An early start yesterday, packed, breakfasted, farewelled by our hosts (with a bottle of berry liqueur and one of citrus as a gift) and on the 8:30 bus down the hill to Positano. A two minute wait and onto the bus to Sorrento. Amazing, really. Arrivederci Amalfi!
And here’s a tip that wasn’t in the guide book. If you’re ever travelling from Positano to Naples, don’t go to Sorrento on the bus. Get off the bus at Meta, right outside the Circumvesuviana train station. I wish we had. That way you save yourself an hour on the bus grinding through walking pace traffic for the privilege of catching a train back through Meta an hour and a half after the one you could have caught from there! :-/
After a week on the Amalfi Coast, I’d have to say that the ambience of the Napoli region compared to Amalfi, as viewed from the Sorrento to Naples train was quite a contrast – this is a tough neighbourhood. What a depressing place to live! Our train was absolutely packed, so stood most of the way to Herculaneum, where we carted our bags to the baggage room at the archaeological site.
But we’re so glad we visited Herculaneum! Herculaneum probably broke our Ravello record for photos per minute. Just amazing to see timber beams and lintels still in place, charred by the eruption.
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yo want fries with that, suh?
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| This gets the photo rate per minute up - take pictures of taking pictures!… | |
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The sophistication of the architecture and interior decoration was impressive – well-off Romans really did live very well 2000 years ago. They estimate that 3/4 of the ancient town is still buried under modern day Ercolano – thankfully they haven’t dug it up yet because it took us 3 hours to see the bit that they have! 
We arrived at Naples central station at about 5pm, planning to put our bags into the luggage room there for a few hours while we did some sightseeing. M had carefully researched the location of said room and we found the sign on its door without problem ……“in sciopero”. We don’t know why the luggage room clerk was on strike when no one else seemed to be, but there you go.
On a drizzly evening in Naples, still with our bags, we decided to head for the port on a bus, cooled our heels at a bar for an hour or so and boarded the ferry for Palermo early. By the time she sailed we were showered, dressed and sitting down to dinner.
I had the best night’s sleep in ages and woke J with “Hey! Palermo is out the window!”
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