Socks at the airport £3.33 instead of £8 from Next, they never have socks in the sale! No it wasn't an impulse buy, its a necesary purchase albeit hopefully not for the weather in Italy, but certainly for the Bristish weather, you can't wear wellies without socks!
My next plan is to buy a suit (for work in September) in the sale or from the Next outlet, I found a lovely jacket at the outlet in Doncaster for £9 but couldn't find anything matching for the bottom half so its clearly about timing and a bit of luck. I quite like having something to search for though, the challenge makes shopping more fun (hubby might not agree).
Despite making a pack-up (packed lunch for anyone not from the Northern regions of England) for our journey to Birmingham airport via Doncaster (to drop the puppy off) we still stopped at the service station for a toilet brake and obviously snacks. £7 for a bag of mints, two packs of chewing gum and a choclate bar!!!
The airport wasn't much better with a couple of drinks at weatherspoons costing double what it normally does. I think they were charging us extra for the comfy place to sit while we waited for the plane to board.
All my scrimping on the bigger purchases won't benefit me at all if I throw money away on the essentials, but maybe thats the best thing to do, think hard about the big purchases so I don't have to worry about the little things?
We had thought very carefully about our budget for the holiday, it was meant to be a cheap holiday, having spent a fortune on our honeymoon this time last year. I know £500 each isn't as cheap as it gets, but for a 4 star hotel in Italy within walking distance of Sorrento its not bad. We paid for B&B with the intention of being out and about most days. We purchased the Artecard when we got to Sorrento (not as widely available as I was led to believe, but the shop in Sorrento train station had a few) The Artecard comes in several varieties, but we opted for the 3 day regional one for 27 euros. This gave us free access to 2 archeological sites of our choice, Pompeii and the Herculaneum are 11 euros each so we used our freebies on those two. It also included free travel on the Circumvesuviana which is local train that covers the area and has about 30 stops between Naples and Sorrento and is consequently very useful and fairly quick. A return journey to Naples is usually 8 euros so over 3 days we saved a bit. Bus travel was also included, but I suffer badly from travel sickness on buses so that was never and option for us.
The card lasts 3 days and once you've had your 2 free visits all others are half price and in Naples there are loads of places to see so you can make good use of it, although after seeing the Nouvo castle which was more of an exhibition center for Roman Catholic Art than an archeological site, we'd seen enough of the old and went for ice-cream (not payable with the Artecard)
The ice-cream in Italy is of course delicious and available everywhere in numerous flavours, from Saturday through to Tuesday we had sampled quite a few and the heat on Wednesday in Naples definitely called for another.
Have you ever had Nutella ice-cream? Me neither. I love Nutella though and it seems very populat in the Neopolitan Riviera so that was my chosen flavour. 'Solo' I was asked? 'Si, Grazie' I smiled and the vendor proceeded to pile the Nutella 'ice-cream' into a cone that could barely contain it. Passing it over I found it melted immediately and was not ice cream at all! Pure Nutella people! In a cone in 38 degree heat! I love chocolate, I love Nutella, but there was no way.
I have been known in my slightly younger days to take a spoon to a small pot of Nutella and devour the lot over 30-60 minutes while watching TV, and the cone contained approximately that amount of Nutella. Hubby having chosen a combo of Melon and Lemon Sorbets, openly laughed at me as the gooey chocolate slid down my hand while I tried in vain to eat some and keep the rest in or on the cone.
Eventually he helped out and relieved me of some of my burden, but I have to admit that even at 8 euros for two ice creams, I had to off load some of mine in the nearest bin. I was left with a Nutella coated cone, which was actually quite pleasant, but Nutella is definitely off the menu for the foreseeable future, the thought of it takes my appetite away entirely. Anyone who knows me will realise this must have been a traumatic experience.
Besides Ice-cream, Italy is of course very good at pizza and apparently the Sorrento area is where it came from (according to a local restauranteur named Claudio)
We sampled many varieties in various restaurants and it is definitely the cheapest thing to eat. The pizzas are huge and depending on toppings choice and location of the restaurant the prices range for 4-9 euros.
The Vesuvio had to be the most impressive though, hubby tackled it solo the first time, but we shared the next time we had it and there is certainly enough for two. Available from Taverna Rosso in St Agnello which is run by Claudio who is lovely and speaks excellent English having lived in London for 7 years and who also didn't mind us practising our Italian phrases, we found most other restaurant staff prefered to speak English not having the patience for our newly learnt Italian.
Another resturant in St Agnello that is worth a visit is Ciao Toto, which is much bigger than it looks, the space out the back is huge and much more romantic than the front room.
Moonlight restaurant was our last night treat as it looked a little posher than the others and therefore we expected it to be more expensive, this wasn't the case, fantastic food and not badly priced.
Most restaurants do charge a cover charge per person though of between 1 and 2 euros which we thought was a bit cheeky and made us appreciate Claudio even more as he agreed with out feelings and doesn't add the cover charge. This left us free to leave a tip that reflected our happiness with the meal.
Having climbed the pizza version, and visiting the after affects of the volcanos eruptions at Pompeii and the Herculaneum we had to go see the real thing. So having become familiar with the Circumvesuvuana (train) we visited Herculaneum in the morning which sits in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, we planned on taking the shuttle bus up the the base camp of the volcano. We had already been warned it was 10 euros each but we'd factored it in to our budget so that was fine. On asking for our tickets we were told it would be 18 euros each! Apparently to include entrance fee (not covered by our Artecard becuase the volcano is an ecological site not an archeological one!)Yes we are on a budget and yes we begrudge paying over the odds for anything, so we left the ticket office to discuss our options.
