Italy - Sorrento - Day 3 - Stephanie

Italy – Sorrento – Day 3 – Stephanie

Today started off with a  breakfast where, unknowingly to us, you have to pay a cover charge to eat there.  Oh well!  My breakfast was a traditional dish with fried eggs on panini, a sausage cut up to look like a squid (to me), some sort of ham (I could have done without), fries, mushrooms, a slice of fresh tomato (YUM - very fresh!), orange marmalade, and rolls.  It wasn't bad.  Except Kevin got the toast he ordered when we were getting ready to leave.

After breakfast we did a stroll back to the room and opted to take a "1/2 hour" hike to the Bagni Regina Giovanna - ancient Roman ruins on the coast of the Gulf of Naples in the Tyerrhenia Sea.  We don’t have pics from today because we did not take cameras or phones with us.  Google it to see photos, I tried but the link would not pull up in this post.

Anyway, I digress… The half hour hike turned out to be a 1.5 hour hike, ALL UPHILL! 4.4 miles per my Fitbit. On asphalt and ½ of the way with no sidewalk to provide protection from the traffic.  Thank goodness I bought a HUGE bottle of water and asked our hotel host for ice for my insulated BUILT cup.  He had to go to the restaurant to get the ice and did the “whisper signal” to let us know they would not do this for us but would for him.  Yes, a hotel without an ice machine.  Things are different here for sure.  Got the ice – which was a life saver along with the huge bottle of water I bought on the way up.

I digressed again…..  We made it!!!  Now to figure out which side to embark on – the rocky side or the rockier side.  While Kevin did a mission to figure out which side was best for us, I saw on some ruins and tried to be happy.  It was a beautiful site, no doubt!  That may have been part of the tears.  The other part may have been heat exhaustion and my lower right back killing me.  Not sure, but regardless, I was there and hadn’t died…..yet.  (and no I’m not a pansy)

We opted for the west side of the ruins to get into the water.  Once in the water it was heaven!!!  The water was crystal clear, salty, and cool.  What more could I ask for?  While Kevin stay anchored on his rock, I swam out further to sea and then floated back.  Again, Heaven!  And I have to say well worth the hike, hard breathing, and sweating.

We made the hike back up to the road and discovered a bus stop, that for $1.30 would take us back to Sorrento, super!!  At the bus stop we met some folks from CA.  They asked where we were from because we had an accent.  Well, I never knew that!  LOL!!

Once back in the room (4ish) we opted for a 2 hour nap, which was rudely interrupted by the alarm going off.  We struggled, but got up and ready for a time of evening city roaming and dinner.  Finally, I got the seafood dinner I had envisioned the night before!  Homemade ravioli with fresh (cooked) muscles and clams – wonderful!!!  We did some more site-seeing, did some shopping after dinner, then a gelato for dessert and back to the room.

Kevin also took me up to an area that used to be an old mill.  It was cool!!  Apparently they had damned a river long, long ago, and built a mill.  The run off water went to the sea.  Now the area is an old ruin with bats and marks of old caves and passageways.  How cool would it be to explore them?  To me VERY cool!!  We saw several bats, and I actually and smelled saw the blooms of a Honey Locust Tree!  My bees would be happy there!

Oh yea, forgot about the fresh fruit - what is not to be loved about buying cheap fresh, just picked fruit, for the heart and soul? So yes, I got us taken care of and yes, it's good!!!

Tonight is an early night since we need to be at the pier at 7:15 am tomorrow for our Amalfi Coast 8 hour tour that includes the Blue Grotto.  We will take cameras tomorrow, and we will be passing the Roman ruins we explored today, so stayed tuned! 

Breaking news!  Kevin just made a beer run.  It's 11:05 PM. 

Buona notte!