Around the Isle of Capri

One day when Lies and I were swimming around in the mediterranean, an old guy passed by us in a little boat. I made a joke about him nearly running us over and he assured us that we were safe and puttered on along. Shortly he puttered on back and asked us if we were enjoying ourselves and if we were friends. We said we were having a delightful time and that we were sisters. He then asked us if we had seen the green grotto. We said no. He asked if we wanted to come with him for a swim in the aforementioned location. Liesl and I politely refused. He asked why not. We said we were quite happy here but thanks. He said it was a beautiful place to swim and that we would be quite safe with him. We asked him how much he wanted and he said, come on, it's free! Feeling rather vulnerable but wanting to feel alive enough to take some risk, I decided to swim over and climb aboard. Lies somewhat hesitatingly followed. At this point I should say that the guy was old, like in his 70s old, and was so wiry that I thought if push came to shove, I could take him. That is how we ended up on the boat of Antonio heading to the green grotto.

After about 10 mins of cruising, we arrived at an archway over stunningly green water. Antonio told us to jump off, swim through and he would pick us up on the other side. While the thought crossed our mind that he might abandon us there, we took another risk and swam through.

Antonio was waiting faithfully for us on the other side and when he saw us, he dived his leatherback body in to join us. He had a snorkelling mask and told us to come and see the champagne grotto. We swam over to one of the white cliff walls and he pointed to a tiny hole smaller than the size of a head. We laughed and said no way, and with that, he put on the mask, dived under, disappeared and resurfaced on the other side of the hole. He implored us to come and join him. We told him he was crazy. He kept pleading, that it was beautiful, that we would love it, that we should just come on. Finally I grew some ovaries and decided to attempt it. I failed. The wash from the waves was quite stong, I had no idea how far I had to swim and backed out after not making it immediately. He passed me the mask through the hole and asked me to try again. With the mask I could see the swim was easy and I soon surfaced inside a tiny simmering silver and shell encrusted grotto, rising and falling with the waves. I told Lies she had to see it, passed her the mask and she too swallowed her fear and came inside. As beautiful as it was, this special little secret grotto, we are ashamed to admit that both of us wondered if Antonio might not see this small enclosure as his chance to take advantage. He didn't, and we swam out and back to the boat in safety. On board his boat again he gave us a soft drink and drove us back to our original swimming hole. We thanked him enormously and departed, thinking maybe the scam was that someone had stolen our gear off the beach while we were gone. They hadn't. There was no scam. We had just been treated to a delightful experience by a lovely old Italian man. We both felt very sad and ashamed that we had questioned him the whole time and that we could have such a negative image of the world. Antonio restored our faith and the next day we wanted to try and thank him.
We realised that the boat Antonio was driving was one in a group that the hotel organised tours of the island on (for an rather large fee of course). We booked a trip for the two of us and asked if we could please have Antonio. Liesl got some very strange looks for this personal request and they said they would try to organise it. As we were waiting at the jetty, we watched a number of boats come and go with their guests, but no Antonio. Then we saw a shirtless hunk steaming towards us. We heard a guy from another boat call out to him, to Antonio, and suddenly we realised why our request might have raised a few eyebrows! Funnily enough, as much as we would have been happy cruising with this new Antonio, he was not our captain either. We got another crusty old man, who did not say a word to us, but who provided us with a lovely tour anyway. Here are some photos we took from this trip around the most beautiful isle of Capri.

First, here is our boat, our captain and those infamous fraggles in the background!
Some of the old roman ruins that litter the island
The famous, crowded, and rather surreal blue grotto
Looking back at our boat after climbing up into the white grotto.
Kicking back on board
And cruising back into the little bay where our hotel was nestled. Home sweet home.

xxx

Capri Part 2

So I was in the middle of telling all about how we took a thousand photos of the fraggle rocks because they just looked so beautiful throughout all the changing light of day and night. Here is another example, just to prove my point beyond any measure of a doubt.

While we had a great view of the fraggles from our hotel balcony, we also loved the view to the other side, which was of the classic milk and pink rock cliffs of Capri, constantly swirled by soaring squarking seabirds. Stunning.


Liesl and I really enjoyed our lovely little balcony with its wonderful views from all sides. It was just perfect for those early evening wines...here Liesl is about to enjoy hers, accompanied by some Reese's peanut butter cups...perhaps not the most traditional combination but we were on holidays!



Crystal blue seas, stunning white cliffs, wine glass and bikini, one of the many ways that I will fondly remember our days on Capri.

