some omelettes for breakfast at a nearby restaurant in our plaza. When we were done eating, I started to crave a peach, but wasn’t hungry. Hannah and I decided to go to the market in the plaza and get two peaches for later. They smelled amazing and I was so excited to eat a peach. Our cab to the train station came and when we arrived we found that our train was delayed for 30 minutes. While we waited, Hannah and I watched some more of the movie we started earlier, which we finished after we got onto the train. When we did finally get on the train, we found that it was going amazingly fast, but I didn’t watch the scenery much since I was catching up on some missed blogs. After just over an hour, our train from Rome arrived in Naples.

This put us closer to our final destination, but we still had another train ride to go. We didn’t know what kind of train it would be, but we hoped it would be like the nice sit down train we had just been on. Turns out it was basically a subway train with no air conditioning as far as we could tell. The ride was hot, crowded and standing room only, but was improved by an accordion and saxophone playing for part of the ride. We also passesd some of the hour and a half ride by chatting with some people who were visiting from Seattle. While sweating profusely we exchanged trips and tips, as we had both been to places the other was going. We had ridden the entire line when the train finally stopped in Sorento, Italy.

This little town in supposed to be beautiful, but we can’t say because once we arrived we headed straight to a laundromat before heading to our final destination in a different town. We weren’t totally certain that there was a washing machine in the place we booked, so we decided to play it safe and clean our clothes where we knew there was a laundromat. Just after we got to the laundromat and man from Ohio walked in and we figured out the complicated machines together. He was super nice and on the tail end of a two week trip in Italy an Greece. He said that while the rest of his family wanted to go out and explore, all he wanted was a nice crisp, clean shirt for just one night. This is a sentiment I think all long term travelers can share. So while his family spent the afternoon exploring Sorrento, he found himself content in the laundromat and ironing room of his hotel.

With our clean clothes all packed up, we walked back to the train station to get a cab to take us to the other side of Sorento’s peninsula, which our cab driver called Nerano. The drive was beautiful, through lemon orchids and olive trees. The view of the coast was spectacular and you could easily see Mt. Vesuvius, which destroyed Pompeii thousands of years ago.

When we arrived at our hotel we deposited our luggage and my mom, sister, and I all walked down to the beach while my dad went to town. The beach here is a rock beach, which means the cool water is crystal clear. The waves here peacefully lap against the rocks rather than abusively crash onto sand. The beach was peaceful and a small wooden boat shuttered on the water. After a bit, we decided to try to find my dad and eventually did. He had found a dinner spot right on the water. In fact, it had a dock where we think fisherman brought in fish. We ordered our dinners and then went out to the dock, which was beautiful. We took some pictures on it and then walked back to our table, where plates of vegetables grown on a nearby farm were waiting. I have to say, one of the most memorable parts of dinner would have to be when one of the staff walked over to a fountain in the middle of the restaurant with a net and scooped a lobster out of it. It was then that we noticed the tons of fish and shell fish of all sizes in the medium sized fountain. The waiter then grabbed the lobster, showed it to the person who ordered it, and brought it back to the kitchen while it was still alive. I suppose the food is fresh but that seems like eating a plate of veal in front of a baby calf to me. Still in shock and saddened that all of the animals in the tank were on death row, but totally innocent, we finished off our pastas and ordered dessert. We ordered a fresh fruit bowl, but didn’t get what we expected. Usually said bowls have some cut up cantaloupe or pineapple or other small fruit portions, but this plate was gigantic and covered with countless whole plums, apricots, cherries, peaches, and more. It was so much fruit and we only ordered a plate for one person! We ate our fruit happily and walked back to our hotel on full stomaches after our long travel day.