Ciao, Roma.

On the road to Naples.

Buongiorno, everyone!  Sorry for the abrupt end to last night’s blog update– our wake up call was at 5:30 this morning, and I needed to finish packing up my stuff for our transfer today to Capri and Sorrento and get some sleep.  So!  I’ll make up for it by doing a little early blogging while we’re on the bus down to Naples, since I’ve got three hours at my disposal.

Currently, the bus is quiet: the kids are all plugged into their various devices and listening to music or sleeping, or looking out the window at the scenery.  And the countryside is worth appreciation– we’re driving south down a long valley between two ridges of the Apenines, and the fields on either side of the road are dotted with bright red poppies and yellow wildflowers.  I can see small villages curled into the foothills of the mountains, and if I look out the lefthand window of the bus, I can see the abbey of Monte Cossini, which was founded by St. Benedict.  I can also see enormous windmills spinning along the top of a ridge pockmarked with white limestone outcrops and carved with switchback roads, and a thin strand of clouds hanging about the valleys.  It’s not exactly terrible to look at.

So!  A couple of things I left out of last night’s account: Alex took us to the old Jewish quarter in Rome and gave us about an hour and a half to find something to eat for lunch yesterday, which meant that we had our first real opportunity to go and explore Italy’s culinary options.  (I had a caprese salad with buffalo mozarella and a potato, cheese, and mushroom concoction the name of which escapes me.  It was delicious regardless.  Several of the other chaperones had priscutto and cheese and polenta, which made all of us [a] very full and [b] very happy.) After eating, we still had about half an hour before we needed to meet the group, so Mrs. Theaker (as she says, “the artist formerly known as Ms. Kovel”) and I decided to walk around a bit.  And it was on our brief walk that we found probably the Most Important Site in all of Rome.

We’d left Ms. Wong and Mr. Stephenson at an espresso bar, and just across the street, I could see some excavated ruins in a fenced-off pit.

“Hey,” I said to Mrs. Theaker, “We should go check that out!”  Mrs. Theaker agreed.  After all, if you saw the ruins of a random Roman temple across the street, wouldn’t you want to go and see what they were about?

So we crossed the street, and went to go and read the informational signs posted on the fence.  One of the signs explained that the temple was from the second century BCE, and was dedicated to– I forget which god, because the second sign was much more interesting.

“PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE CAT FOOD BEHIND,” it said.  “THE CATS ARE FED THROUGH AN APPROVED ORGANIZATION.”

Lovely reader, it is my joy to tell you that Rome uses its extra temples and monuments as stray cat sanctuaries.  It is AMAZING.  All throughout the ruins, there were cats: sprawled on a collapsed column, dripping down some shady steps, perched on the ledge of the retaining wall.  It was a cat temple.

Alex seemed singularly unsurprised when Mrs. Theaker and I happily told her what we’d found on our walk.  Apparently, there are several of these cat sanctuaries around Rome, paid for by charities.  They’re encouraged because the organizations spay and neuter the cats (to keep there from being too many), and the cats in turn keep the rat population down.

A+ job, Rome.  Congratulations on being incredibly practical and also slightly weird.  I approve.

Now, we should be arriving at the port of Naples in about an hour and a half, so I’m going to try and shut my eyes for a while and doze.  When we arrive, we’re going to take a ferry to the island of Capri, so today is a day where we’re all going to pretend we’re fabulously wealthy and famous, just so we fit in.  Should be fun!

Sorrento, Italy

Dear family and friends, I love you all very much, but I’m afraid I will be moving to Capri.  Feel free to come and visit me in my 55 million Euro villa sometime.  We will go shopping at Prada and Miu Miu and buy necklaces with rubies as big as your thumb.

The ferry ride over to Capri from Naples was uneventful (anxious parents concerned about motion sickness can rest easy knowing that everyone did awesome today– no upset stomachs at all!), although I did spend much of the forty-five minute ride gawking at the sprawl of Naples and the hazy shape of Mount Vesuvius behind us, and the growing island of Capri ahead.

When we disembarked from the ferry, we were immediately herded by our local guide, Francesca, into two motor boats, which proceded to take us on an hour-long cruise around the island, and into several of the grottos.*

Oh, man.  Guys, I’m really not sure how to describe it, except to say that it was beautiful, that the water was so clear and blue that it made the sky seem pale.  I’ll post pictures when I get the chance, but honestly, they won’t do the experience justice.  I could have spent all day out on that boat.  Francesca used our Whispers to tell us about the geology of the island, the history of Emperor Tiberius’s palace during Imperial times, what life on the island is like for most of the inhabitants, and its role in celebrity history.  While she was talking, we were surrounded by some of the most gorgeous scenery I’ve ever experienced– it was glorious.  We sailed through a natural arch reputed to grant wishes, and gawked at some of the (extremely fancy) yatches around us.  Ms. Wong and I tried to do some celebrity spotting, but alas, they were too well-hidden for us to find them.

After our mini-cruise, Francesca helped us get onto the inclided cable car which helps to move people from the marina to the main square of the town of Capri.  The town itself is– hmm.  I want to say charming, but also incredibly, incredibly exclusive.  Almost like a dollhouse build out of filigree goldwork– it makes you smile because of how small and quirky it is, but it’s also somewhat intimidating in its finery.  Or at least that’s how I felt; I do not have the bank account to feel comfortable in most of those shops.  Still, it was lots of fun to window shop for sunglasses that are worth more than my car.

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We took a brief walk down the hill to go to the gardens and get a view of the southern coast from the clifftops, and then the kids had a little time to do some shopping on their own.  Be not alarmed, parental units: I didn’t see anyone with unreasonably pricey purchases.  Some of us (myself included) bought perfume or soap from a perfumerie which is located on Capri; it’s famous for its citrus and bougainvillea essences.  (The island does smell marvelous; we could smell bougainvilleas wafting in on the wind during our lunch.)

After our shopping expedition, we reconvened, made our way (via cable car) back down to the marina where we caught a ferry to Sorrento– our home for tonight.  We unfortunately didn’t have time to enjoy Sorrento on foot, although it looks like a lovely place; instead, we had to make our way up the cliff face to meet our bus.  This involved a brisk climb up a hundred stairs.  The kids did awesome; this intrepid reporter, however, was about done after fifty or so.  Still, we all made it to the top of the cliff, met our driver, and headed off to our hotel for tonight.

So! That was our day.  Tomorrow, we head for Pompeii!

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* Unrelated, but I’m pretty sure this is at least the third Francesco/a we’ve had as a guide or driver on this trip.  I should keep a tally.