Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri

We spent the last couple days of this trip in Pompeii as our base and took a couple day trips from there. Our first stop was to the Pompeii archeological site. Our hotel was situated about a 20 minute walk from the site. We booked a guided tour to help us explore this massive site. Pompeii was a thriving and wealthy city with a population of roughly 20,000 people prior to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD which buried the city under 4 to 6 metres of volcanic ash and pumice. Pompeii was a seaside city until this eruption which pushed the coastline out 700 metres. As the city was buried with volcanic ash and pumice, it preserved the city allowing archaeologists to discover the city’s way of life and an insight into the Roman urban planning of that time. It was fascinating to walk around the city grounds and see all the buildings and streets excavated and imagining what it was like to live, work and play in the city during its prime. Based on some of the discoveries it seemed like the city was fairly “modern” for its time. 

On another day we took the train to Sorrento in the early morning and from there booked a boat ride over to Capri. With very limited time we had to be very selective on what we wanted to do on Capri. So we decided to take a bus to Anacapri and take the chairlift up to the highest point of the island, Mounte Solaro which is 589 metres above sea level. The chairlift was a cool experience, single wooden seats with only a bar (not locked) holding you in. This might not be the best option for the faint of heart, but we thought it was awesome. At the top of Mounte Solaro you had spectacular views of the Gulf of Naples and Salerno and several rock formations including the Farglioni formations and you could get a glimpse of the Blue Grotto. We enjoyed a nice lunch at the summit before taking the chairlift back down and walking through the streets of Anacapri while waiting for the bus to take us back down to the main town of Capri before catching the boat back to Sorrento.

Sorrento isn’t a very large city and is perched on the cliffside overlooking the Bay of Naples. Sorrento is the birthplace of lemoncello. We wandered the streets which are filled with shops, markets, and restaurants. At one point we stumbled upon a wedding coming out of one of the many churches and we stopped to watch the celebrations for a bit. Before taking the train back to Pompeii, we found a great restaurant, Azz! Italia Tavern and enjoyed a fabulous Italian meal. It was a great way to cap off our amazing trip!!

 

To travel is to live… until next time! Life is good!!

Sicily

Continuing our late August/early September trip, our next stop was Sicily where we stayed for 5 days at a seaside resort hotel. 

Our flight from Naples to Catania was on EasyJet and was about an hour. We arrived fairly late in Catania, picked up our car rental and drove about 45 minutes south to our hotel in Giardini Naxos. We stayed at the Delta which turned out to be a great location for our activities in the area. We had a lovely ocean view room with two spacious decks. The room was a bit eclectic with older style furnishings, yet it was quite a large space. The dated room style felt a bit strange given all the common areas of the hotel were more modern and appeared to have been relatively recently updated. The beach area was great, two distinct areas with lots of loungers which had built on sunshields that you could maneuver over your head to provide protection from the hot sun in addition to standard sun umbrellas. The beach itself was comprised of rocky pebbles which made water shoes a necessity because it was a bit difficult getting in and out of the water otherwise. The Ionian Sea was crystal clear and warm, easy for swimming and we really enjoyed our beach time here. The hotel had a couple restaurant options, and we enjoyed a great buffet breakfast there, but just outside the hotel are a lot of great restaurant options available. We chose to eat at two different offside restaurants with the first literally across the street. We enjoyed fabulous pasta dishes and a pizza that came with an axe shaped pizza cutter; maybe a gimmick but it made us order a pizza. The other was an outdoor pizza restaurant we just happened to stumble across as we were actually looking for some quick takeaway. 

With a car we were able to drive around and explore; though given our short stay there we only had time to explore a small portion of the eastern part of the island. Sicily is the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean with 4.7 million people and it is situated just off the "toe" of the Italian "boot". Needless to say there is a lot more exploring to be done; guess a return trip is in order. 

The roads for the most part were easy to navigate though when driving through some of the smaller towns we did find your typical narrow European streets where you’re not sure whether two cars actually can fit. Z did most of the driving but I did manage to drive a few times to give him a needed break. Italian wine is a must try so we booked a couple wine tastings. The first was to a family run winery called Gambino perched on the side of Mount Etna. The volcanic soil providing great minerals and the unique climate help the grapes flourish and produce fantastic wines. The setting provides for picturesque views of the island. On our tour we learned a bit about the history of the winery, their organic farming practices, that the grapes are harvested all by hand, and their conservation and sustainability practices. For our tasting, we enjoyed a private table and were given 5 different wines to taste. The tasting also included lunch and we started by being given a hard boiled egg and told that eating a hard boiled egg before drinking helps the body absorb the alcohol more slowly as the protein lines the stomach and reduces the likelihood of feeling intoxicated and can lessen the severity of a hangover. I can’t say for certain whether it worked, but neither of us seemed to have any ill effects after our tasting, very educational indeed. Along with the wine tasting, we also enjoyed a lovely three course meal. Our sommelier was very informative and provided us with a brief outline of each of the wines we tasted. Three were from their Etna collection while the other two were from their Sicilia farm. All in all this was a really great experience, good value for money, in a very scenic setting. 

