Across the Italian countryside

We have made it to Italia!

Our ferry docked around 9am (rome time) on Thursday morning in the Bari, Italy port. We walked through customs, not even needing a passport, and immediately hailed an over priced taxi to the train station. Once we got there we fought through much confusion and finally found a train that would take us to Napoli (Naples).

It was a fairly empty train and we snoozed a bit along the way. We were awoken to the train staff asking for our tickets in Italian. We showed them our Eurail passes and they said we needed to have a reservation for this trip. We looked around at the empty car, and told them we didn't know that. They cut us a break but informed us that the train would not go all the way to Napoli. Instead, we needed to get off, take a bus, and then get back on the train to Napoli. We were not overly thrilled by the amount of time we assumed this would add to our travels.

We did as they instructed us and it wasn't as bad as we thought. The bus ride through the Southern Italian country side was absolutely beautiful. The sky was so blue that day and was a wonderful contrast against the green rolling hills. There were houses and neighborhoods built right into the hillsides and wild flowers everywhere. Such beautiful gardens, vineyards, and windmills lined the landscape.
We eventually made it to Napoli where we had to then take the metro to Sorrento. We hopped on the car just in time and after about an hour arrived at our destination. Took a taxi from there to the campground where we are staying and were so relieved to finally be here. So the ferry, taxi, train, bus, train, metro, taxi trip took us 20 hours. But it is not time wasted when you are amongst the locals and able to observe so much culture and scenery.

We booked a bungalow in a campground located right on the rocky coastline. It is an absolutely beauitful view. There are lemon, orange, and olive trees lining the streets and walk ways. The cabin has a kitchenette, a porch, plenty of sleeping space (sleeps 4 actually) and a pretty decent shower- so we are happy. Its nice to unpack a little bit and feel less rushed for a bit.

Our first night here we had dinner at the restaurant on grounds. It was very delicious and had great prices. We wanted to have a very italian style meal so we ordered 1st course caprese salad, 2nd-gnocchi sorrento, and 3rd- "grilled fishes". Oh and a bottle of chianti. Yum!

We slept like rocks that night and we deserved it!