Return to Italy - Rome, Naples, and Sorrento Part 3

So here we are at Part 3 (Part 1 or Part 2 here) of this exciting adventure travelling around parts of Italy, as I said in the last post we went back to Naples to get our boat over to Sorrento. While we was in Naples we had a look around the market, It was very busy and crowded down little side streets.

We had to go to the Port of Naples to get our boat. There was so many huge cruise boats docked here waiting to go back off. Our boat didn't really take that long to go over to Sorrento around about 30 minutes. You got a nice view of Vesuvius while travelling along.

Port of Naples

Mount Vesuvius, the boat had dirty windows 

Once we got over to Sorrento, I was amazed at all the stray cats again. There was so many of them just sitting around near the dock of Sorrento, they even had a little bed. It was so cute, some of them even was hopping on and on buses.

We made our way up to the top and to our hotel. Sorrento is so pretty and clean, unlike Naples. All the Christmas decorations are up so that was nice we got to see that. Our hotel was along by a row of shops, right next door to a supermarket.

This hotel was called Hotel Sorrento City, it was lovely and clean, with friendly staff, we got breakfast and free Wifi.

Hotel Sorrento City

So while we were staying in Sorrento, we went and visited a few places, Capri being one. We had to get a ferry over to the island which only took about 30 minutes. After having a walk about we did one of the many boat trips they have on the port, this was a private boat trip just for the two of us which cost about €80 - €90 Euros after you tip the man doing the trip. He drove us around about half the island showing us some of the history and special places. I do recommend doing this if you enjoy boat trips, I very much enjoyed every minute of it.

Map of Capri

Another one of the days spent in Sorrento, we traveled to a place called Positano. This time we got a bus there it went around the coast, this was a really enjoyable journey also seeing the sights on the bendy cliff roads. Once in Positano we had a wonder about the shops and town. This is another wonderful place to visit if going to Italy the scenery is beautiful.

I also went for a swim in the sea here, I couldn't believe how warm the sea was for November time. I'm pretty sure this place would be very crowded in the summer time, so going in the November time was great we had the beach pretty much all to ourselves. There was some more stray cats here too.

After spending a good few hours here we hopped back on the bus and decided to carry on to the next town which was Laurito, we went down this really steep stair way which lead to a small pier at the bottom where you could do fishing I believe. Another pretty place, so many pretty places I really want to go back to Italy again.

More stray cats found in Laurito

 We returned back to Sorrento on the bus, only to find all the Christmas lights had been turned on, how lucky was we to get to see this. What lovely decorations, this town was lit up beautifully.

 We have now come to our last day, returning back to Naples to get our flight back to London. We decided to make two more stops on the way back before returning to Naples and that was Pompei and Herculaneum. Anyone that is staying near Naples, needs to visit Pompei and Herculaneum the places are amazing.

Ancient Pompeii is really huge to walk around and I was having trouble walking about at this point from walking about so many places I had got blisters so I was in a bit of pain, but I did want to see all this history so I put up with the pain. There is so much to see here, from houses to temples, baths to theaters the ruins were great. I really enjoyed my time seeing these places. The price wasn't a bad price either, you can buy tickets to visit both the ruins.

Pompei ruins

Walls of Pompei building

 Herculaneum, is smaller to walk around than Pompei but still worth the visit, you have to walk down this long path to get into the ruins again this has got ruins of houses, temples and all sorts.

Ancient Ruins of Herculaneum.

flying back, view of Naples City from above.

Well that's about it! It's over I hope you enjoyed the read the photos and got some use out of reading this three part blog, Do let me know what you think. I am still new to writing this things, but I hope it's been of some use even if you did just used it to view the photos. Thanks for reading and do follow if you enjoy these posts! Aimee

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Return to Italy - Rome, Naples, and Sorrento Part 1

Hello everyone, welcome to another one of my travels. This time we are visiting Italy again, but we going to the City of Rome so lets begin. Also this post will be in two parts as this trip was over a week long, so I thought I would spilt it up.