Kylie asked in a comment on the previous post how we ever managed to leave such beauty...I know what she means and indeed it was truly heartbreaking to leave, but in many ways, it was truly bank breaking to stay! Liesl and I had a meal one night that cost us more than I dare to admit...but our committment to doing it the proper Italian way with multiple courses resulted in us receiving a second free dessert. Have you ever seen such a delight?

Unfortunately Liesl lost her favourite sunglasses in the restaurant that night, which kind of tainted the memory. Fortunately it meant we had to spend some serious time trying on a thousand new pairs in a fancy store with a scrummy salesman! Things just always had a silver lining on Capri!

In the next and final post from this delightful isle, I will take you on a photographic roundtrip tour from our private boat built for two. If you thought it seemed dreamy up until now, just wait until you see what tomorrow has in store :) xxx

Capri: Part 1

From Sorrento, we took a ferry over to Capri, where we had booked a fabulous (and rather expensive) hotel room for three (or was it four?) nights of total and utter relaxation. While this will not mean anything to anyone else except Lies and me, at this point I just have to say..."'ello 'ello, cherrie, cherrie, verie sweet cherrie!"

The hotel room was splendid, totally perfect. This first pic is the view from our verandah. Totally divine and perfect for that early evening glass of wine!

During the day Capri is also complete chaos - people take day trips to the island in their masses, but in the evenings, it empties out almost entirely. It is totally worth spending the money to stay overnight, although I must say, you will have to spend quite a bit of money. It has a reputation for being expensive and lives up to that reputation, and that is saying something coming from Norway!

We stayed about 10 minutes drive out of the centre of Capri, on a quiet side of the island and that was absolutely perfect for us. We had a fabulous little beach where we could swim and bake just 2 minutes walk away. Even though in the heat of the day, the tiny stretch of rocky beach was full, it was full of Italians and that helped make the experience feel authentic. And the water, oh the water! So clean, so clear, so refreshing...and so salty! I could literally do a vertical float! So fun. Lies and I just LOVED it.

Here I am casually soaking up the sun in front of what Lies and I affectionately called Fraggle Rocks.

Here is another shot of the full fraggles, of which we took about a thousand photos! They were so sweet and stunning in the various shades of light we saw them bathed in that we just could not resist.
Unfortunately blogger has had a little fit of some kind and is not letting me post anymore photos...so they will have to wait for next time. Hope these couple of shots of the stunning Capri have whet your appetite enough to make you wait! xxx

Positano & Amalfi

One day Lies and I bought a bus ticket and ambled on down through the towns of Positano and Amalfi. Positano is perched rather precariously on a cliff face, where it seems that all the buildings are clinging to each other for stability!We exited the bus at the top of the cliff and on the edge of the town and worked our way down. After a while, this zigzagging of our way down gained increasing urgency as one of us, namely Liesl (hehehe), becaming very close to bursting to visit the little girls room! As the urgency reached near breaking point, we decided that we had to stop in a cafe and buy a drink as an excuse to use their loo. Fortunately this was a wonderful reason to pause and really soak in the full gloriousness of the view.


Point of interest: when you order a lemonade in this part of Italy, you get real crushed lemon, water and ice, with some sugar on the side to add should you so desire. Really fantastic! The area must be perfect for citrus because lemons were everywhere!! The best part of this though was of course all the limoncello, which we became quite fond of sipping a shot of after our evening meal. So delicious! Especially when a sweet waiter had given it to us for free :) Anything else? No thank you. Maybe just a little limoncello? Okay, maybe just a little limoncello!
Again, my memory of Positano is that it was very pretty, but that it was also incredibly hot and unbelieveably crowded...a little too much of both for it to be enjoyed as it no doubt should. Liesl and I therefore chose to move on to Amalfi, with the expressed purpose of taking a swim there. Again we hired a little sun chair and did very little else other than read, lie in the sun, refresh ourselves in the water and drink the pama we had smuggled in! The best part was the way you could treat the lifeguards as waiters! When we were asked if we were okay, our answer was 'Actually no, we are a little thirsty', to which our chunk of bare chested italian lifeguard would trot off and buy us some lemon soda to mix with our pama. So funny! And then we had a devil of a time trying to convince him that we should pay for it! That I really loved about the Italian beach experience - the superb towel side service. So good! Unfortunately, that was literally all we did in Amalfi, so no pics from there I am afraid. I will post this one from Positano though because it shows one of the plants that was just everywhere along the Amalfi coast, and if anyone knows what this beautiful purple flowering gem is I would love to know the name of it!
At the end of the day Lies and I boarded a bus home and had a very interesting couple of hours beep beeping our way around a thousand corners along the road that hugs the coast back to Sorrento. Funnily, we got stuck for quite some time in a traffic jam because some people had stupidly chosen to park on the road, which has two directions of traffic using it but which is actually only wide enough for one. Therefore having these 2 lanes of traffic on a road built for one negotiating parked cars during a rush period became impossible. Lies and I were on holidays though and so not bothered at all. We read our books. We laughed at all the Italian hand gesturing. And we took photos of the pretty view as the sun slid down.
xxx

