A Trip in Pictures

We left Siena Friday afternoon and arrived at about 10:30 in Sessa Aurunca, the home of Albert's great-grandfather. It is a sleepy, tiny town with wrought-iron balconies and cracking plaster. It was damn near empty when we arrived, and we had to ask people until we found the single trattoria (restaurant) that rented rooms. It was actually a bit frightening since the town is tiny, and outside of the town is only rundown buildings and roads that peter off into dirt paths and barbed wire fences. The owner of the trattoria seemed to be making prices up on the spot, but it cost about the same as a hostel, and there was nowhere else to stay, so we settled ourselves into our rooms. Below is a view from the balcony of one of the rooms:



We had a surprisingly fun time that night, listening to music and enjoying surprisingly strong wine that our hostess mixed with sparkling water and sent up to us in a plastic bottle. If any of you are planning on traveling in the South of Italy, let me warn you: the wine is generally home-made and strong as all get-out; basically, it's the moonshine equivalent of wine.

When we woke up, we discovered that the town that seemed slightly eery by night was actually quaint and lovely. It is smoother than Siena, with less rough stone and more plaster. The churches have these lovely Byzantine domes, a little architectural reminder of distant history. Below is a picture of a church just outside of homes. It isn't as lovely as the duomo, but I adore that red color.



Just outside of town, we happened upon the ruins of a Roman amphitheater. I still find it remarkable that, in Italy, one can just happen upon such things.


After a few hours exploring Sessa Aurunca, we took off for Pompeii. 'Twas a beatiful drive, except when we passed by Naples, which is rundown, though in a way that was more indifferent than sad.

Pompeii was incredible. For much of our time there, we hardly passed any other tourists, so we wandered the ancient streets in an eery silence, never knowing whether we were allowed into the rooms and courtyards that we wandered into. It was large enough to be overwhelming, and all I remember clearly are the frescos and the faces of the frozen people.


This picture of myself in Pompeii I stole from Flannery. It captures the mood of our visit well, I think.


After Pompeii, we had a rainy drive to Sorrento, a coast town where we spent the night in a rather severe hostel that had pages of rules posted everywhere. We snuck in one euro bottles of cabernet sauvignon after our dinner out (gnocchi, pizza, lemoncello, and a sampler of traditional, alcohol-soaked cakes from the region that were really to die for. Seriously, they put tiramisu to shame, and that's saying a lot for me) and chilled in our room for a bit before taking a walk through the city. It was all lit up for Carnivale, and there were tons of people out and about, as opposed to when we had arrived at seven or so and the place was near empty.


We woke up the next morning to a beautiful day. Below is a picture of the Sorrento harbor:


We decided to spend the day (which was also, coincidentally, Albert's birthday) in Capri. All of the swank shops were closed for the season, and there were only two resolute tour guides trying to convince people to pay a ridiculous amount of money to take a boat ride into the blue grotto (a cave that has really blue water). Below is a picture Flannery took of me on Capri (note how warm it was!):


Here's a picture of all three of the girls:


Really, Capri is intensely gorgeous. I am so glad we went when there weren't any tourists. We hiked all the way up the hill and around the island on completely empty back streets and stopped for drinks at a mostly-empty cafe. We ended up misreading the schedule (Italian dates are written day-month-year, not month-day-year) and missing our ferry, but we didn't actually mind spending an extra three hours on the island.

We decided to save ourselves the cost of another hostel room and drove all the way home on Sunday, stopping a couple of times so our driver could nap and get some food. We arrived home late at night, and I collapsed into bed and slept long and well. All in all, it was a thoroughly successful trip. The perfect road trip, in fact.