adventures everyday.
i was determined that we would climb mount vesuvio and after 3 trying attempts, we finally did. third time lucky?
1. traipsing about pompei, the city ravaged by vesuvio herself, till 415, we missed the last bus to vesuvio at 330. okay.
2. decided a lovely late afternoon climb wouldnt be as scorching so we set off for the famed archeological museum in the morning, and after a 15minute walk, we were rewarded with a group on strike atop the museum’s balcony. well done, that was fun. proceeded to be lazy and having to run for the SITA bus, which, in our haste was not the right bus we could take. landed up in pompei scafati instead of pompei scavi. hence, missed the last 330 bus again, and had to walk a good few km to get to the metro. rumblings from mount sauyee. pompei-nikhil starts building protective shield.
3. had to check out of our lovely hostel, so we left our baggage at napoli centrale stazione. conflicting advice from lp and letsgo on bus times and boarding places. big hooha here. trained to ercolano only to realise there were a measely total of 2 buses to vesuvio per day and we had miss the first. continued train to pompei, all set to buy tickets when GG! no money and everything was left at napoli. trained back to napoli, retrieved backpacks and trained back to pompei to climb vesuvio WITH them bloody backpacks. take that. train rides are not like from city hall to clementi btw. more like from clementi to pasir ris. in the train fiasco, mount sauyee erupts, thankfully pompei-nikhil’s shield allowed him to escape unscathed.
vesuvio tackled, sorrento here we come. rested and then had a fantastic beachy day at amalfi, atrani, minori and maiori. had a glance at positano as well. it was a lovelylovely day. beaches!!! sun!!! water!! look at pictures. oh yes lovely man gave us a ride when we were lonelily walking to maiori. hahaha sauyee struts her stuff to get us hitched.
after beaching, we had to backtrack a little, to take our longest trainride ever, from down under at napoli centrale, to up north bologna centrale. and this was a crazy train ride! crazy expensive and crazy funny. 40euros per person. intercity, second class. here i present to you nikhil’s (and a little from sau)
“6 easy steps to rub shoulders with the affluent in italy”
1. board the intercity plus from napoli headed for milano. bump up to first class cos your carriage’s airconditioning breaks down.
2. get evicted from the train in roma centrale by skinny punks sporting thumb-sized ear piercings and crazy hairstyles overrunning the train you are on. the polizia gets involved. you are told the punks are ‘menushites’, whatever that means, or is spelt.
3. be a hapless tourist, look lost and worried when you dont understand the vigorous announcements made in italiano. get your intercity plus ticket signed on the back by some bigshot with a blue jacket and many tags at roma stazione, binaro 5, complete with explaination of your situation in italiano.
4. board the eurostar first class to milano at binaro 1
5. refuse to budge from the eurostar first class, reserved seats you chose.
6. enjoy as you fly past the green fields and sunflower clad hills of umbria and tuscany with no less than people wearing d and g and gucci shades, with huge diamonds on their fingers.
i forgot to mention that we got free coffee and biscuits cos we were in first class. that, and the conductor gave nary a glance at our ticket before stamping it okay. hehehe. fraught with troubles, we, the charmed ones, paid second class price for a first class ride. aiyah, dont be green. it’s overrated la. and it was kind of a rough ride, what with the punks, police and train hopping.
