John: Part Two, Trip to Amalfi Coast.

On the trip it was again just one picture postcard view after another. Again another A list, jet set, film festival red carpet location.

       "On the right is Sophia Loren's villa, with private beachfront and elevator up to the road."

         "On our left is the Amalfi's backpacker hostel. Basic room rate for this hotel is €1000 plus 

          a night ... excluding breakfast."

On the way up we stopped at a lemoncello factory. Lemoncello is a lemon drink which is either left as a juice, brewed into an alcoholic cream textured beverage like Bailey's, or a REALLY STRONG liqueur. All of them delicious. The guide must have known I was Australian (she probably read the label on the front of my yellow hat!) because I seemed to end up having more sample than the others. 

          "Because the bottle is shaped like a guitar."  was Julie's indisputable totally rational reason for buying a €10 bottle of the cream version. 

After the factory there were more picturesque views, more quant little villages, and more international A list name dropping. Which took us to lunch, and you dear reader to part three. 

John: Part Three Trip To Amalfi.

Lunch was everything it should have been: a beautiful pasta and salad, film location view across the bay, and no yelling waiters or ones trying to pick up Julie.

It must have good been good because I had pushed back my chair from the table ready to settle back, when sadly it was time to go. On the way out our guide took me aside for another lemoncello, to aid the digestion. Because Julie had been chatted up I compensated by telling myself that this would be the only time in my life an attractive Italian woman would be "plying" me with drinks. I knew she was doing it to drum up a bit of trade fo the locals but us old blokes have earned the right to delude ourselves!

After lunch more James Bond/Jason Bourne elegant film locations before the trip home.

What a superb day it had been, and that lunch time view across the bay will stay with me forever.

John: Part One. Trip To Amalfi Coast.

Another trip to admire the: coastline, sea, and villages of Southern Italy. I remember this one much better than the Capri one. 

Rise and shine at around 7:30am. This is the painting I have been waking up to for the last week or so. It isn't your usual vase of flowers is it? I'm sure the painter is trying to tell me something.

We get this view just walking to the lift!

Breakfast for me as usual was its normal (un)healthy self, and it was always nice to see if there had been any new additions to the blackboards. Let me explain. Naples is notorious for its graffiti. The designer of the hotel, a Neopolian architect named Alessandro Cocchia had brought the graffiti theme into the hotel. Some of the walls were made of ... I don't know ... "Blackboard!" and on each table was a little bowl of chalk should you feel so moved to express your thoughts in words or drawing. Some other Australian had drawn up the Australia Mate on the board and I added the arrows and words. We have to keep the flag flying and be loud and proud.

I'll leave you with a couple more examples of the graffiti theme in the hotel, then on to part two and the trip.

John: Trip to Capri

First I must start with an apology. As I have mentioned elsewhere, everything is starring to blur into one beautiful big memory. So, even though this trip was only a few days ago, I can only remember bits of it, and even then not in the correct chronological order, but here goes.

We were picked up by our just about organised guide Domenico and transported to the dock, to catch the hydrofoil across to Capri. The trip over was fine except for some salesman endlessly spruicking his wares. By half way across I was hoping he would fall overboard, but he didn't. Sadly he was twice as annoying on the way back. But let's move on. 

The bus ride iinto the town of Capri was just one beautiful site after other. Julie has photos of it on Tripcast.

An option which we took was a chairlift ride to the top of the island to see and photograph the views. The trip took thirteen minutes up, and thirteen minutes back. As Julie would say, it was wonderful. I could have floated around on the chairlift all day, the views were sensational and the feeling of flying through the air was very pleasant.

After that came lunch which was mediocre at best. I'm sure the spaghetti came out of a can. (I should know because I had eaten enough of it before I got married.). However lunch did provide some amusement. There was an older waiter who was the stereotypical Italian, yelling and shouting orders to I'm not sure who with no one appearing to listen to him. 

AND one of the younger waiters started to chat up Julie. She will tell you he wasn't, but he was!!!! He told her that she looked like a Roman and 

"Roma wasa a very importanta city." So Julie has been mistaken for a Parisian and a Roman. What a cosmopolitan lady!

After lunch my Italain (Roman) wife and I went for a boat trip round the island. It was magnificent. The views were breathtaking, and the sea was so blue. The yachts that passed by were more than up to the mark, for an international A list resort that Capri is. 

The Villa of Dolce of Dolce and Gabanna.

After the trip it was time to catch the ferry back to Naples. As we got closer to the coast there was a big thunderstorm with lots of rain, which didn't stop until after we got back to our hotel. 

Looking back it was a lovey enjoyable day. Capri IS as lovely as the hype says it is. I am so glad we went.

Part Two Of Collection Of Photos.

Continuing the I meant to tell you about but didn't get around to theme. 

