After flying all night, we landed in Rome 7:30am. Guess our brains were not functioning correctly, because we got on the local train instead of the Leonardo Express, a direct ride to the city center with no stops. Our room was not ready, so we hung out at the local street café. Since we’d only be in Rome for the day, we decided on the open double decker sightseeing bus where we could hop on and off. We hopped “off” at St. Peter’s Square, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain. It’s easy to see why Rome is called the “Eternal City”, the ruins throughout the city are amazing.
Next morning, we headed to Sorrento, which would be our home base to visit the Amalfi Coast. We took the high speed train from Rome to Naples, and picked up the local train to Sorrento. Despite our precautions from warnings about pick pockets, Dick managed to have his wallet stolen on the local train. He just about jumped the guy after calling him every name in the book. Luckily, $20 USD (14 Euro) was all he had, hope they spent it all in a good place. In Sorrento, we stayed at an Agritourismo, La Lobra, a grove of lemon trees overlooking Marina della Lobra. All the home cooked meals were made with lemons: Lemon cake, lemon marmalade, lemon risotto, lemon sauce on fish, ending with our night cap of Limoncello. We walked down to the Marina to pick up our boat to visit the Amalfi Coast. What gorgeous views from the sea that could never be seen by taking the bus along the coastal road. A wedding was taking place at the huge church in Amalfi, what a place to get married. And Positano….the most beautiful place on earth. Unbelievable. Enough said.
Our flight to Sardinia was out of Naples, we were NOT going to take the local train again and sprung for a charter bus directly to the airport. An hour later we were in Olbia, Sardinia. The airport shuttle took us to our Agritourismo, Borgo di Campagna, a ranch out in the country. Home cooked meals here too, lots of fish. What a place! Really looked like we were in Southern California, but with animals everywhere. The peacocks were fascinating to watch. Oddly, the male peacock is the one with the colors. He would open his feathers every evening and call the females. Poor fellow, never got lucky with them while we were there, but the colors were amazing! Being so deep in the country there was no public transportation. Most guests left for the day, so the kitchen/bar shut down after breakfast until late afternoon. We wanted to head to the north coast and take a yacht cruise through the Maddalena archipelago, so….we broke our rules and off to the airport we went to rent a car for two days. Déjà vu. Guess who had to drive again because of driver’s license problems? No comment. What a back seat driver we had on our hands. But the trip was worth it. Riding though Sardinia was beautiful when we met our yacht and started sailing, unbelievable. The Caribbean cannot hold a candle to this place. The clear water and hundreds of shades of blue were gorgeous!
Dicker breathed a sigh of relief when we returned our car and flew back to the mainland, Florence. We stayed at a GREAT B&B, hosted by a wonderful woman. Our first night we walked to a close pizza place only to find out it did not open for two hours. The owner welcomed us in and served us beer and let us watch the soccer games. They were preparing for a party of 80 students from an American school. We had delicious calzones, and were invited to join the party as his guest! Next night’s dinner was at another local pizza joint, we arrived to an hour wait and a place where no one spoke English. Ordering food was an adventure, they could never understand Dick’s southern accent. We just pointed to dishes other guests had, having no clue what they were. All ended well, our dishes were great!
Committed to not driving on the mainland we took “The Best of Tuscany Tour”, a 12 hour adventure visiting the Tuscan towns of Siena, San Gimignano, wine tasting at iL Vecchio Maneggio Organic Farm, ending with a visit to Pisa. The Tuscan rolling hills of the countryside are so pretty, with all the grape vines and olive trees. Siena is a small medieval town, with a sea shell shaped piazza. Twice a year, the entire city crowds into the piazza to participate in the famous Palio horse race. A track is laid down with sand and dirt, the streets are colored with flags and banners of the 17 different districts of the city. This is serious, cut throat competition. Crazy! San Gimignano, also a medieval town, is nicknamed “Medieval Manhattan” due to all its towers. Pisa was something to see once, but touristy. Tried to convince Dicker to go Vespa bike riding through the Tuscan hills, you can guess where that went.
All good things must come to an end, but not without incident. As we were going through security, our carry-on bags were flagged because of two bottles of wine we bought during our wine tasting. Either pay $100 USD to check the bag, or leave them. Guess the security people partied that night we won’t be able to continue our tradition of celebrating our anniversary with wine we bought on our trip that year. Arrivederci!
