With Views Like This

You just know that it says Italy, the Mediterranean and beautiful turquoise waters, blue skies, warm sun and great food.

I have to say that I thought last year's holiday where we travelled to the major cities of Italy by train was special but this was in many ways better as we had plenty of time to take things easy and with views like this wherever you go, the backdrop of the Bay of Naples continually with us and sights like Vesuvius, the Amalfi Coast, Ravello, Sorrento itself and Herculaneum and then the Island of Capri to cap it all with its views and stunning colour of the sea around its coast and the steep ascent we made to Anacapri up what appeared to be a never ending staircase up the side of a mountain and you can see we were enchanted by the area.

This balcony is part of a Sorrento Hotel and you can dine here.  It overlooks the Sorrento and the Bay of Naples and Wisteria grows and blossoms over the loggia.  It's all picture postcard stuff like this.

Here a Cruise ship lies in anchor just outside the Harbour - they were only here for half a day - hardly enough time to see the town.  The backdrop of Vesuvius  dominates the Bay.  To get an idea of how big the mountain was before the eruption draw imaginary lines from the low sides upwards and you can see how high it was before.  You feel that you could just reach out and touch it.

The sea is blue and you can see into its clear waters to see fish swimming throughout.  We went to the smaller or the harbours, called the grand harbour (this is Italy - it makes sense to them) and there had fried sardines (almost larger Whitebait) that had been landed a few minutes earlier.  We saw the fishermen bring in whatever they'd caught in their nets and hand it over to the various restaurateurs.  The food everywhere was stunning and plentiful but overall it was expensive eating out lunchtime and evening - although after I'd shown Mrs. F. the Scrambled Egg, Ham and Cheese breakfast trick (loading up with protein) we found we could last with that breakfast and not need to eat - other than perhaps a Bruschetta with a beer until the evening.

Our Hotel was great, the restaurants were great and the views were stunning.  Interesting point is though that I'd probably not go back there again although I have no reason not to.