What day is it? Where are we?

Boy, do we have some catching up to do! Before we do- We must apologize for leaving out part of the trip. When we traveled from Genoa to Sorianno a couple of weeks ago, we stopped for a few days in Cinque Terra. We hiked through each of the villages-took us two days, but we did it. There are a lot more people there than there used to be. Just about everyone in the C.T. was carrying a Rick Steves guide. He is still our travel hero (He has convinced us we can do a trip like this), but he sure has been successful at getting a lot of people into some small, out of the way places and making them very crowded. With all the people, C.T. is still beautiful and the food was fantastic. And in all fairness, there are some pretty crowded places that Rick had nothing to do with.

We followed our week in Sorianno with a few days in Sorrento on the Bay of Naples. We went into Naples for a day to go to their museum. It is SO full of Greek and Roman statues, paintings and murals that were removed from Pompei (Gail's not here check my spelling, so forgive any errors) It is one of the very best museums in Europe. If you are near Naples, do not miss it! Naples is a pretty interesting place to visit just for itself. It is a grimy, gritty real-live city. We have been warned about thieves and pick-pockets, but have never had any trouble there.

While there, we stopped at a typical little bar for a soda while waiting for a special neighborhood gelateria to open. A lady in an upper apartment across the street was yelling, "Geno! GENO! GEEEENOOOO!" Then a guy started yelling the same from the same window. A motorcyclist heard them as he was riding by, spun a u-turn, stopped in front of the bar and yelled in, "Geno!" The owner came out, shouted back and forth with the couple upstairs, walked back inside, came out with a couple of packages, put them in the bucket the couple lowered to him and returned to the bar with a wave and a, "Cioa!" as they raised it to their home.

While in Sorrento (which is so fantastically beautiful with the town built at the edge of a cliff a few hundred feet down to the sea) we went to Capri. It is so beautiful that we will return on a day when all other travelers are banned. It was so crowded that there was a three hour wait for the Blue Grotto (sp?) and you got to see it for about ten seconds. If you go, just take a sight-seeing cruise around the island and go back home. I must say, we did have about the best ever Capresse salad in the Capresse Ristorante.

ON TO THE EAST COAST

We traveled to Bari and found it to be a completely beautiful place. Then, on to a week at the Cala Corvina Resort in Monopoli. It was past their season, so most of the facility was closed. It was too far out of town to walk easily. Two buses a day ran between the resort and town. Most of the staff acted like the 40-50 guests were invading their free time. They have a beautiful infinity pool, but it is unheated and very cold. The week was saved by some wonderful people we shared time with. We now know some really nice people in Kelowna/Phoenix and in Washington, D.C.

We are now on Sicily. We've spent time swimming in the Med., sun-bathing and seeing Greek ruins. We are still amazed that we can be in shirt-sleeves and swimming in the middle of October. Our highlight here has been Syracuse. The old town is on an island surrounded by fortified walls that, today, were battered by huge surf. We are on our way to Polermo to catch a ferry to Tunisia. We have gotten tired of city-hopping in Italy and look forward to being completely lost in a new culture. We will have a week in Tunisia, a couple weeks in Egypt, then; on to Dubai for some R&R (I hope!) Ciao for now!