On the 14th November, we arrived in Rome in the afternoon after a two hour flight on a Ryanair plane from Stansted airport. We then caught a bus to the centre of the city, which we had to queue up for cause a lot of the buses that day were on strike apparently. Once we got to the city, we had to walk to our apartment which was through a park. This park had lovely little green parakeets flying around it, like the ones you see in London.

Parakeet in Rome

Once we had walked through the park we got to the other end, you could see a nice view of the city and down below was the Piazza Del Popolo

The place we was staying for 2 nights was just down from here near a tram line, It was an apartment called, Rome Studios Apartments. It was very nice, we didn't get breakfast and had a shared bathroom, but the room overall was great, including a comfy bed, which is always good.

Later that evening we went back into the city to have some dinner. Can you guess what we had?

Yes pizza of course! It is Italy. We also had mojito cocktails, the food was all very nice.

Pizza for dinner

With Mojito cocktails.

After dinner we found the Spanish steps wondering about, they are a very nice structure. Below is a few more photos of around the city.

On Saturday the next day, we went to visit Trevi Fountain, which we thought was going to be pretty amazing to see but unfortunately it wasn't very great to view as it was covered in scaffolding.

Saw people dressed up as Romans, they would let you take a photo with them, but they wanted money afterwards so if you don't want to go giving your money away, I'd stay away. We did have one guy come up to us by the Piazza Del Popolo. He wasn't dressed as a Roman but he was giving people roses, he would tell you information about the area and then he wanted money for the roses, so again beware if you don't give your money out!

We also found a cool toy store, I love looking in toy stores at all the different things, one thing I'm interested in is Lego and this store had loads of it so I was really excited.

The store window.

The store front. Cool huh!

I bought a mini fig which was a little bit cheaper than in the UK. We then went on to find the Roman Forum. The area around there was really amazing. One building was huge, this was the Piazza Venezia which is just before you go around the corner to the Roman Forum and Colosseum. It was such a spectacular looking building all white with pillars, had horse statues on top of it. 

The Piazza Venezia

Round the corner from here was the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, there was also lots and lots of men trying to sell you stuff like selfie sticks and umbrella's. I managed to get myself one at a bargain price of 5 euros instead of the price they was trying to sell them for 15 euros, haggle with them, they will give in.

The Roman Forum you have to pay to get into, you can buy tickets online which I think is the ticket to the Colosseum plus you get entry to the forum too. It costs around £10.00.

Being in the Forum is strange you have to imagination what is was like all them years ago it's rather hard. There is books you can buy that have before and now images of the ruins which come in very helpful.

Even cats visit the Forum,

After walking about the forum we came out and went walked around the outside of the Colosseum, we didn't go inside till the next day cause it was getting late. Such a big ruin, amazing thing to see.

Arch of Constantine

The things that must have gone on in that Colosseum must have been mind blowing.

The last thing we went to visit that day was the Pantheon.

This building was another spectacular sight, sadly we didn't get to go inside as there was a service going on. So we didn't get to the see the hole in the ceiling. It did start to rain, lucky we went into a restaurant for dinner.

Here is a few more sights round the city

These fountains were really beautiful.

 The next day we went back to the Colosseum, but this time we thought we would try out the metro. It's a bit different from the London Underground, I would say it looks brighter, less crowded as well.

The Colosseum is huge and simply amazing. It's a great place to visit and will be a excellent experience. I for one was amazed by it and if you are visiting Rome it's the one place you must go and see. You can spend a good hour or so in there looking around, it was very busy and this was in November, so I dread to think what it would be like in Summer time. So if you do want to avoid all the crowds, winter time would be better. There was a small queue to get in, another thing which is better to do is buy your tickets online, otherwise you will be waiting in a huge queue to get in.

Once inside you can walk all around the bottom, and then there is stairs to go up to the top. You can get some stunning photos in there, as you can see below.

In black and white.

That was all we had time to do in Rome, after that we travelled down to Naples on train, then switched trains to Lucrino, where we were staying in this beautiful hotel called Villa Luisa. But there will be more about that in the next post. This is the end of part 1, hope you enjoy this helpful and enjoyable to read. Go to Part 2 <---

Thanks Aimee

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