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According to the locals this summer in Tuscany was not good – lots of rain and wind, and not the usual warm temperatures. But we didn’t notice – for our two day stay the weather was glorious. It was a short stay but we … Continue reading
Jean travelling at 246 km/h north of Napoli
Yesterday we left Positano and travelled north by high speed train to Firenze and then drove south to our base for the next two days – Radda in Chianti.
After the fun and games of air travel, train travel is so easy and relaxing it’s ridiculous. The most stressful part of the trip was keeping an eye on our bags at Napoli Station – a place renown for pick pockets and thieves.
In all it took 2 hours and 50 minutes to complete the train trip that would have required between 5 and 6 hours to drive.
We collected a rental car at Firenze, negotiated the city’s one way system, and 50 minutes later checked in at Relais Vignale in Radda which is in the heart of Chianti.
We have dinner planned with friends who live in Chianti and a trip to Siena for a spot of shopping before heading on to Roma – because, as they say, that’s where all roads lead.
Yesterday, our week in Sicily came to and end and we returned to Positano. Our journey back was a truly Italian experience. We drove from the villa to Catania airport and arrived with over 2 hours to check in, go through security and board our flight – loads of time we thought.
The first clue that the airport was going to be an adventure was the thousand or so people crowding around the 4 Alitalia check-in counters, with another 150 people crowding around the 3 working automated check-in terminals.
Jean and I have played this game before so she joined the “bag drop” queue (for that read mass of people all crowding around the one poor Alitalia staff member at the bag drop counter) while I joined the “print your boarding pass” queue.
After about 40 minutes Jean had moved 3 feet and I had reached the check in terminal. With about 200 people watching, waiting and providing helpful (and loud) advice in Italian (no pressure) I went through the process of printing the passes.
Just as I rejoined Jean an Alitalia staff member came through the crowd saying that those travelling to Napoli should move to another, newly opened, check-in counter. Salvation we thought, as we joined a relatively short queue to check in.
But then another Italian tradition kicked in – everyone in the queue had a problem with something – the lady travelling alone with 4 check in bags and no intention of paying for excess baggage. The couple travelling with a dog, but no booking for the dog.
In 30 minutes 3 people (plus 4 bags and 1 dog) had checked in. We now had less than an hour to our flight departure.
A lovely Italian gentleman who was seeing his son off looked at us and shrugged his shoulders. He said that this always happens but somehow it all comes together in the end – he called it “Italian creativity”.
At that point the baggage belt stopped working. Apparently the baggage handling team was overwhelmed and needed some time to recover.
By this time we had reached the check-in desk and had our bags tagged but they were sitting on the floor in front of the counter – together with a growing number of bags as the luggage started to spread across the terminal floor. The baggage conveyor belts were full and not moving and we were told not to leave our bags unattended.
We now had less than 30 minutes to get through security and make the flight. This made us nervous because as we’d passed the entrance to security about an hour and a half earlier and it had queues longer than the check-in desks. But we had no choice. We were stuck watching our bags.
Stalemate.
At this point a helpful check in lady pushed a few bags around on the carousel and found a spot for our luggage. So we were off to join the queue at security.
But now the delay worked for us. Because check-in had effectively stopped, security was deserted. It took 5 minutes to go through and reach our gate, just as boarding was commencing.
At this stage we gave our bags about a 10% chance of making the flight – but as we sat on the plane we could see them being loaded – along with all the others for the flight. We left on time and actually arrived 5 mins early into Napoli – with all our luggage intact.
After the early start and drama of the flight, we were exhausted so both managed to fall asleep in the back of the car that collected us from the airport for the drive to Positano.
But things were looking up – we arrived at the hotel to a warm welcome, a room upgrade to a suite, and two glasses of chilled prosecco waiting for us.
All good.
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On Saturday we visited the historic hilltop village of Noto located about 45 minutes drive south west of Syracuse. It is a UNESCO world heritage site famous for its fine early 18th century buildings, considered among the main masterpieces in the Sicilian … Continue reading
The view beyond our pool and out over the olive grove was enhanced on Thursday night by a spectacular sunset.
