City of London, United Kingdom
By: happy traveller on the 23rd February 2009 at 9:52pm
<p>We flew into Naples on a hot September day to be greeted by blue skies and ever looming Mount Vesuvius overlooking the bay. We caught a bus down to the port and hopped on a fast ferry to the beautiful Isle of Capri where we were picked up and driven to our fantastic hotel on a cliff overlooking the bay with steps down to the beach from our private terrace outside our room. Capri is where the famous Blue Grotto is, which is a bright blue lagoon inside a cave that we caught a little boat into. The next day we caught another ferry to Sorrento where again we had a hilltop hotel and had sundowners on the rooftop bar overlooking the Bay of Naples and the ever present Mount Vesuvius. Next day we went on a great cliffside road around the beautiful villages of the Amalfi Coast, including the town of Amalfi itself. The drives makes Chapman’s Peak look like child’s play! The next day saw us taking an excursion to the ruins of Pompeii, and you can go into the houses where the people lived and see the actual structural damage the eruption of Vesuvius caused nearly two thousand years ago. Next day we caught another train to Rome. The trains in Italy are great and a very cheap and fast way to get around. A definite highlight is the Vatican, with St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. You can walk up onto the roof of St Peter’s and get an awesome view over the whole of Rome,. Ofcourse other highlights included the Colisseum, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. After that we caught another train to Pisa, where we went straight to the Leaning Tower and had a late lunch on a rainy afternoon next to base of the tower. The more we had to drink, the more it leaned! Next day we were off to Florence where a highlight is the massive statue of David by Michelangelo, and the beautiful Ponte Vecchio bridge. By now it was becoming a pattern to have some pizza, pasta and wine every afternoon and Florence has got some great piazza’s for this. You can also walk to the top of the Campanile and have great views over the Duomo and up into the hills that overlook Florence.The nest day we were off to Milan and Lake Como. Milan is great and a real cosmopolitan city, contrasted by the huge gothic Duomo in the main square. You can walk onto the roof as well and have some great views, and I certainly carried on my tradition of finding the highest point in each city to get some great pictures from. From there we took a day trip to Lake Como, which is a great part of the world to go and visit, and might even be worth spending a week relaxing on the shores. A little secret is the Armani factory shop down the road with huge savings on Armani suits casual clothes. We then flew back to London from Milan after a 10 day fully independent trip through Italy.
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