While our wine tasting at Gambino brought us near Mount Etna, we really wanted to drive up the mountain and hike around. We had limited time and realized we didn’t pack warm enough clothes for heading up to the top of the volcano so instead we spend some time walking around the lower level and walked around a couple of the dormant volcanic craters. Afterwards, we drove ourselves to our second wine tasting which was a private lunch and tasting operated out of the host's home. This was probably the top experience on this trip. We arrived and were warmly greeted by our host, Angela. The setting is absolutely stunning situated outside on the deck overlooking the valley below. We enjoyed an amazing home cooked meal that was cooked using in season fresh ingredients. Our meal was with paired with wines from the vineyard neighbouring the property. We started the meal with fresh cheeses and bread served with a tomato jam. We then dined on two different types of bruschetta, one traditional tomato based, but the other was zucchini and it was delicious! We were then served a fresh fruit salad comprised of pear, plums, and peaches with ricotta cheese and all dressed in a light olive oil. It seemed light a strange combination for a salad, but it worked well and tasted amazing. Our next course was a fresh made pesto pasta - nothing compares to fresh made, and finally for dessert we were served custard like dessert that Z said was very similar to a Lebanese dessert. 

One evening we drove up the very windy road to Taormina. This hilltop town was recently made a bit famous by the show White Lotus when they filmed one of their seasons on Sicily. The quaint town is literally built into the mountain and is renowned for its stunning landscape. A lot of the restaurants have their outdoor seating situated on steps that lead up to other restaurants or bars. It’s guess it’s the best way to maximize space when you live on the mountainside. The old town is situated about 250 metres above sea level providing an impressive view of the coast. The town is filled with old churches, restaurants, bars, and shops.  

Our time on Sicily was amazing and left us with a good taste of what it has to offer. Our time was short but immensely enjoyable, enough so that we know we want to go back and explore some different parts of the island, but also perhaps return to Catania again. From here, we flew back to Naples and made our way to Pompeii for a couple days. 

Adoro l'Italia: Naples

Well, better late than never I guess. Back end of August into the beginning of September we took a trip to Italy... Sicily to be more specific. We have found this time of year really pleasant when travelling to Europe - weather is still quite nice and usually still fairly hot and there are less crowds as peak tourist season has come to an end. And as with our previous trips to Italy.... Italy never disappoints...

We have wanted to explore the island of Sicily for some time now and when a flight deal to Naples popped onto our radar, we thought it made sense to combine Naples, Sicily and Pompeii. 

We flew into Naples and from there we could connect through to Catania in Sicily. As we wanted to spend more of our time in Sicily, we planned to explore Naples for the day after arriving in the morning and before our short evening flight to Catania. We couldn’t fly our usual airline partners for the leg to Sicily so we decided for ease of travel we’d go carry on which worked out quite well. We found luggage storage for the day at the Naples airport which gave us the freedom to explore without hassle of dragging luggage around everywhere we went. 

Our flight was not the most direct route, connecting through a couple cities first before flying into Naples. We did try last minute at the airport to switch things up for more of a direct route to save us from multiple connections and also try and get more comfortable seats but we had no such luck. We arrived in Naples early enough in the morning which gave us plenty of time to spend the day exploring the city. We had read to be careful with the taxis at the airport in particular  to avoid getting ripped off. We found a shared taxi option that took us from the airport to the train station for a reasonable fare. The traffic getting to and from the airport was chaotic with cars maneuvering everywhere to get ahead and lots of honking. While not my style of driving, it seemed to all work and we got to our destination in one piece. 

Naples is a vibrant port city, is the birthplace of pizza and is known for its high-quality cuisine. We were determined to try some traditional Napoli pizza and discovered two tasty traditional Napoli desserts as well: sfogliatella - a custard filled crispy pastry, and baba - a rum soaked cake; both were incredibly good. As we wandered the streets of Naples we noticed it was not necessarily as clean as past trips to different parts of Italy. Walking around for a full day after a fairly long flight in itself wears you out even after enjoying an afternoon cappuccino as a pick me up. We enjoyed strolling through the streets and made our way to the old city centre. As with a lot of European cities, the labyrinth of streets are lined with cafes, restaurants, and shops. Naples is one of the oldest cities in the world yet has a chaotic and energetic atmosphere to it. The architecture speaks to the city's age along with the ancient Roman ruins. From the waterfront you have incredible views of Mount Vesuvius. We did find a traditional Napoli pizza restaurant where we enjoyed a margarita pizza with fresh basil and a meat and collared greens pizza also with fresh basil for lunch. This was probably the start of our over indulgence of  Italian cuisine. 

