Little Capri

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago but in light of current events I'd like to keep posting positive things. Know that I'm thinking about folks and hope you're doing okay.

Capri is a little island off the coast of Sorrento. There are ferries to go over but our group had chartered a 40' motor yacht. This seemed like a good idea at the time but by the time we left the weather hadn't improved any. Our trip was supposed to include lunch but the cruise company didn't think anybody would be stupid enough to want to go so they hadn't made any. No matter, the cruise was still a go, they just refunded a little of our money.

The ride over was rough:

The pictures kind of give an idea, you can see the clouds. We had a following sea which meant that the boat wallowed and the diesel fumes were pushed back into the cabin. We were all pretty much up against sea-sickness for awhile. Angie leaned over the rail at one point, fortunately she didn't throw up because I think it would have triggered the rest of us.

Fortunately that was the point where the weather cleared enough that we could move to the front of the boat. I didn't get any pictures of that part but things got a lot more pleasant and we made a loop around the island before heading in.

Capri is neat in that the island is basically all mountain. Theres a little ring of beachfront but most of what you want to see is high up. Theres a little train, the Funicolare di Capri which takes you up. A funicular railway like this is one that uses two trains connected by a cable. Since the trains weigh about the same it takes a small amount of energy to move them.

You get an idea how steep it is...

The views from the top were epic and the weather started to clear which was even better.

Capri has some cool old tunnels into the mountain which is where I found the fat man's restaurant.

And coincidentally the only gas pressure lantern of the trip.

LA Cisterna is literally the best restaurant we went to in Italy, no joke. Its hidden away in a tunnel but absolutely worth the trip. We had:

-Lemon/mozzarella toasted bread. I thought this was a weird sounding combination but the bread, cheese and lemons were all fresh, it was amazing

-Fried anchovies: "Caught fresh not two hours ago!" quoth the fat man. I wish I'd taken a picture of them, these were cooked exactly the way my grandfather cooked smelts, they were dredged in flour and fried in oil. We were nervous to order this but the fat man was so enthusiastic how could we deny him. By the way that is him on the wine bottle...

-Gnocchi, Angie still has dreams of the gnocchi.

-Pizza margarita, some of the best pizza I've ever eaten.

The fat man claimed the wine was made special for him. I don't know if thats true or if its a generic rebottling but it was really good.

We all ordered and then we all shared, it was a great way to dine. There were only 6 of us, the others had gone to eat at some place with a great view. In talking to them we definitely got the better deal, they paid much more for food that wasn't half as good. We joked that they paid the "tourist tax".

Capri is much like Sorrento in the shopping mall vibe. The "streets" are really just pedestrian walkways, there are almost no cars up on the mountain because there are almost no roads. One of our party told Angie and I that we needed to check out the botanical gardens, he then gave us super sketchy directions and to our amazement we actually found the place:

The views were spectacular, the yacht actually took us around the rocks in the last picture. One of them has a hole in it just big enough to fit the yacht through. When he lined up the boat on the hole I thought "Theres no way he's going to.... Oh, he is..." and through we went, it was super cool.

The return trip to Sorrento was way better than the trip over. We all sat out on the front of the yacht, limoncello, beer and prosecco which is a bit like champagne. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Up Next: Back to Rome and headed home.

Charming Sorrento

I originally started blogging as a way to tell people about good things and in Sorrento we found a very good thing.

Sorrento is a real tourist town. I realize not everybody reading this blog is from New England but I usually tell fellow New Englanders that Sorrento is like North Conway, New Hampshire, which is to say its full of outlet stores. The big difference, of course, is that Sorrento is something like 2000 years old. Wikipedia says Sorrento is known for its "small antique shops". I dunno where they were, I don't remember any antique shops.

Sorrento sits across the bay from Naples, so we took the train from Soverato to Naples but my research didn't give me a way to get from Naples to Sorrento. It turns out theres a train but you can't (or at least I couldn't figure it) book tickets online. What I could find was the ferry so we booked that.

There were two things I hadn't counted on:
#1. Naples is bonkers. Seriously, I'm used to Boston. Compared to Boston, Rome is bonkers, the traffic is heavy, the streets are small. Compared to Rome, Naples is totally bonkers, the streets are way smaller, the traffic is way heavier. Our cab ride from the train station to the port was frantic.
#2. Italy was experiencing unusually cold weather. Later that summer they'd have a heatwave but when we were there the temperatures in Italy were pretty much the same as at home in the northeast US.

So our ferry ride to Sorrento was really bumpy. I don't get seasick but that ride was pretty scary and my stomach was not happy.

