As I suspected, the internet was in short quantity this weekend. I was able to find a bench outside the hotel that picked up some free internet, but it was pretty spotty. However, this turned out to be the only downside to the weekend. Not to mention it was probably good for me to be away from the internet for a few days. Anyways, it proved to be a weekend to remember through and through.

When I was last writing, we were driving along the coast approaching Sorrento. As I promised, I took some pictures of the breathtaking view. Unfortunately right after this, upon arriving in the city of Sorrento, we were confronted with stop and go traffic reminiscent of Los Angeles. This added about an hour to our four hour journey, and we were quite ready to stretch our legs after the ride. We pulled up to our hotel, not expecting too much extravagance, and were surprised by a beautiful four star hotel with an ocean view and big rooms. The whole hotel was adorned with marble and Italian artwork, which made us feel like much more than humble college students.

After the bus ride it was definitely time to get some food, so we walked down the road to a little restaurant in a huge group. The service was slow, but the food was delicious. I got a delicious pizza with lots of stuff like mushrooms and artichokes and olives on it. After dinner we went back up to the hotel and changed into our swim trunks. We walked down to the “beach” (about a 10 minute walk). We definitely looked like a bunch of American tourists, but I guess for this weekend we actually were. The “beach” turned out to be about a forty foot stretch of dirt/mud. The water was nice, but a little saltier than I expected. We did some exploring out in the water and climbed some rocks, but overall it wasn’t the most impressive beach in the world.

We walked back up to the hotel, showered, changed and went into the town for dinner. We found a small ristorante up one of the many small alleyways and sat down to eat. I decided to try some traditional Italian food and had the gnocchi. It was good, but a little starchy for me. Fortunately I was still stuffed from my pizza. Then, we tried some of Sorrento’s famous limoncello after dinner, which was delicious. Sitting next to us were two American ladies that we ended up befriending. They were very nice and it turns out one of them is an engineer working for Raytheon. She gave us her card and told us all to call her when we are looking for a job after college. It was pretty random, but as we had two aerospace engineers in our group it turned out to be a pretty lucky coincidence.

Then we stopped for some gelato, of course, and I tried two new flavors – snickers and millennium caramel. They were both great, and I feel like they were geared towards us American tourists. That was it for the night and we got a pretty good night’s sleep in preparation for our day at Capri.

The next morning we woke up at seven to go get some breakfast in the hotel lobby. I was expecting a muffin and some coffee and not much else, but we were surprised by the large selection and good food. We had donuts and omelets and muffins and cereal among other things. Then we boarded the bus to the harbor and got on a large boat for the trip over to Capri. We started off on a tour of the island that explained most of the rich history and took us to some breathtaking views. That lasted about two hours – til twelve. We ended at a seafood restaurant and went inside to get some lunch. I ordered the buffet, which consisted of many small seafood appetizers and vegetable dishes. It was nice to get some variety, and the best part was the baby octopus that I ate! There should be some pictures of that soon.

From this point on we had free time, so we decided to go on a hike around one half of the island. There is a natural arch on one end and some more amazing views. Also, there are some grottos formed into the cliffs by years of erosion from the wind and water. We got lost a few times, but as I have mentioned, this is often better because you get to see the unexpected. We eventually made it the arch and the lookouts and it was definitely worth it. I climbed a little bit of the arch as you can see in the pictures, and just so you know Mom, it was a drop all the way down :) I was safe though.

At this point we had about three hours left on the island and a small group of about six of us went back to the bottom of the island in search of a boat rental. We didn’t have to wait long, as right when we stepped off the boat we were accosted by a man in a “rent a boat” shirt. We worked out a deal of one hour for 15 euro for each person. It turned out to be a pretty big boat with cushions up front for us to lie on. We went around by the natural arch again and some of the grottos, and this turned out to be the highlight of my Italy trip thus far. It was great being on the open water enjoying the great views without a care in the world. We even got to go swimming in one of the caves! We were all quite happy after our boat ride and we spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through shops. We took the boat back to Sorrento and then bussed back to the hotel.

For dinner we decided to look for a hole in the wall restaurant that was playing the soccer game – on of the first of the Euro Cup. I was put in charge of finding the place, and I eventually stumbled on another small ristorante off the beaten path. We had the coolest waiter in the world that made the experience a whole lot better and we were able to enjoy soccer with our food. I got some chicken – some real meat for once – that was called chicken cacciatore, but was much different than what I am used to. Anyways, it was a lot of fun and afterwards we again went back to the same gelato shop for dessert. On our way back to the hotel we decided to stop by the beach and ended up relaxing there for an hour until about midnight. We saw some fireworks and then headed in for the night. It was quite the amazing day and it was one that I will never forget! I’ll continue with the rest of the weekend soon!