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Ortygia is a small island separated from Syracuse by a narrow canal. It was the site of the original ancient Greek settlement which later became the bustling trading and fishing port of Syracuse. In fact the population of Syracuse around the … Continue reading
Today the All Blacks played the Wallabies in the second Bledisloe Cup test. Despite a TV with over 500 channels these Sicilean AB supporters could find no TV coverage of the game.
Compounding this, the villa internet connection is the narrowest broadband connection in the world and so video was all buffering and no streaming.
But the saviour turned out to be the Radio NZ iPhone app which streamed the radio commentary of the game perfectly. And when broadcast through our portable JBL bluetooth speaker it gave us stadium quality sound.
And what an All Black victory – 51 points to 20 – tutto bene.
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We arrived back at Sant’ Agostino after dinner one night earlier this week and discovered one of the guests had almost managed to park their Fiat Punto in the carpark. Now I’m no expert but given the height of the curb the … Continue reading
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Last Monday we departed Positano early in the morning for Naples airport and then on to Catania in Sicily. After a 45 minute flight, a 40 minute wait for our bags and an hour long wait at the Hertz office to … Continue reading
For the week at Positano we booked the smallest rental car we could. For those of you who know the roads and the local drivers, this makes perfect sense. We were aiming to be the smallest target possible.
The rental turned out to be a Fiat 500 – the quintessential Italian car.
On top of that we were offered the cabriolet version which meant the chance of open air motoring on fine sunny days. How could things be any more classically Italian.
Our road trips were all cream scarves blowing in breeze, polka dot print dresses, white linen shirts and designer sunglasses. Truly la dolce vita.
Our little Fiat made trips down to the village for groceries (no one wants to carry heavy shopping bags up the hill at Positano during summer) and over the hill to Sorrento to explore old haunts – as well as the hour and a half drive to and from Positano.
The bonus was returning it undamaged – no mean achievement given the roads and drivers of the Amalfi Coast.
The August Festival is a much anticipated event in Positano. There are parades of boats and fireworks all topped off with dinners all around the town on Friday August 15th.
Sadly there had a been a fatal car accident the night we arrived which took two lives – one being a local boy, the son of a prominent Positano family. With a population of only a few thousand people, the loss was keenly felt in the village. A decision was made on Wednesday not to have the fireworks display on festival night as a mark of respect. This was the right decision but meant that for visitors the evening was much quieter than usual.
Having said that, it was still a great night with everyone getting dressed up for the occasion. Jean had purchased a dress in the UK especially for the evening.
The paparazzi caught her about to leave Villa Greta for dinner.
Jean wearing Karen Millen
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During festival night a fire started on the cliffs above the coastal access road to Positano. It burned up the hill for most of the night and because of the terrain the ability to get men on the ground was … Continue reading
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Yesterday we moved from the villa to the hotel proper. We have a delightful room just a stone’s throw from the piscina – and the hotel staff to cater to our every whim. The hotel describes its rooms as suites … Continue reading
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Dinner at Chez Black can be a sophisticated affair. The restaurant is one of Positano’s oldest and most respected. Since 1949 it has been host to many famous people including Denzel Washington and Harvey Weistein who we sat next to … Continue reading
In the old days the only technology we took on holiday was a still camera and maybe a video camera. These days that’s all changed and our bags are full of various bits of tech.
This trip we tried to minimise what we took but still ended up with a fair collection of things – as can be seen in the photo. The only piece of technology not shown is the camera I took this shot with – a Nikon D7000 with a 50mm 1.8 fixed lens.
Clockwise from top left – Sunpak PZ42X flash gun, Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens, Nikon 18-70mm zoom Lens, Pebble smart watch, WD 500GB portable hard drive, Transcend multi card reader, MacBook Air – 11.6 inch, iPad, JBL Charge bluetooth portable speaker, 2 x iPhone 4S, TomTom GPS, Apple mouse, Sony T500 camera, Nikon 70-300mm zoom Lens and 3 iPad and iPhone chargers. Not included are all the cables that connect this stuff together and various charges for camera batteries.
Nothing like travelling light I say.
toscanakiwi 