Day 18

Sorrento Beach 1:20PM 7/8/10

Last night we met this great British couple and I had meant to write more, but we ended up talking with them for most of the evening. So backtracking to yesterday, we got to the campsite and kept our fingers crossed that they had space, they did and they said we could stay as long as we wanted. They led us downhill to a more secluded backpacker area. It was kind of funny, there was a French couple, the British couple, and Italian couple and us (the American couple). We set up camp, got some groceries and then we walked down this little stairway that led to a road that took us right to the beach. We went in for a dip. Water finally! It was so nice. We both felt so refreshed and the water was not cold at all. Then we went back to camp, showered and watched the Holland Uruguay game at the camp cafe.

The next morning, we got up and went to the beach. It was really hot and we laid out reading for as long as we could stand it before going into the water to cool off. I got sand thrown on me repeatedly by a little Italian boy whose mom simply referred to as 'Anthony NO!' I laughed despite the fact that I was slightly annoyed and he turned and threw sand in the face of an old woman. After the beach, we ventured into town. Troy commented that the town reminded him of Catalina, and it did, a touristy little beach town. We headed to find the post office to send some postcards and some of our excess stuff back and the door to the post had this odd hermetically-sealed type double sliding door machanism. Troy pushed the button and the first set of dorrs opened, I followed him and the door almost closed on me. We were in this little chamber and the door in front of us wouldn't open until the door behind us was shut so we just stood there until it opened. Very futuristic for a town like Sorrento that lives off of it's lemon soap and limoncello sales.

After that, we went to a park that turned out to be an orchard that you could walk through. It had lemon and orange trees and tons of fruit rotting on the ground. We walked all the way to the back and there was this lady with a stand and she gave us a sample of Limoncello, Troy did not realized that it was alcoholic, and it sure was. That was some strong stuff. We stayed in the orchard and read for a bit, just to get out of the heat. Then we headed back, getting some gelato on the way. Big mistake. She gave us large cones that costed 8 euros each! Troy was upset and even moreso when his immediately began to melt all over his beard and shirt and shorts (which had just been washed). After doing some blogging, we headed back to camp and had some dinner while listening to a huge storm pass over Naples across the bay. Then we got our suits on and went to the pool for a bit. That was the night we met Jo and Matt, the british couple and we ended up sitting with them during the Spain v. Germany game and talking with them until about midnight even though they had to get up really early to catch a 6:30 train and needed to pack. It was fun to share our traveling adventures with another couple. They had been traveling for almost the exact same amount of time as us! But they were headed home and we had about 50 more days！I can't believe how long our trip is. It's not even half way over. Anyways, we exchenged contact info with Matt and Jo and we might see them again toward the end of our trip when we go to England!

This morning we woke up and decided to head into town before going to the beach. We wandered through some smaller streets that were more like walkways, but vespas were still driving down them! We looked in some shops and found the way down to another beach which looked nice. It was a series of docks on top of rocks with beach chairs for laying out. We went to the train station and bought a tour book for Hercualneum and Pompei and asked about the train tickets. She said that the trains run all day and the tickets were only 3.80 per person round trip. We made a plan to go to Hercualneum tomorrow.

Next we headed to the bookstore and bought some books in english to read. Troy got Ken Follet's World Without End and I got Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. Then we got our suits and decided to check out the new beach that we saw. We headed down this steep ramp to the beach. There hotels and restaurants had monopolized most of the beach space and you had to rent the deck chairs and everything else. Troy and I found this tiny little space of public beach that was crowded with people and set our towels up on the lumpy conrete (not very comfy). We took turns going in the water and watching our stuff, but the water was much colder than the other beach. On the way back to camp we stopped at a cafe and had some pizza and fries. We walked in and out of shops some more then we headed back to the campsite pool.