Mediterranean Travelin 2016

May 23, 2016
 After over a year of planning, our Mediterranean trip finally arrived.  We traveled with G&G, my sister and BIL.   Since we had to get up early for our 9AM departure from Vancouver, we tried to go to bed earlyish, 12:45 AM instead of 1AM, that is until I remembered at that time that I forgot to book in with Air Canada.  It didn't matter though. I am not sure how long I slept but is was probably longer than 30 minutes but less than one hour.  Soon after I finally got to sleep, I was awakened by Jo getting up to go to the bathroom.  I waited, thinking I might get back to sleep after she returned, until I checked the alarm and saw that it was 4:20, and the alarm was set for 4:30.  Everything went smoothly at the airport, and our three hour early arrival was perhaps a little overzealous.  Lots of time for breakfast though.
Our Boeing 777 to Toronto was very nice and we had seats near the back.  Ours was one of the few rows with no middle seat and there was plenty of space not only for legs but even for storing bags beside the seat.  We also had full entertainment unlike the American domestic flights in their rickety planes with no extras at all.  We also left on time.  Our 8h20min flight from Toronto to Rome left at 6:15PM, 3:15 Vancouver time, and arrived in Rome at 8:35AM, 11:35PM Vancouver time.  We had booked a window seat and an aisle seat, hoping the middle seat might remain unsold.  We were in luck.  Given our lack of sleep, and the extra room, you might think sleep would come easier, but finding a comfortable position was still impossible.  Sleep was reduced to a few short naps.
Our plan was to take the train to our hotel, but we were bombarded by shuttle bus drivers and decided the nominal extra cost was worth getting driven from door to door.  Driving in Rome was crazy because of aggressive driven on narrow streets, parked cars cramming in to ever available space, whether it was a parking spot or not, and motorcycles and vespas squeezing through the traffic from all sides, often only inches away.  Our hotel, the Capitoleum townhouse suites had only seven rooms on an old building, but was nice and clean.  It was blocks from the main train station but in a less
touristy part of the city.  We spent the afternoon visiting some nearby Roman baths and having a
much needed nap.  Restaurants generally do not open before seven at night because Italians do not dine until after eight PM.  We had our first pasta and turned in early.  A good first day for such a long commute.

May 25, Wednesday
Despite a relatively good sleep,I was still awake by 6:30.  After our free continental breakfast, we were off, walking our suitcases for six blocks to the Rome Termini train station.  We were early for our 11:06 train to Napoli (Naples) but relieved to be able to get our luggage to fit in the overhead compartment.  Other than the more expensive fast trains, the regular trains look crappy and many have graffiti on them.  The train was delayed and did not leave until 11:40.  We arrived in Napoli after 1:30PM and had to buy seperate tickets for the commuter train to Sorrento.  This looked more like a delapitated skytrain.  It was very crowded at the track and we were warned by some girls standing near by to be alert for pickpockets.  I already knew that Rome and Naples stations were
notorious for this, and we saw a suspicious fellow just wandering through the crowd.  Sure enough,
 when a train arrived, the crowd converged on the doors, and as he was being jostled, BIL felt a hand go into his pocket.  Fortunately he reacted quickly to see what was happening and the guy quickly disappeared out the door before it closed.  The only casualty of our Napoli experience was my suitcase, which decided to break its top handle.  We arrived in Sorrento after about 35 station stops.  Some stations looked like ghettos, with graffiti everywhere.  Even some station names were obliterated by graffiti.  From Sorrento we caught a bus to Positano, arriving at about 5:15.  Traffic was absolutely nuts!  The streets of both Sorrento and Positano were very narrow, and generally lined with parked cars.  Traffic crawled at a snails pace and vespas darted in and out, driving mostly on the white line on in the face of oncoming traffic, and shooting between tiny gaps.  I can not understand why the roads are not littered with the bodies of dead vespa and motorcycle riders.  The drive along the coast was gorgeous.  We were let off at the top of Positano.  From there one narrow road switchbacked down the mountain, through the town towards the sea.  To get to our accommodation, we had to walk down this road between parked cars and traffic only inches away and then up 185
steps.  Our view was great though.