Amalfi Coast

 Towns built on steep hillsides. I've heard about Cinque Terre and the Amalfi coast from friends for many years. Cinque Terre is in the north and will have to wait until a future trip, but Amalfi was in our sites for this trip. At the front desk of our hotel, they had information on a boat tour that would take us to Amalfi and Positano. Capri and the Blue Grotto is also nearby, but we would need another day for that. 

We signed up for the boat tour, using the Hotels' service because a bus would pick us up right at the front door. The drive to the boat was interesting - spectacular views were so common that even the parking lots had them!

It was a nice day for a boat ride, not too hot, not too cold. The tour guide told us when we were passing by rocks said to be the place where the sirens lured Ullyses with their singing to crash on the rocks.

The tour gave us a couple hours to wander up and down in Amalfi, and get some refreshments.

An interesting fountain, eh?

Then we got back in the boat and hugged the coast up to Positano, which I think was even more picturesque.

Beautiful Positano

Everybody back in the boat. Going back to the bus then the hotel after a very full day on the Amalfi Coast.

Ferry to Sorrento

It was a phone call to my friend Arynne last month. She has been to Italy a few years ago and loved it. But there was one thing she would change if she were to do it again. Instead of the train from Naples to Sorrento, she would take the ferry. We checked it out and, sure enough, the ferry looked like a great way to go. We're always up for a boat ride.

Ferry ride from Naples to Sorrento. That's Mt Vesuvius out our window.

Once we got to Sorrento, it was a bit of a hike to the bus station where we would catch a bus up the mountainside to our hotel.

The first part of the walk

We had to walk up all these steps! This is the one place I took advantage of my carry-on's ability to be used like a backpack.

The trek was definitely worth it! Check out this view from our hotel at La Vue d'Or

The dining room at La Vue d'Or

The view from the balcony of our room

Naples

When the taxi dropped us off at our hotel we stood on the sidewalk for a while, looking around for a sign for Bovio Modern Suite. We saw none. hmmm, I remember this hide and seek from the last time in Europe. Sometimes there is a little door (the one for people), inside a big door (the one for cars), and once you're thru it you see a big courtyard and lots more doors. We opened one such door and went wandering around - still no sign for Bovio. We went back out to the sidewalk and Jim scoured the walls until he found a phone panel with a button for Bovio. He pressed it and someone answered! We heard a buzzer in a nearby door and we opened it and went thru. Shortly a woman appeared at the end of the courtyard and waved us in. Here is what it looked like from the inside as we went out the next day. The light you see in the distance is the doorway back out to the street. It's very Harry Potter-ish, a neighborhood inside another neighborhood.

And, here's what our room looked like

The breakfast room. 

We made good use of our one evening and next morning in Naples.  Wine ... check,  Gelato ... check, pizza... check. 

We're so happy that we learned to pack light. All we have is our little carry on suitcases so it's pretty easy to walk around, even on these rough cobblestone streets and wheel them behind us. If needed we can even wear them as backpacks.

The Geeks are in Europe! Naples, Italy to be more precise.

Off to Italy Jet lag/no jet lag

I know it's crazy to have two major trips so close together but we didn't have much choice. The Maldives trip was twice postponed from 2020 and then Italy trip is based on CaryTennis.com writers workshop. This is the same workshop we came to in 2017 and I immediately knew I wanted to do it again. It hasn't been offered for the last couple years.

We suffered greatly with jet lag on the Maldives trip. I believe the lack of sleep - especially for the 15 hour layover in Dubai- was a major factor in my catching a cold. Then, coming back to the states, our bodies just couldn't get in sync. We would be out cold by 7pm regardless of our best efforts.

On our way to Italy, via Istanbul, because we're flying Turkish Air

I'm not sure if we learned how to handle it better, or we're just lucky , but in Italy we've slept great. We even had a few hours of sleep on the plane and we feel good. The flight was 11 hours from Miami to Istanbul, 2 hours in Istanbul, then 2.5 hours to Naples. We got in to Naples about 7pm and Giuseppe was there to meet us and take us to our lodging. We got settled, then took a short walk around the neighborhood, found a couple glasses of wine with our name on them, went back to our room and slept solid till 10 the next morning. 💤 😴 🛌 

Exactly as I imagined it, within a block of our hotel was a hole-in-the-wall wine bar. We hesitantly stepped in and started to look around. A young man said, "Welcome" and motioned where we could sit down. We looked around more and saw a chalk board with a list of various wines. As we were studying it, we also watched the young man and heard him say, "Buona Serra" to the next people to venture in. So ... he could just look at people and know whether to speak English or Italian?! Turns out his name is Daniel and he was SO friendly and accomodating. The wine was delicious, and free tapas came with each glass of wine. We had such fun chatting with Daniel that I didn't want to leave!

Daniel, a joyful spirit!

Really good wine! Made at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius

The diving

A typical day on board the Maldives Aggressor started at 6am with a knock on your door and personal delivery of coffee!

A dive briefing started at 6:30, then we boarded the Dohni that took us to the dive site and we were in the water by 7-7:30. We came back to the mother ship for breakfast then out on the Dohni for one more dive before lunch. A little rest time then an afternoon dive and back for dinner. On two nights there were night dives. All in all there were 28 dives offered in the 10 day trip. Jim did all 28, I did 13.

The best way to tell you about the dives is with pictures!

For the Manta experience, you need to watch the video. This was not only the highlight of this trip, I think it is the highlight of my 40 year diving career!! Such graceful, majestic creatures, and they seemed to like us. We were on this dive for a full hour and they were swimming around us the whole time. This was a cleaning station for them. They especially seemed to like our bubbles - I think it tickled them.

Here's the video https://youtu.be/Ayev4qZGByA

Here's Jim taking that video!