On to the Amalfi Coast

When Lies and I left Paris, we headed to the Amalfi coast. First stop was Naples. All we had to do there, however, was get from Naples airport to the train station, to take a train south. Right from the beginning, we observed the difference between French and Italian hospitality. The bus driver was super sweet to us, helping with bags, helping with tickets and then making a special stop for us at the smaller train station we had to use when he was supposed to only stop at Central station, he did it to save us the walk he said. We were most pleased with this walk saving, both because of the weight of our bags (see earlier post) and because when we landed in Italy, we began to experience real European summer heat. After being on the bus for 10 minutes we also quickly realised we were additionally glad to have been saved the walk because Naples was a COMPLETE AND UTTER madhouse! Houses piled on houses, people piled on people, and scooters, cars and buses all fighting for a scrap of road in any direction. We laughed ourselves silly at the chaos of the traffic, and particularly at the way scooters would take over turning buses on the inside with nothing more than a little 'beep beep' to let the driver know they were coming through. Super scary! We arrived at the station no problem and got on a train no problem and were soon heading out of crazy Naples for the divine shores of the Amalfi coast....Ahhhhh.....
We had booked accommodation in Sorrento and planned to spend a few days there taking day trips down the coast to see some of the other coastal villages. That first sight of water from the train was an absolute delight as the journey was long and un-air conditioned. The feeling of heat was enhanced by the knowledge that we were circling the base of Vesuvius. Unfortunately, this is the only pic I got of the famous volcano, can you see it hiding amidst the fog/smog?
I really think I have lost some of my ability to cope with heat while living in Norway, because I was really struggling. Just after that train ride we were both sticky little sweat boxes. Unfortunately, once we arrived in Sorrento we had quite a hike to our hostel and that only increased that saturated feeling. An old man had told us that all we had to do was walk to the end of this street. It was just that that street seemed to go on FOREVER! After arriving, we were most glad to dump our weighty bags and were pleased we could see the city unburdened. The road we had to walk along to get there had some seriously stunning scenery, and the water looked clear as crystal.

The city of Sorrento was very sweet, and very very crowded. Tour buses must have arrived by the dozen because the streets were really jam packed full of people. I guess you should not really expect much else, but the extreme mass of humanity that is European hotspots in summer never ceases to amaze me. While it felt a shame to have to share this sweet city with so many others, it was still pleasant to roam the streets and alleyways.
As pleasant as it was though, Liesl and I were really hankering for a swim in that crystal blue green water...
It therefore didn't take us long to head down to our local beach for the Italian beach experience, which meant paying a little cash and being given a delightful little lounge chair in the sun. The chair was fantastic, the water totally refreshing, and the pama we smuggled in perfect with frozen lemon soda. While the lifeguards didn't really measure up to Australian standards, they seemed to be there more to take care of the chairs than to save lives, so we forgave them their lack of form and settled in for a delightful first day of doing not much more than reading a book, sipping a cocktail and working on the tan!
The best part about the stay in Sorrento though was the cocktail/s we had every night at our local as we watched the sun go down. Sweet view. Attentive waiters. Lots of free drinks and snacks. And some wonderful company to share it all with. That was truly the life.



xxx

Paris Part 4

Okay, hopefully this is the last post from the Paris visit...it seems to have gone on and on and there are so many other wonderful adventures in so many other fabulous places to cover!

On our last day in Paris we went to Versailles. This is something I had wanted to do for ages but never managed to get around to doing. Unfortunately it did not measure up to my expectations.

