We had Sun !

After our drizzly couple of days, Wednesday dawned sunny and perfect.
We are going to the beach!  But we didnt bring towels because they take up too much room!

How can you sit on the beach without towels?

So a quick walk to the little haberdashery store a couple of minutes away and we emerged with the brightest beach towels we have ever owned. One is lime green and the other bright orange. The best we could manage in the circumstances and the only choice - but nice quality.

We went to a beach about 10 minutes drive away that we had spotted on one of our drives and it was lovely. Needed a walk down of nearly 300 steps to get to the sand (that means 300 back up again!). The funniest thing was a man waiting at the bottom to charge us 2 euro each for using the stairs. There is apparently a free way down but its not for the faint hearted and involves a fair bit of rock scaling apparently.

We did the same again the next day (but the man wasnt there this time) and had two lovely days at the beach. Water was freezing, but that was OK because we are not keen swimmers. Well, that is unless we are at Noosa where the water temperature matches the air temperature.

So now we have refreshed our NZ summer tans a little - yes NW - we were sensible and had sunscreen on :)

We really loved our few days at Sperlonga and would love to visit again sometime. There is a lot to see and do - or not if you dont want to. The last evening there was just beautiful and we snapped these shots of the town from both angles - looking at the new town and looking towards the old part.

Today we drove to Napoli. Another lovely day and we passed by the entrance to the beach with some degree of longing....
It was only about an hour and a half drive to Naples, and as we got closer and closer we could sense the craziness starting to happen. Crazy Italian drivers - impatient and constantly tooting at everyone - darting in and out of lanes - double and triple parking to pick up pizzas or buy icecreams  - and the noise is incredible. And yet nobody seems to be concerned. Thats Italy.

Kate was doing a great job of navigating us to our hotel. We had chosen a hotel not very far into the city, and that was done on purpose. We encountered road works (with deviations) coming into the city, and that was bad enough, but (wait for it.....) somebody forgot to tell Kate that the street our hotel is on, has also had some changes. The America's Cup was held here only about 5 weeks ago, and for that special occasion, our street called via Francesco Caracciolo, which is a 3 lane one-way street, was completely reversed. It is now one way - the other way! Poor Kate had her little pointer going round and round in circles and I must admit to being a bit concerned by the traffic and also, as primary navigator, was feeling like a failure being unable to find our hotel. Well I knew where it was, but we just couldnt get there. In the end we luckily spotted a guy backing out of a park, and grabbed it. Then we walked about 500 metres or so to the hotel, and that way we could figure out how to drive there. Simple really!

However the small 'boutique hotel' we had booked online was all locked up and a sign said 'back later' - in Italian of course. So we had some lunch and a beer to calm ourselves down - well me really, Craig was fine - and then went back to the hotel. It was open now and after checking in we had to walk back to the car and drive to the hotel - by now we knew the way - unload the cases - then drive to a parking garage a few streets over. There is no parking at the hotel. That was also very tricky, but we made it. The strangest thing is leaving the car keys with the attendant. Thats the rules! Plus its 13euro a day to park!

Our Hotel is on the waterfront about a 20 minute walk away from the centre of Naples. We dont have a sea view because the building is multi-tenanted and our hotel is on the far side. Our room is unusual - to say the least - but very sunny and bright. Take a look at the bathroom - yikes you wouldnt want to be in there if you were feeling a bit sick!

Interesting combination of colours :). Bathroom and bedroom decor combined into one hotel room!
All in great condition and scrupulously clean. The bathroom is dazzling!

The foreshore in front of our hotel.

Tomorrow we are going to head into the historic centre fairly early and go on a 'hop on, hop off'' tourist bus to get our bearings.

Our initial impressions of Naples are good. The drivers are crazy and the scooter riders are even worse. I hope to get some video footage because nobody would believe the chaos here unless they have seen it for themselves. Its a sort of 'organised chaos' and makes the 'Wellington rush hour' look like a Sunday drive. Even Buenos Aires looks tame by comparison.