When I decided to start the blogging again, but this time instead of recipes do a travel blog and help 60 & over learn from our mistakes. Be honest about what worked and didn’t. I actually started it backwards. Instead of the first trip I started with our last trip. I’ll start with our itinerary of Trip #1 which was overloaded!
Italy 2022 Itinerary
- October 28, 2022 Direct Flight to Rome / October 29, 2022. Landed at 12:00 PM
- Train #1 Airport to Main Train Station; Train #2 Main Station to Naples; Train #3 Naples to Sorrento (it was a regional train 1 hr 15 minutes. It stopped 30 something times We stood elbow to elbow with Italians on their way home from work. It was the cheapest, we wanted to “experience” Italy. The only other way was a taxi or private car starting at $150 one way.
- Sorrento- October 29th – November 2nd: Next morning we have a cooking class that takes up most of the day, the 30th we took Rick Steves advice and hired a private driver for an Amalfi Coast tour we saw Amalfi, Positano, and Ravello, the 31st was Pompeii on our own (big mistake to fully appreciate it and not get lost because it is HUGE you need a guide).
- Naples – November 2nd-4th – Archaeological Museum on the 3rd and non traditional pizza class.
- Florence – November 4th-9th – the 5th we saw “The David” and the Ufizzi Gallery, 6th a Pasta Cooking Class, 7th – A 3 city tour with a very large group.We saw San Gimignano, Siena, and Pisa. It was at the first stop that Kay’s leg fractured and we thought it was a sprain for the rest of the trip. Our last day in Florence the 8th we had a small group wine tour.
- Rome – November 9th-13th -This is where we had to cancel all of our tours so it was actually our first chance to do things on our own and a trip. Near a regular bus stop we discovered several Hop-On-Hop-Off buses. That fit our need. We bought a multi-day ticket and could ride it as many times during those days as we wanted. So using it we managed to see the outside of the sites we really wanted to see. Rome is divided into districts, there is the Jewish Ghetto, Monti (where we stayed), Trastevere, Prati, Vatican City, Trevi, and others. Mini wasn’t far from the train station and it had a great selection of restaurants and markets. So we literally saw Rome from the outside. Kay was a trooper and we walked around the coliseum.
Thing We Planned Poorly
- How long it would take to get through the airport.
- The train from the airport to the main train station “only takes 30 minutes.”
- The train from the main train station to Naples “only takes an hour.”
- Arrive at Naples train station trying to purchase the only tickets we couldn’t purchase online for the train to Sorrento, we are in a rush because the last train of the day is leaving in less than 10 minutes. This is where knowing Italian would have come in VERY handy. (The ticket guy obviously was not a fan of Americans.)
- Kay would have had a lanyard and not left her phone at the ticket counter.
- We would have taken a taxi from the train station in Sorrento to our hotel.
- We would have NOT carried backpacks instead of rolling luggage. (We now own very small, but rolling luggage.)
It makes me tired just typing all of this! It took us almost 6 hours just to get to our hotel. When Kay was planning it was only a little over 2 hours by train to get to Sorrento, we did not factor in wait times, Rome’s train station is huge it has over 20 tracks and the one coming from the airport is at the very end. Or the fact that the Regional train from Naples to Sorrento stopped at every single train station on the way. Now that I know what I know we would have spent the night in Rome or Naples and gone on to Sorrento the next morning, but we would have had to drop something from our itinerary. We honestly had no idea at the beginning that we would ever return.
Top Row: Us eagerly awaiting at ATL; On the plane; Road from Sorrento train station; our hotel FINALLY; Bottom Row: Sorrento sights.
Our first Italian meal: Appetizer of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, Manicotti, Homestyle Chicken (I don’t really remember the exact name) and Lemon Tiramisu.
The restaurant was La Locanda del Gusto. It is a fun vibe, Chef Carmen gives cooking lessons. Had we known we would have taken her class. When you finish the class you can sign the wall. The entire place is covered with signatures. Her food is amazing. Check her out on Facebook. She just wrote a cookbook, so we are talking REAL Italian recipes. We messaged and got one. She’s a fantastic Chef and is passionate about great ingredients. So be sure to look her up!
Now back to our adventures. The next day we walk to our cooking class at Quanta Basta Cooking School. We made meatballs, pasta and tiramisu. We discovered that every Chef we talked to was passionate about the ingredients being as fresh as possible and high quality.
The next day was our Amalfi Coast tour. This stretch of road is narrow and carved out of the side of a mountain. It has several tunnels and during peak tourist season the buses run constantly. It is a cheaper way to see it but it’s crowded and slow. The roads are so narrow that if two buses try to go through a tunnel one will either have to back out or stop and let the other bus go. Sometimes the police patrol and will fold in peoples mirrors to help traffic flow. We ask our driver Mr. Monetti about what he thought about the traffic. He said, “Mamma Mia they thing the lines on the road are just decorations.”! He was great! He talked about the history of some of the towns.
In the Amalfi Coast region the only thing left we had on our agenda was Pompeii. We went armed with app that was supposed to work. However, no wifi or cell service and the best laid plans went to waste. We didn’t get a guide and I wished now that we had. We saw just a small port of the city. When look at the “park” itself we noticed that the trees and shrubbery are mature. It gives you a sense of how long the excavations and the park has been opened to the public. Pompeii even without a guide did not disappoint. The crude technology was amazing, they took hot baths, sold hot food from street side kitchens. They had a crude sewage system but they had hod one. They had a system of government, advertising painted on the sides of buildings, a very well laid out city with the straightest streets I’ve ever seen. We were in awe of what survived the volcano. Roofs of course were gone but the paintings on the walls that survived we amazing. I was reading the other day that the park is now selling a limited number of tickets per day because of the wear on the site.
Definitely memories of a lifetime. So, tired and sore the next day we make it back to the train station to head to our next city.