Hi everyone.
As you will have guessed by now I'm back from my honeymoon.
We had a lovely wedding and a really enjoyable honeymoon. :)
As you might all remember I was a bit worried about the weather for the Wedding. It had been raining most days the week before the Saturday of the Wedding, and had been quite overcast and gloomy when not raining. However on the morning of the Wedding it was a nice clear day with blue skies and no rain clouds in sight. And it remained that way for the whole day and evening.
It was lovely and warm and it meant the Jazz band could set up outside in a marquee so that the music drifted nicely around the outside and inside of the hall we were holding the reception at.
The wedding was really nice and Annabel looked lovely. We both thought we would get quite nervous but we didn't and really enjoyed the day. The ceremony seemed to go very quickly (much faster than we thought it was going to). And the reception was really nice.
Loads of the guests apparently got quite drunk, which is always a good sign of a great time had by all! :lol:
And our Honeymoon was really nice. I had booked a local Chichester based taxi company who charged set prices for airport transport. However when the taxi arrived it was much better. A nice Mercedes and the driver was wearing a suit. :thumbs: (we actually wondered if it was really for us!). He had chilled bottles of water and todays news paper for us. :)
So the transport to and from the airport was hassle free and very easy. We also used the e-ticket automated terminals at Gatwick to check in so that was easy.
On arrival in Naples we were met by another taxi driver working for Citalia (the company we booked the holiday with), and another Mercedes, to take us to the hotel. The hotel was really nice. An old converted villa on the cliff tops of the Amalfi coast, located near Sorrento in a small suburb called Sant' Agnello.
We had been hoping to get one of the front facing rooms with a balcony but instead had a side facing room without a balcony. However we could still see the sea from the window as the hotel was situated on a corner of a cliff top.
The weather was really nice. 30 degrees C of higher every day.
We did three different excursions while we were there. The first one was quite a long day as we visited Rome. It was about a 4 hour drive each way. However it was worth it as we got to see the Colosseum, and the Vatican and Sistine Chapel. The paints of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel were worth the visit.
Another day we did the "Amalfi Drive". This is a drive that takes you right along the winding cliff hugging roads of Amalfi, visiting the small towns as we go and seeing the spectacular views down towards the sea and up the cliff and mountain sides. We stopped off at Amalfi and had a 40 minute boat trip along the coast to better see the area, and then continued by coach along the road until we reached Revelo high up. Here there were formal gardens to look at with views out over the coast. Lovely lanscape.
And the final excersion we did was to Pompeii and Herculaneum. That was well worth doing. Visting Pompeii and then Herculaneum is definitely the order to do it in as you first get to see the very large city of Pompeii and see and learn about the advanced way in while they lived. But then when you get to Herculaneum it was much better preserved, with most buildings being fully intact with two and three stories to the houses, and many with their original roof tiles (wood beams replaced). And in Herculaneum many of the wall frescos are still perfectly preserved, as is a lot of the wooden parts of the buildings such as rafters, door and window shutters.
We also ate loads of really nice Italian food. Being next to the sea we enyoyed loads of sea food dishes. Spegetti with Clams. Resotto with Seafood etc. We ate loads of Clams, Mussles, Crab, Calamari, Sword Fish, Anchovies etc...
However we did need to do some exploring. We were a little disappointed by how commercial and tourist orientated Sorrento and the surrounding area has become. We were expecting it to be quite traditional Italian, but in the centre of Sorrento and many resturants in the area the food was definitely tailored for the English and Italian tourist market. Also the shops were mostly all selling identical items obviously directly directly at the tourist. Being a region known for lemon glowing and a lemon liqueur drink specific to the region called Lemoncello, this drink was for sale everywhere in bottles of all shapes and sized. It is quite a nice, if very strong, drink. And we did buy a few small bottled to brink back for relatives.
In addition to this drink, all of the shops were also selling identical lemon related products like lemon soap, and also porcellin lemons. The region is also well known of its traditional wooden inlay and a lot of the shops were also selling wooden music boxes and jewellary boxes with inlaid marketry. However it all looked mass produced and commercial. Not locally made. So that was a little disappointing.
However after doing some exploring we discovered a small fishing village/town at the end of Sorrento down in a port called Porto Grande. This was a nice littke port/fishing village with a couple of resturants and the food there was much more what we had been expecting. Locally made pasta and fresh seafood. We had a couple of very nice meals there.
We also had meals and a few other resturants in Sant' Agnello and Sorrento, and they were all nice meals. But they all tended to contain a little more cheese that traditionally included in Italian dishes. Still very nice food though.
Their local wine isn't quite as nice though. It is OK and drinkable, but not something you would really rave about later or purposely try to seek out in shops back home.
We also explored using public transport. This was easy with the buses only costing €1 for a 60 minute ticket and most buses going every 20 minutes or so.
The Amafi coast and Sorrento is definitely a place worth visiting. However for a more traditional relaxed and less commercial location along the Amalphi coast we though Amalfi itself looked better.
We also visited Capri for a day. Taking the ferry for Sorrento it only took about 25 minutes to cross. Capri is a really nice island with lovely views and scenery. We first traveled from the main city of Capri to the smaller town of Ana-Capri. However we didn't have time to visit the Villa San Michele which was ashame. We then went back to the main city of Capri and explored the old medievil shoppong lanes. And we discovered the narrow lane leading steeply upwards. We were not sure where it was going, but after much puffing and stopping for breath we reached a small church and outside was a map showing that there was loads to see and explore further up the steep lane. However it was 6pm by that time and the last ferry was at 7pm so we couldn't go any further. For this reason I would love to return to Capri in the future to explore it more and see everything it has to offer.
So we had a lovely honeymoon and really enjoyed it. We took loads of pictures that we now need to go through and sort out. Once done I will post some online for you all to see. (editting out the naughty ones! ;)).
We had something nice on the plane journey back. One of the stewardesses was checking everyone was correctly seated when she suddenly asked us if we were on our honeymoon. And we got a small bottle of Champaque each! Very nice. :)
On arrival back in the UK the sudden shock of the UK weather with the wind and drizzle was quite bad after having spend 8 days in 30+C temps with hardly any wind and definitely no rain (it doesn't rain there for 7 months).