We walked and talked and somehow (neither hubby nor I are taking the blame for the 'idea') we started our walk up the mountain.
We had been told that from the station in Ercolano (where we were) it was a 20 minute shuttle bus ride up to Vesuvius base camp and approximately 10k. We run 10k regularly without much issue so I was aware of the distance.
After 3.5hours we reached base camp! I was not dressed for the occassion as you can see, shoes being the worst part of my attire.
The heat (about 34 degrees) surprisingly did not get me down that much, we were at least prepared with a couple of litres of water (necessary on all our outings) but the incline, the shoes and the distance (more like 15k) combined to make me a very unhappy bunny after the first 2 hours. I had however gone to far to turn back and so with a lot of huffing, puffing and complaining we made it all the way to the top, paid our 8 euros entry fee and looked into a Volcano.
Hubby was completely unaffected by any of the elements, although I'd have liked to have seen him do it in my shoes!
Luckily on our way back down hubby who has no embarrassment gene decided to thumb a lift. I stated very clearly that no one would be crazy enough to stop for us especially the huge air conditioned coaches and the 10 euros per person shuttle buses. We were dusty and sweaty and I was not at my most gracious at this point, but by some miracle a car stopped when we were only a little way into our descent. They asked where we were going and if we'd like a lift to which hubby answered and I professed my love to these nice young men who had taken pity on us. I had no qualms about jumping into a car with two strangers and threw myself head first onto the back seat. Luckily hubby followed and didn't decide to leave me to whatever fate I deserved after the hour or so of complaining how much my feet hurt.
My guardian angels turned out to be French, another stroke of luck as hubby is fluent, and so we chatted in combination of French and English all the way to the bottom of the volcano.
The French boys clearly thought we were absolutely nuts, but to them it was an adventure, picking up two crazy English people who they had apparently passed on the way up the mountain so must have been shocked to see us coming back down at the same time as them.
They dropped us in a town a top closer to Sorrento than the one we started our trek from which led to quite a bit of confusion and hubby and I trying out our limited Italian on many a local while we searched for the train station. 'Do've Vesuviana' did the trick although filled me with dread on first hearing it as it sounded very much like they were trying to sent us back up Mount Vesuvius and they all seemed to be pointing in an uphill direction. Despite the rest my feet were still throbbing and I just wanted to find the train! Young and old, male and female all ten or so people we asked (we lacked confidence in our Italian more than their directions) were helpful and we got the the station thankfull for a long sit down on the train. Although I now know to take wet wipes with me when I travel, archeological sites and dusty, combined with the heat and public transport its a recipe for feeling grimey. I am learning though and eventually I will be an intrepid traveller, prepared for anything including sensible mountain worthy footwear.
The remainder of the holiday was a little more chilled out, sunbathing by the pool and exploring St Agnello where out hotel was located. It was at this point that we went in search of a beach or rather a bathing platform as the coast is all high cliffs and no sand. Our receptionist helpfully pointed us in the direction of the nearest 'beach' but informed us it would cost 10-15 euros per person to be allowed to use it! We went for a look, more out of curiosity than willingness to pay. It literally is a platform, owned by a restaurant, with some sunloungers on it, not very beachy at all and the locals access a walkway that runs parallel and swim in the same little bay obviously without paying the extortionate prices. We were tempted to join the locals, but the hotel pool just seemed more relaxing and convenient.
I was more than happy to find the British weather had allowed for a few days of summer on our return and have spent the last few days keeping my Italian tan topped up while helping to keep the boy (visiting for a few days) entertained.
A trip to the local beach with the hubby, boy and puppy was probably the best thing we did over our few days. The beach is literally 3 miles up the road, but we do not utilise it nearly as much as we should. I think because it is so close and we could go whenever we want we don't appreciate it, whereas is was clear from the amount of traffic that many people from out of the are having seen the sunshine had packed their cars full of picnics, toys, deck chairs and the like and made the trip our way. There are not many reasons to head out to this part of England and most of the year you only see people going in the opposite direction, but hubby informs me the beach has won awards for cleanliness so perhaps we should learn to love it and make better use of it.
We all had a fab afternoon and the weather was almost enough to convince me that holidays abroad are unnecessary, but we all know the weather won't last the week and already today the clouds have gathered shutting out the sun and threatening rain again.
The past two weeks have been a welcome break from the worries about work and life after redundancy. I did try contacting the HR department to find out about my notice and pay, but to no avail so I decided to forget about it and to a certain extent I managed it. I'm just going to wait and see if and how much money appears in my account at the end of the month. Then maybe I'll have something to stress over, but in the meantime its not worth my time and effort trying to find out whats happening when I know they will only ignore me. Slightly ironic that I have received a letter today in the name of the principal asking that keys, ID badge and any other college property in my possession be returned before I finish, although the letter also states that I finish on the 6th of July so they are clearly expecting miracles or don't know what day it is which would explain their inability to answer questions, emails or return calls, its confirmed they are all incompetent idiots!
I had other good news this week and an addition to my 'good life' but it will have to wait til next time as I promised a friend he would be the first to hear about it and its more of a show than a tell, so I'll post a piccie soon :-)
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