Sure, it's a palace. Sure, it's ornate. Sure, the gardens are huge. Sure, kings and queens lived here in some very dramatic periods in history. But...it just did not impress me as I had hoped it would. Maybe it was partly because the front of the building is currently being restored and was therefore hidden behind scaffolding and canvas (with images of what you should see printed on it!) Maybe it was because the fountains in the garden were not operating and therefore it lacked that over the top sense of splendour. Maybe it was because the gargens were actually just lawn, trees and hedges. And maybe it was because the place was SOOOOO damn crowded! I was seriously getting claustrophic in some of the rooms, especially when the massive tour groups would swallow all the available space while they heard about this painting or that fabric. I hate crowds and I particularly hate crowds in small spaces! The best part of the visit by far was when Liesl and I lay on the lawn beside a little lake with ducks and swans and almost fell asleep in the sun. Which, let's face it, we could have done in any one of many gorgeous parks in Paris itself. I don't wish to sound bitter, but Versailles? Ngjeeee...nothing special. Okay, that is an exaggeration...it is something special, but if you only have a couple of days in Paris I would recommend you do something else!




Some of the other things we did in Paris that I have forgotten to blog about previously were: pay our respects to both Jim Morrison and the semi naked dancers of the Moulin Rouge. The strange thing about Jim was that his grave is just kind of tucked away in the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, crammed up against some other stones in a tiny little plot. Not particularly pretty and not at all spectacular. I have to say I would rather a quiet resting place under a big shady tree in open plains somewhere, but then I am not Jim! Love your music Jim, but thought your grave was a bit squeezy and square. Sorry.

Actually though, the cemetary itself was quite lovely. Enormous and packed with gravestones, but generally green and peaceful...except around Jim of course where the American tourists were telling everyone what they thought about anything and everything. I remember having a really lovely little break though when Liesl and I just sat on a little park bench overlooking the grounds and the city, drank our tap water from the hotel and ate some of the Granola bars she had brought from the US (maple syrup and muesli a top combination!), together with some fruit bought on the way out of the metro. The simple pleasures hey?

Okay, not all of our pleasures were simple! Here is me getting VERY excited about the cakes we had with our coffee at our local patisserie one day...mmmmm...the cakes!

The Moulin Rouge was hilarious! When the dancers first stepped out in glitter suits and did a few one step forward, arms up, skippty hop backs, though, I thought this was going to be an expensive show that had not aged very well at all! I also remember thinking, thank god champagne was included in the price! But then, when the woman dived into a tank full of pythons and the red feather headsets came out, everything changed! The show was fantastic! The variety acts were superb (I will always wonder about the real identity of the talking dog!), the costumes stunning, and the bouncing breasts well worth the money!

One of the funniest things of the night though actually happened after the show. Liesl and I were trying to take some pictures of the windmill (see above) when I ran over a hot air vent and my skirt flew up over my ears. As I was pulling it down and cacking myself, Liesl and I heard a guy in the throng of photographers say, "Do it again, I was aiming too high". We thought it was so hilarious that Lies made me do it again, only this time Marilyn style - see below...

And thus ends the Paris adventures...stay tuned for the next installment - the gorgeous Amalfi coast of Italy! xxx

Paris Part 3

In part three of our Paris adventure, Lies and I strolled along the Champs Elysees, which was rather fabulous actually! I had not done this in my previous trips to Paris. May sound crazy I know, but there is just so much to do in this incredible town!

Liesl fell totally in love with the Arc de Triomphe, and we spent quite some time cacking ourselves at the super crazy traffic whizzing around that beast! It really seemed like complete mayhem. This was of course before we got to observe the absolute and total mayhem of Italian traffic, but more of that later! While I too found the Arc beautifully impressive, I also had to give some love to the under- appreciated neighbours!

One of the craziest things about the Champs though was that they actually trim the trees with a scythe like instrument. Liesl and I saw this guy hanging out of a cherry picker like contrapment, miles in the air, swinging this blade along the tree edges. Imagine your arms at the end of the day if that was your job! The Champs is long man! Very very impressive!

After we had walked up the Champs, we walked back down the other side to visit the Louvre. Again, I had been there before, but with so many kilometres of gallery, once will never be enough! I was, however, most pleased that Liesl found the Mona Lisa as intriguing as I do. There is just something about that painting that is different in real life. You see so many images of it, and it is so familiar to you, that you would almost think that there is no reason to see it; but really, there is something incredibly engaging about that smile in real life. She really draws you in. When I see her in the flesh, it never feels right for me to photograph her - she gets lost in reproductions anyway. Even though you are surrounded by loads of people, all chatting and clicking away, somehow, for me, they just all seem to fade away when she is there smiling in front of me. Seriously siren like! So all I can say is, if you get the chance to see the Mona Lisa, you should take it. Here, however, you only have the chance to see me, lining up to see the Mona Lisa!
xxx.