Sydney

We spent the last few days of our trip in Sydney, staying at the W Sydney in the Darling Harbour. This location was great for the purposes of our time in Sydney. Aside from always wanting to head back to Australia and having a fantastic vacation, we did have a bit of a specific purpose of the timing of this trip - a family member's MBA convocation ceremony. How could we resist in celebrating that accomplishment particularly when the celebration was in Sydney!! Darling Harbour is a fantastic location, with a large waterfront boulevard that is lined with restaurants and shops, the convention centre where the ceremony was held was a very short walk from the hotel; we even found an outdoor movie theatre with giant pillows as the seating. Darling Harbour is a pretty popular and happening neighbourhood. It's also pretty walkable to other cool neighbourhoods like the university district where we found a funky wine bar restaurant our first evening in town. While perhaps a bit of a longer walk, Circular Quay and the Rocks neighbourhoods is also doable. We managed to squeeze this walk in one morning and spent time walking along the water by the Opera House and marvelling at all the development that occurred since our last time here when we stayed in Circular Quay. On our final day before our long flight home, we took a passenger ferry over to Manly Beach. The street leading from the ferry terminal to the beach is a short few blocks and is lined again with shops and restaurants.This beach is a well known surfing spot and on that particular day there was some sort of outrigger competition going on. There is a vast area of sandy beach and even grassy area with some tree cover where you can park yourself and just chill; which is mostly what we did. We didn't swim much in the ocean due to jelly sightings and also the seaweed was pretty bad this time of year, but we had a lovely day trip here regardless and enjoyed the company of family.

All in all this was a great stop at the end of our 2 week Australian adventure. We got to celebrate and spend time with family for a pretty significant life accomplishment. We got to experience so many new things this time, explored new areas and sights, had fabulous weather, enjoyed a lot of really good and new foods, and managed to relax and recharge.  

Until next time....

To travel is to live...life is good! 

Port Douglas and more

From Brisbane, we took a short flight north to Cairns for the next leg of our trip. We rented a car and drove just over an hour further north from Cairns to Port Douglas, returning 11 years later after our first visit. This time we were spending a week here which gave us a lot of time and with a car we were able to include exploring more of the surrounding area as well. Our home for the week was the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort Port Douglas. This resort was incredible, a mix of lush tropical gardens with white-sand beaches at two of the ten saltwater lagoon pools situated around the property. The resort is beachfront with direct access to Four Mile Beach. Unfortunately it was stinger season while we were there in March and so swimming in the ocean was not recommended unless in a netted area which was about a 15 minute beach walk from the resort. These stingers , box jellyfish, are massive and we saw so many of them washed up on the beach when. It was interesting to see actually how big they are and to learn that their tentacles could grow up to 3 metres in length. It's quite possible you wouldn't even see the jelly but could still get stung, which would be bad. The box jellyfish is regarded as the world's most venomous animal because it can kill an adult human in under 3 minutes. Stinger season runs November to June and it really sad that we were there in season because the coastline is so gorgeous and was just calling our names to go swimming in the water. We did walk the 15 minutes to the netted area and spent some time in the water there before I heard someone say they saw a stinger in the enclosed area, prompting me to call it a day at the beach. 

We had a very spacious ground level room with direct access to one of the lagoon pools from our patio. The resort wasn't overly busy while we were there and provided a great place to just relax and unwind. It was also a good central spot to head into town when we wanted. The gym is open 24 hours and had only opened a couple weeks before we arrived so all the state of the art equipment was brand new. We made a point of ensuring that we worked out at least once at each hotel on this trip in addition to all the walking we did. There are seven restaurants on site and we managed to dine at most. The resort is really set up so that you don't really need to leave if you didn't want to. It's also Australia's first Eco-Certified destination and one of the things we really liked about that was that the resort gives you glass refillable bottles at the water stations where you could choose sill or sparkling water. I like seeing more and more hotels go this route over providing plastic water bottles. 

The resort's location made day trips super easy. One such day trip was 20 minutes north to Mossman Gorge. The gorge has plenty of trails for hiking/walking. It's such a peaceful and beautiful place and as part of the Daintree Rainforest, Mossman Gorge contains the oldest, continuously surviving rainforest on the planet. It's just one hectare of the 120,000 hectare forest and contains over 30,000 species of plants and animals. The Daintree Rainforest has survived for over 135 millions years and it was pretty special to step into it and immerse ourselves in the forest during our hike knowing that we were hiking amongst something that old. Despite it being the beginning of fall in Australia, Port Douglas and north are much closer to the equator and the weather was still quite hot and very humid. Jumping into the gorge after our hike was extremely refreshing. We were there at a good time for this where the gorge wasn't running fast or even high. 