Anyway you can spend big money on one of the grand hotels in Sorrento but I've never been a fan of the big grand hotels. Instead I searched around and found "Luiselle Charming Accommodation" and booked it just on the name. Well, I did look at the reviews but lets face it, the name sold me. I was a trifle worried when I told the cab driver where we were going and he said "Theres no hotel there." but we pressed on regardless.

It turns out the Luiselle Charming Accommodation is in an old office building. When I say old I'm not kidding around, the building must be from the '20s. Check out the elevator.

I had to stand outside the elevator to take the picture because otherwise you get:

Its small, its wood. You open the outside doors, open the inside door, step inside, close the outside door, close the inside door and then select your floor.
One thing I was caught off guard by is that in Italy buildings have a 0 (zero) floor, what we in the US would call the first or ground floor. This led to us getting lost, Luiselle was on the "second" floor which is actually what I would think of as the third floor. Fortunately you don't have to "drive" the elevator, you select a floor and listen while contactors slap in relays to make your selection happen.

The accommodation is indeed charming:

As usual I wish I'd taken more pictures. The room was big and well appointed with free Netflix that we didn't use, after all we were in Italy. We went out and came back exhausted.
The first morning our host Andrea offered Angie scrambled eggs and I thought she was going to kiss him. Italians eat a lot of desert and lunch meats for breakfast and she was eager to have something savory that wasn't salty. "Scrambled eggs" turned out to be a fried egg but it didn't matter she was super happy.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this hotel to anyone interested in accommodations a bit off the beaten track that are a little different. Also those who are looking to save money. Although as I say it is a little off the beaten track it was only maybe a 5 minute walk to the main street where all the action was. At night I was actually happy to be somewhere quiet so we could get some rest.

Up next: Capri

A wedding in Italy

When I last left you we had traveled to the south east of Italy for a wedding.
The whole point of the trip was the wedding right?

Soverato is a bit like Old Orchard Beach, its a tourist town. Its actually a bit smaller than OOB and I'd say its a tourist town for Italian tourists, not the kind of spot I'd expect North Americans in. English was uncommon which I think is one of the scary and fun things when traveling. We got lots of opportunities to pantomime and gesture. I also quite like not being exactly sure what will happen next. What is this thing that I'm being served? What will it taste like?

The wedding was on the beach, well at the beach. It started to sprinkle just as we arrived so they opted for "plan B" which was under cover although they did get pictures on the beach.

You can see the two photographers here, they were madmen. I've worked at a few weddings and I've never seen photographers like these guys, they were literally everywhere. Kurt tells me they have thousands of pictures.

I had asked Kurt about the dress code for the wedding and he bemoaned that Victoria was making him wear pants. Everybody was pretty casual which was fun. A few months later they had a ceremony in Massachusetts and we all dressed up more, unfortunately that day was stinking hot.

Angie and I thought that this room full of food was dinner and had a couple plates worth, it turns out that this was actually the appetizers...

This is the dinner menu for those who can read Italian.

And for those who cannot.

 I had more octopus in 3 days than I've had in the rest of my life put together.

Proof that Angie ate octopus.

Not everyone was so adventurous. Johanna got special chicken tenders.

The fish was amazing!

 After dinner the appetizer room had been converted to the desert room.

Amazing right?

There were the normal speeches and such but of course I had to get in. Angie and I started dating in 1996 (gads that seems so long ago) and I think the first family gathering I attended would have been Easter '97. Kurt and Johanna would have been quite young.
Angie and I used to always bring toys for Kurt and Johanna at Christmas. We stopped doing it at some point and I think some of the joy went out of Christmas. So while we were out wandering around I picked up some Kinder Joy eggs. I actually wanted Kinder surprise eggs but couldn't find any, they're illegal in the US...

I presented the eggs to Kurt, Victoria and Johanna and apparently a lot of people thought I was a high point for the night. It proves you don't have to spend a lot of money, or really think things through to make people happy.

Next time: Sorrento and the Charming Accommodation!

Travel to a wedding

So I mentioned we'd gone to Italy, the purpose of the trip was a wedding, Angie's cousin Kurt marrying Victoria. Victoria's family is from Soverato which is kind of in the instep of the boot, so southern Italy.


Google says its 632km or 392 miles from Rome to Soverato, we opted to fly to Lamezia and then take the train about 2 hours to Soverato. On the train we met Josh and Nicole who had taken the train all the way from Rome which is about 7 hours total. I realize now that flying was a screw up. They left their hotel at about the same time we did and just chilled on a train. We had to take the train from Rome to the airport and then fight our way through the airport. Get a cab from the airport to the train station and get on the train. So learn from us, just take the train, it takes the same amount of time overall.