I saw this clock in a village on the Amalfi coast. As clocks go I reckon it's pretty good. 

I thought Millie would like these two plastic garden animals.

As soon as I saw this skull I thought of Uncle Ed as boy, with his love of the grim and the bloodthirsty. I also said to Julie that both the skull and I are "folically challenged!" Without much hair.

This beautifully cool and elegant room is in one of my favourite places in Naples. It has the magnificent name of Pio Monte Della Misercordia. Even more amazing because just outside is a street full of Neopolitan chaos and tourist buzz

Can't remember where I saw this, I think it was in the above place. Yet again I was amazed how bedecked with jewels and gold holy books were in days gone by.

You think AFL fans are crazy. This guy has a huge Naples soccer club flag flying from his balcony.

Shop sign. This town is known for its music festivals and musicians so I suppose it's appropriate!

A new word in the Italian language. I wonder how long it will be before a down market shop in Oz tries to go up market using this terrible word.

John : Part 1:Collection of photos

Photos I Wanted To Tell You About When I Took Them But I Didn't Get Around

I am at the stage of the trip now when I have seen so many wonderful things that they are starting to blur into one. It is also at the stage where I am asking Jule where we saw something but I can't remember where. Most importantly it is time to share with you the photos that when I took them, I thought "I really must tell the folks or (insert name) at home about this, and I haven't got round to it. So here goes.

This is kind of like a Cordoban Spanish "Chicko Roll" called a Flamenquin Cordobes. For fried food it didn't taste too bad.

These are photos of some Spanish gold and silver which I wouldn't mind owning.

I remember telling Jule that I had to tell Linda that she has a railway station named after her. It's pronounced "Lowkay" which is pretty close to Lukey.

A warning to all travellers to be careful where you sit in foreign cafes. The sign says "Make love not diets!"

A particularly bloodthirsty French King (I think it was a Charles) had a particularly nasty way of deciding whether someone should live or die, and betting big money on the result. After locking someone up for a long time he would bring them out into the daylight to play "The Game." The poor prisoner would have to walk blind folded from one side of the big square shown below to the other and end up between statues of two horses. If he succeeded he lived. If he didn't he was executed. I tried it ( walking that is) with my eyes closed and even only a few steps I was veering to the left and would have missed the target by a mile.

 I didn't feel so bad when the guide told us that the success rate then and now was/is almost zero. Players in the game become disoriented because, the paving is uneven and there is a slope which in itself is uneven in height and degree. Add to that the fear or mental anguish you would be experiencing  by being subjected  to the taunts, and calls of the crowd who came to watch the spectacle, all of which added up to make "The Game." unwinable.

The cobblestone roads I have told you about that make driving over them a bone shaking experience.

John: John's trip to the bank = "Mr Bean Meets Star Trek"

First it was the tour guide who gave me a hard time. Then it was the bank guard. 

Near the end of our walk, Julie said we should get some more cash from the ATM which was located in the wall outside the bank. I replied that because we all "know" the Mafia run Naples, they would have those devices that scan your credit card in the ATMs so I either go inside to make a withdrawal or we go without. Not a good choice. 

First the bank guard wouldn't let me in because an alarm had gone off THEN he wouldn't let me in because Securicorp had come to pick up the cash. Julie suggested we go somewhere else but I said no. An even worse choice.

Unlike Aussie banks, where you just walk through the door this bank had a round glass tubular contraption which was only big enough to hold one person, to get in and out. As you can see from the photos below of the rather tubby gentleman with the walking stick, there isn't much room inside this thing. There is even less for a gentleman of my dimensions carrying a bulging shoulder bag. Julie said she would wait for me outside. 

I waited for the glass door to slide open ... Nothing. The bank guard must have hit a button and then gaven me a gentle shove to push me in. There I was trapped inside this tiny glass tube thing. First reaction was to think of Star Trek where the characters step into a similar device and say,

                                                          "Beam me up Scotty!" 

to be whisked away to the mothership. This was immediately followed by a mild panic attack, why wasn't the glass door in front of me sliding open? It only occurred to me later that the door in front of me would only open once the door behind me had properly closed.

However, once I got inside the bank I had to deal with an ATM machine unlike one I had seen before and which only had operating instructions in Italian, and none of the bank staff spoke English. Anyway I got the cash withdrawing €300 which is what I wanted instead of the €30,000 (which I haven't got) which it looked like on the screen. Next problem to get back outside. 

I stood gazing at the door ... The good people of Naples were waiting for me to do something, and the bank staff were deliberately ignoring me. The bank guard on the outside was waving his arms around and Julie was laughing.

Anyway after another mild panic attack going through the glass tube I stumbled back into the street a free man. As you can tell by the photo below both the captor (the bank guard) and the captive (me) were both happy that I was safe and sound without personal injury or damage to property.