Lunch @ Pompeii, then it's Sorrento

AND THIS IS A SERIOUSLY DELAYED POST!  Sorry, been caught up with other stuff.... :)

This bird is some what of a celebrity in Pompeii, after we came out, i saw him sitting up there in his little nest ... and started snapping, everyone else decided to snap him as well. Actually, he's quite a fat sparrow compared to the skinny Malaysian sparrows and check out the swelled chest. Cute isn't he? He is totally oblivious to the attention that is given to him. Couldn't give a peep.

After that long and rather exhausting walk in Pompeii, peppered by intermitten sniffs of coffee while walking around Pompeii ( in the middle of Pompeii.. there are cafes... talk about ... strategy ) we were taken to a restaurant near Pompeii's site for lunch. Its a hotel / restaurant at one go and it is packed with people by 1:30pm. ( We were so late for lunch, i swore there were lions in my tummy - Go Simba!).

Just to show you how chaotic the place looked - see below... people were just coming and going. They are tourists, locals all busy with lunching at this place. However despite the chaos, the waiters were attentive and friendly.

I guess you need a reservation here... One of the reasons why the tour takes us here is because ( besides being a packaged deal ) this place serves up quite yummy marinara pasta! Real traditional style marinara pasta. And no skimping on the seafood here.

All meals start with bread - we got a basket load as usual and each time, my aunts will ask... "where's the butter" ... apparently in Italy bread is either served plain to go with soup or with balsamic vinegar ( like those in Italiannies) but i rarely encountered the latter.  Anyway, i suspect the bread has been left out a while, it was a bit hard. Good for soup dipping though.

Pasta was served next not in your own plates, but a big plate of noodles is brought to your table, and you are served by the waiter scooping the amount you want. Big relief for me, can't seem to finish too much noodles so you can ask for as much as you like. See... all the mussels smiling at me ... pity, i only ate all the prawns and squids. Dad got all my mussels but he said it was pretty awesome.  And it was. The marinara sauce is made from fresh tomato, unlike the can or bottle variety with lots of herbs. Such a big relief they did not serve me pizza again! By the way, the restaurants lights make it a good place to take pictures, giving them this lovely sheen. No flash used here. ( Could be it is 5000k-6000k in color temperature ).

Actually i had two helpings of this.. So there.  I am greedy pig when it comes to carbs.

Just when i thought, hey dessert's gonna come over, no... the main meal and salad was brought out. I am pretty confused as to how much stuff they are going to serve us. Feel like fatten cows. :)  The mains was actually fried.. seafood. Yeah, marinara and then more seafood?  Well at least they had prawns here and fish!  Not surprising because Napoli is facing the sea and would have an abundance of fresh seafood. I like the prawns and fish though. However with that amount of fried food stuff, my dad and mom had sore throat the next day!

I am finally happy because dessert made its' entrance. It's gelato all the way man. I practically had Gelato like every day even though it is 2 euro sometimes. Heck. Ice Cream is nicer there lah!  This one is Hazelnut flavored Gelato. Not to bad but i preffered something more fruity.

Now, that was lunch and after all the grubbing, we took a bus ride to Sorrento. Somewhere near Napoli, about 40 minutes drive actually or .. was it an hour. It's one of the most scenic drives there with high bridges ( sorry no photo moving bus no place to stop ) and when finally he did stop ... ok.  My fear of heights sorta took over. Sorrento has high cliffs, and plunging ravines, so deep, that.. for me ... my legs shiver like timber when i looked down the cliff. I guess height photography will not be in the works for a long long time. 

It's a beautiful place to live in, imagine waking up every morning to such scenery. And if your house is on the cliff, even more fantastic. Though my mom says she will have permanent vertigo if she stayed here.

 

We reached Sorrento town close to 4PM ish and it started to get dark :(.... Things got dark in Italy pretty early in October, hence sight seeing was a bit of a rush job. Sorrento is not really big anyway, a bit crowded but popular with celebrities and rich people because of the sea view and cliff houses. Also has a lot of small gelato shops, cake shops, restaurants along the main street which you can walk and enjoy the sights. I saw a lot of shoe shops as well -___________-  but no time to try....

By the way, Italy seems like a super small road place. What i mean is, the roads are not very wide, quite curvy and also always near a cliff ( which freaks me out a bit ), even the streets of Sorrento can never accommodate more than 2 rows, let alone their passage ways are also quite narrow as well.  Well, we basically spent less than 2 hours in Sorrento ... so.. that's it :)

Anyway, tomorrow - we headed towards Naples in the main city.... more next.