This train ride was one for the books, I wish I had pictures. The train was 1950s or '60s era, diesel and had 2 gears. Seriously, you could feel when the train shifted gears. I sat across from an old guy, I'd guess he was in his late '70s but he could have been older. He fell asleep and started leaning forward. Angie and I were sure that at any moment I was going to have this old guy in my lap. Interesting ride. The scenery was amazing though, Italy is exactly as beautiful as you've been led to believe.

Strangely I don't have any pictures at all from our first night in Soverato. It was kind of an odd time. Kurt is 10 years younger than Angie, his parents are around 20 years older than us. So we were of left without anybody our age to hang around with. Everybody was really nice but you could tell there was a generational divide.

Anyway the hotel was lovely, if slightly unprepared to deal with a hoard of Americans. My biggest issue was coffee. The coffee in Italy is good but its espresso or cappuccino which is espresso with foam. I was having a hard time getting the volume of coffee I was used to. I'm adaptable and lack of coffee isn't the end of the world but...

I wish I had taken more pictures. I thought I had, I think I've lost some. I can't find pictures of us dipping our toes in the Mediterranean for instance.

The food was amazing, these pictures are from the rehearsal dinner, that table never got empty, thats just all they had out at once. I took the close up shot to show Angie's grandmother that weiners wrapped in crescent rolls happen in Europe too.

Last night I spent a bunch of time uploading more pictures, seriously, more than 100. I'm going to go back and re-edit my last post with the pictures of Castle Sant'Angelo, if you're interested go check that out.

Next: A Wedding in Italy!

Yoiks, Rome...

Its been awhile. I knew it had been awhile but didn't realize exactly how long it had been. Looking back I see 2019 wasn't a good year for blogging, lets try harder in 2020.

Anyway when we last left off it was May, so lets look back...

At the end of May we went to Italy. This was Angie's first trip to Europe and the first time in 25 years for me, also my first trip to Southern Europe and my first European adventure as an adult.

We flew into Rome and spent one night there. I got us a room at Hotel Indigo on points as its part of the Holiday Inn chain. The hotel was lovely and our first Italian meal was in the hotel restaurant. This is normally something I don't do as hotel restaurants usually aren't great however this one was terrific and has a lovely rooftop view.

Then off to adventure! Rome is a very difficult city at first, any city takes me about a day to get used to and of course thats the difficulty with only spending the one night, in retrospect we should have done at least 2 but probably 4.

We had 2 goals for day 0, the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. The amazing thing about Rome is that you can't hardly go anywhere without finding some piece of ancient history. I'm told this is why its so hard to build subways there, they dig a little, then call in the historians to examine what they found.

Anyway our hotel room came with a "handy phone" which I wish I'd thought to take a picture of, actually its just a cheap cell phone but it had service. Since I'm a bit of a cheapskate I'd opted not to get a European SIM for my phone so we had no service. We also had no map so the handy phone was super helpful.

The first thing we really found was more food, there are pastry shops everywhere...

Theres also coffee everywhere but only espresso. Toward the end of the trip we stayed in a hotel that had "American coffee" which was (no joke) a Mr. Coffee machine. Interestingly coffee (well, espresso or cappuccino) is always 1€ everywhere we went. I appreciated the standardization. ;)

Anyway the Pantheon was a fairly short walk away, the Handy Phone came in very handy, we probably wouldn't have found it otherwise, or we'd have had to get one of the tourist maps everybody else had.

The Pantheon is an old Roman temple that was converted into a church. Its pretty amazing to find because its hemmed in by the rest of the city. There is a large courtyard in front but the sides are nestled against the street with fairly tall buildings on either side. Its a great first thing to visit because its free and you can just wander in. The crowd was busy but not huge.

The skylight has no glass, the floor has holes in it to let water out...

Some more walking got us to Trevi.

Trevi was busy but as it was fairly late in the afternoon we could get in pretty easily. Going in May is an advantage, it wasn't too hot and while it was busy I'm sure it gets worse in the high season. I know we took more pictures but I can't find them. We did throw coins into the fountain which is supposed to ensure that you'll return.

I was wiped at this point, we'd left home at 3pm the previous day, I don't sleep well on planes and we'd been walking for 3 or 4 hours. We headed back to the hotel stopping to get some pizza which was sold by weight...

