Capri is where the famous Blue Grotto is, a bright blue lagoon inside a cave. We caught a little boat right into the Blue Grotto, and the gentle glow of the deep, azure water against the stark, black rocks is a beautiful sight.
Pay a few Euros and you can catch a fantastic cable car ride that takes you over little mountain houses and way up into the hills, offering spectacular views of the bay and the volcano. The next day we caught another ferry to Sorrento where we stopped at another hilltop hotel and had sundowners on the rooftop bar, overlooking the Bay of Naples and the ever-present Mount Vesuvius. We didn’t over-indulge though: the next day we’d be driving on a great cliff side road around the beautiful villages of the Amalfi Coast, a drive that makes Chapman’s Peak look like child’s play!
Now we were on an excursion to the ruins of Pompeii. It’s a humbling experience to visit the houses where the people lived and actually see the structural damage the eruption of Vesuvius caused nearly two thousand years ago. Next day we caught a train to Rome. The trains in Italy are great: very cheap and a fast way to get around. A definite highlight is the Vatican, with St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. You can walk up onto the roof of St Peter’s and get an awesome view over the whole of Rome. Of course other highlights included the typical tourist fare like the Coliseum, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, where you can eat dinner on the Piazza and listen to the sound of the water.
After that we caught another train to Pisa, where we went straight to the Leaning Tower and had a late lunch on a rainy afternoon next to base of the tower. The more we had to drink, the more it leaned! Next day we were off to Florence where a highlight is the massive statue of David by Michelangelo, and the beautiful Ponte Vecchio bridge. By now it was becoming a pattern to have some pizza, pasta and wine every afternoon and Florence has got some great piazzas for this. You can also walk to the top of the Campanile and have great views over the Duomo and up into the hills that overlook Florence. Be careful not to fall off after a few too many, though.
The next day we were off to Milan and Lake Como. Milan is great and a real cosmopolitan city, contrasted by the huge gothic Duomo in the main square. You can walk onto the roof as well and have some great views, and I certainly carried on my tradition of finding the highest point in each city to get some great pictures from. From there we took a day trip to Lake Como, which is a great part of the world to go and visit, and might even be worth spending a week relaxing on the shores. A little secret is the Armani factory shop down the road with huge savings on Armani suits and casual clothes. We then flew back to London from Milan after a 10 day fully independent trip through Italy.
