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| Sorrento |
| Erin's Positano Journals 5-14-02 to 5-15-02 The 14th was a travel day. We got up around 8am in the smelly hostel in Patras, quickly checked out and went to find breakfast along the waterfront. The same lounging groups of unoccupied men were hanging around the streets as had been there the night before! We got breakfast and sat near the port to eat it, seeing some pretty harbor sights. Afterward, we went and bought our tickets for the ferry ride that afternoon, which would get us into Italy the next morning. We knew that a night spent in deck accomodations equaled no sleep, so we splurged a little and got some bunk style beds in the dormitories. We knew that way we'd at least get some sleep and a shower! We passed the day waiting by checking email and doing a little grocery shopping for supplies for the boat. Around 4pm, we checked in and got our boarding passes, then went to put our stuff on the ferry. The dorms were amazingly small, where they stacked 12 people into a tiny area. But we knew it wouldn't be full, as it's not yet high season, so we had our choice of bunks, rather than taking the slot assigned. We then went out to lounge on the deck while we waited to set out. While there, we met Dave and Marile, a couple from Boston who had just finished 5 months on world travels and were in their last month before heading home. We chatted a bit about our mutual travels and got a lot of great tips from them. We found out they were headed in the same general direction, and also staying in the dorms, so we talked until dinner and then planned to meet up in the morning for departure. Dinner wasn't bad, but not as good as the fare we'd bought on the trip to Corfu. We stayed up until the disco bar was turned on, which drowned out every other available thought, then went up to our dorms to sleep. I guess I slept pretty soundly, for although I typically wake up at every noise, Marile told me in the morning that an entire family was staying in the bunks around us and had loudly come in to bed down their kids at 11pm, then come back to check on them at midnight and loudly eat a bag of potato chips, then come back in to go to bed around 1am...and I never heard a thing! I was glad...I woke up on my own pretty early and got up to shower (my usual style is to lounge about and sleep later, so this was a shocker to Glenn when he got up and found I was already dressed!). We went downstairs and the bartender gave us some free hot beverages just for smiling at him. Nice guy. When the boat docked, we all got off and headed for the bus, so it could take us to the train station. Once there, we checked the schedule over to Napoli, where we could transfer to a local train out to Sorrento. Marile had lived in Italy for a while in school, so she had more of the lowdown on places to stay in southern Italy. We had a few hours in Bari to kill before the Napoli train, so we found breakfast, internet, then lunch before hitting the train. It was a quiet 4 hour ride, with most of us reading our books, then an hour on a crowded local Metro out of Napoli to get to Sorrento. Some great views of Mt. Vesuvius though, and a nice sunset just as we arrived in Sorrento! After getting into town, we wearily wandered looking for hotels, and finally settled on one near the bus station. We only planned to stay one night before moving on to Positano, so we found a good recommendation on a restaurant in our guide book and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. It was Dave & Marile's first Italian meal of the trip, and they were pretty darn happy!!! After that, we were all bushed and went right back to the hotel to sleep. |