After sleeping like the dead we had a few hours to kill before flying south. We wandered around and found ourselves at Castel Sant'Angelo which is pretty amazing as a historical site but also interesting as a dog park. Apparently the citizens of this part of Rome bring their puppers here to run around. It was a pretty great way to start a travel day.

The castle was  the tomb of the emperor Hadrian but later a bunch of other emperors were also interred there. It was later converted into the castle. This picture is taken from "Pons Aelius", the Aelian Bridge. Its watched over by statues of 10 angels. Its only a short walk east from Vatican City and was also called "bridge of Saint Peter".

 Michael the Archangel watches over the whole place.

The bridge is over the Tiber. There must be some kind of open air market on weekends, they were just setting it up when we were there.

Oil changing fool

Spring is in the air and those spring showers keep coming. Actually it rains every week, its rained every week since June 2018 and I'm a bit tired of rain. I spent 2 weeks in California recently and it was nice to be able to go a whole week without it raining. It did rain one day but one day in 11 is better than 6 out of 7 we've been having recently.

Anyway it turns out that our whole fleet needs oil changes at the same time. I started last weekend by putting away the snowblower, that gets 5/8 quart of 5w40, I had been using Mobil 1 but since the '98 Jetta is gone I don't need to carry that oil anymore. The Golf gets Lubro Moly which is way overkill, heck the Mobil 1 is probably overkill but its what I've got around and its only 5/8 quart a year.
Next was the lawnmower, my 1965 Snapper Comet 30.

Thats an old picture but it hasn't changed much. I've been using Mobil 1 15w50 in that only because I had a gallon jug of the stuff left over from the '78 240D. When that jug is used up (probably next year) it'll go on a diet of 5w40, again it got 5/8 quart. After changing the oil I challenged my neighbor Bill and his son Jeremy to guess how many pulls it would take to start the old girl. I guessed 3, Bill said 2 and Jeremy said 6(!). It started on the first pull but I couldn't get the choke off fast enough to keep it running, I turned off the choke and it ran good on the second pull.

After I mowed the lawn I turned my attention to the 2010 Dodge Ram. That gets Mobil 1 5w20, the thinnest of the fleet. It got an STP Extended use oil filter because Autozone had a sale for that and the oil together. It takes all of the 5 quarts that come in a jug. I'm continually amazed that the thin oil is enough but I trust the Chrysler engineers, its made it 135,000+ miles so far with no real issues, certainly none related to lubrication.

I didn't have supplies for the Volkswagens and the day was getting long anyhow so I cleaned up for the week.

Today, a week later I started with my Jetta, this is its first change with us and as its at 60,000 miles I bought a 40,000 mile service kit from ID parts. I figured I'd feel silly if the air filters had already been done but I'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.

One thing I don't like about VWs, the 2015 in particular is that you HAVE to jack it up to change the oil. The 2005 Golf you could potentially do without jacking with a vacuum oil sucker, but on the 2015 the oil filter is underneath so theres no way to change it without jacking it up.
The Jetta gets VW spec 507 oil which is pretty uncommon, I don't think FLAPS (Friendly local auto parts store) carries it although I bet my local Federated Autoparts would get it if I asked. I got Lubro Moly 5w30 (the only weight that meets 507) from IDParts. My research online suggested it'd take 4.5 liters, my car seemed thirsty, it needed the whole 5 liter jug, the IDParts kit included 6 liters so I've got a spare, in the last 10,000 miles the car hasn't needed a drop.

Since I had it I decided to do the air filter and the cabin filter, both are easy, the cabin filter is very easy.

In both pictures new is on the right, both clearly needed changing. When I pulled out the cabin filter a bunch of leaves and pine needles came out too, I'm glad I did it.

One hitch in this job, after I was done and everything was buttoned up and I was moving the car so I could work on the Golf, the check engine light came on. Rats, its never good to have done a service and have the car worse than you started with. I had an idea what was wrong so I jacked it back up and pulled the underbelly panel back off.

This guy is an auxiliary water pump, notice the little electrical connection, that has to move so you can get the oil filter out and I'd completely forgotten to plug it back in when I was done. Hopefully that'll teach me. To reset the check engine light I had to pull out my wifi OBDII dongle, my VCDS cable won't work with this car, and fire up the Torque app. I needed to remember that for the dongle to work you need to acknowledge that there is no internet access, so frustrating...

After my experience with the Jetta changing the oil in the Golf was really easy and quick, the biggest challenge on that car is the metal skid plate. I noticed its dinged up pretty good, I'm thinking I should probably grab one for the Jetta too, both cars are pretty low...