Finally, a decent night’s sleep… sort of.

They put a “roll away” bed in the room for me next to the king bed mom and dad slept in.  The mattress was SUPER comfy, but the bed frame was made of wooden slats held to a metal frame by plastic end cups that weren’t, shall we say, new.  So any time I increased pressure unevenly on a single slat from things like, oh, rolling over, said slat popped out and I had to lift the mattress and maneuver the slat back into place.

Eventually I gave up and put the mattress on the floor.

Still slept well, though.

Super tasty continental breakfast with bacon that was 80% fat and 100% awesome.

We loaded up the car and headed out, opting to take a quick detour along the Sorrento peninsula, because we could.

On the way, we got our first glimpse of Mount Vesuvius.

Mount Vesuvius – Photo by Dad

It shocked my system with some sort of instinctual excitement. I couldn’t tell if it was some sort of genetic fight or flight response, or just my reaction to years and years of hearing about it… but either way, it was awesome in the most basic sense of the word.  It inspired awe.

Sorrento was crazy beautiful.  There’s not really much more to say than that.

Sorrento from Above – A few more photos in the Gallery below.

It was Sunday afternoon, so the place was packed with traffic and insanity.  We also had a car obviously filled with luggage. So rather than park and wander, we just let the magic phone map lady take us on a tour of the city before heading south towards Calabria.

The drive down was long, and filled with rest stops. We ended up stopping at more than one because I couldn’t deal with the combination of crowd and not knowing what side of the car the gas tank was on.  But eventually we got gas, and continued on our way.

One thing that was surprisingly like home was the number of wildfires in the hills.  Lush, green, tree-covered hillsides with 1 to n-1 pillars of smoke rising from below.  Some of the fires were tiny. Some, however, were huge.  And it was a huge one that trapped us at the mouth of a tunnel for about 20 minutes while they put it out.  When we finally got to proceed, there were several fire trucks there, and it was still burning.  We could hear the crackle even with the windows rolled up.

Despite the delay, we made it to Localita Bracè.

“Where dat?” you say?  Lemme explain. No. Explain will take too long.  Lemme sum up.

This is Italy.

Look down at the toe of the boot.

This is Calabria.

Now look at the knuckle on the toe of the boot.

Here is Briatico, right at the top of the knuckle.

Right next to Briatico is Localita Bracè.

Localita Bracè – Our house is the little grey pin.

And that’s where we’re at.

Sunset last night was amazing.  We just sort of basked in it for a while before heading out for food.  Dinner generally doesn’t start till about 8:00 here. Around 8:45 we arrived in Vibo Marina, a little town about six miles east of us… it’s like someone took Sausalito, got rid of all the snotty rich people, and made it actually fun.

Dinner at Ciro’s

We dined at Ciro’s Pizze, a nice little family style restaurant where they served pizze and hamburgers, Italian style, which is pretty damned good if I do say so myself.  That was followed up by gelato from The Sun (oh yes, I’ve eaten food from The Sun), and a nice walk along the marina before heading home for some much needed sleep.

Gelato from The Sun.

It was a long, long, long flight. Okay, so maybe only 8.5 hours, but still, it was cramped. Okay, so maybe we were in Economy Plus, but still, it was… actually over pretty painlessly. Staff on the flight was great. Biggest trial and tribulation was having to wait for my in-seat entertainment system to reboot.

They woke the plane about 8AM local time to feed us a light breakfast of Croissant and yogurt. Then everyone started opening their windows and realizing we were flying over the Italian alps.

We landed in Roma just about on schedule, and as the captain said, we were on a seriously long taxi route from the runway to the gate.  The bell rang, and everyone stood, as you do… and then we waited.  And waited. And eventually the captain came on and told us that they couldn’t seem to find someone to drive the jetway so we could get off the plane. They could see crew standing on it looking at us, but no one there could move it.  That was kinda funny.

Turns out the jetway was busted.  So NO ONE could move it. So they took us out the aft exit on the airstairs and then bussed us over to immigration (not as bad as it sounds), which saved us a long walk through the terminal.

Immigration and Customs was easy, and it was a (relatively, once we identified the right signs) easy trek to the car rental place to get our car, which is much too small for all our luggage.  It’s a good thing mom is skinny.

Fortune smiled on us, and we quickly found the highway towards Napoli, and sooner that I actually expected, we were on the road.

Rome, or right out side of it, near the airport, looks a lot like Redding. All three of us remarked on this separately at one point or another. But the scenery quickly turned to slightly less hot/burnt looking, and we ran into our first traffic snarl — turns out it was just the “take your turnpike ticket” booths.

It was about a 3 hour drive down to Baronissi, where we were stopping for day 1, so of course we had to make at least one pit stop. Much like the Jersey turnpike, the toll highway here has service plazas with gas, food and bathrooms. So about two hours in, we stopped for a bio break, and a leg stretching break.

The food in this “service plaza” all looked amazing. And dudes, all the Ritter Sport you could ever want.

Back on the road, and we had about an hour left.  We got to Hotel dei Principati about 4:00, checked in and immediately took showers, then a two hour nap.  Oh holy god, naps are amazing.

Around 7:00 we were all conscious again, so we made plans to just eat right here in the hotel.  Dinner service didn’t start until 8:00 though, so we had a bit of time to look out the windows while we waited.

Dinner was quiet and quite tasty.

Dad had Linguini and Clams.

Mom had Spaghetti with Sun Dried Tomatos.

And I had the Squid Ink Risotto.

All in all, it was an exhausting, but super good day.  Mom and Dad are already asleep, and I am fighting the head bobs right now, myself.

So Day 1: COMPLETE

So at 11:55 last night I got a call from mom… their Redding to San Francisco flight had been canceled. Quick scramble and they made the 4 hour drive down, getting to my place around 4:30 this morning.

Quick nap, and I dropped them at the airport, ditching their car at my office and Lyfting back.

We’re at the gate now. Boarding in 15 minutes.

So far so good. Relatively speaking.

Holy crap… bags are pretty much packed. Just need to shower and get to sleep.  IF I CAN EVEN SLEEP!!!!

It’s nearly time to go… packing has begun.

Getting things ready. Getting things done. Getting excited.

Another adventure looms.  In just three weeks, we leave for a month in Southern Italy.  Prepare for photospam!