On another day trip adventure we ventured even further north and had to even take a short 10 minute cable ferry to get deep into the Daintree Rainforest. The rainforest was listed as a World Heritage site in 1988 and is one of the most complex rainforest ecosystems on earth. We spent a good amount of time taking a self guided audio walking tour through the Daintree Discovery Centre which gave us a really immersive experience exploring the different rainforest layers on the aerial walkway which provided spectacular views of the mid-level rainforest. The walkway led to the canopy tower which as 23 metres high provides amazing view of the forest floor to the upper reaches of the forest canopy. The walkway also brings you down to the forest floor where you get a completely different experience and view and you stare up at the enormous trees reaching into the sky. The audio part of the tour gave us a lot of information about the various different flora and fauna that call the rainforest home. The species diversity is mind blowing, with over 920 different types of trees, 130 different species of reptiles, more types of snakes than I care to know exist, birds, frogs, and invertebrates - we actually saw a mantids. We were on the look out for cassowaries but did not encounter one here; it was mid day so probably a bit too hot to be out and about. It was an amazing time exploring not only the discovery centre but also driving through the rainforest and checking out some of the other hikes in the area and finding an empty pristine beach that once again we could not swim at. It was on this day trip where we tried crocodile in a burger form. The meat was a lot more tender than I had thought it would be, and it didn't taste that bad but it didn't seem to work as a burger. Perhaps it was the seasoning, or perhaps it was just the meat but both of us only had a few bites before we gave up on it. Thankfully we had also ordered a beef burger. And to cap off the day, we treated ourselves to some amazing ice cream at the Daintree Ice Cream Co. This was a pretty popular spot and we thankfully arrived just before a big tour bus pulled in. 

When it Port Douglas, you have to book either a snorkelling or diving tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We found a tour through Calypso that did both so Z decided to dive two of the spots while I snorkelled and then joined me snorkelling at the last spot. The conditions were steller on our tour day, the water was calm, the boat was a catamaran making it a smooth ride out, the crew was amazing, and the sun was shining. It took about an hour and a half to get to the Opal Reef which is situated about 50 kilometres off the coast in the Coral Sea. The conditions couldn't have been better, at least for the first two stops. The water was crystal clear with amazing visibility. The reef was so alive with a diverse and abundant marine life. It was amazing to see and swim with so many variety of colourful fish and around vibrant coral gardens. I was so happy to see the coral appear in such great health too as we've heard stories over the years about how the Great Barrier Reef coral is dying. Some on the tour saw a turtle, but I was a bit far away and by the time I got there it had moved on. I did see a jelly and stayed well clear of it even though we had full head to toe stinger suits on. At one point I also got to see Z diving below me which was pretty cool as I've never seen him diving in open water before. At our second stop along with seeing an amazing amount of colourful fish again, I got to see a reef shark as well swimming towards me. I didn't panic which is a major feet for me and thankfully it decide to veer off before it got too close. I had already decided that I'd be the one veering if it didn't first. The third stop off lunch the water had become a bit more choppy as a rain cloud passed over and it made it a bit less interesting for me to spend too much time in the water even though this time Z was with me, and I cut it a bit short as I was feeling tired from the first two stops and not overly interested in dealing with the small swells. 

We made our way inland and explored the Atherton Tableland area which is a mix of rainforest, wetlands, and agricultural lands. We found out way to Granite Gorge Nature Park where we hiked on the granite rock formations, exploring the lovely scenic views from high above, and got to interact and feed the uninhibited rock wallabies who are somewhat shy at first but enticed by food. Once comfortable that you aren't a threat, they would come right up to you and eat right out of your hand. We found a local ice cream cafe called Emerald Creek Ice Creamery where we first had a light lunch before indulging in some of the best ice cream ever!! This family run ice creamery is certainly worth a visit!! We also found our way to Barron Falls after a short walk from the parking lot along a well built and maintained walkway through the forest. The falls are comprised of four drops, 260 metres cascading over a granite rock face into pools below before making their way further down the gorge. This was a stunning sight to see with the beautiful rainforest around it making it one of the most beautiful waterfalls I've seen. From here we drove back towards the coast to Cairns to check out the city a bit before making our way back to Port Douglas. Had we planned a bit better we would have gone another day when some of the farmer's markets were open, but man, what a lovely way to spend a day exploring the area. The scenery was absolutely incredible all around. 

We rounded out our week in Port Douglas and area with a visit to Hartley' Crocodile Adventures, a 10-hectare wildlife sanctuary and ecotourism park. In addition to crocodile feeding show, you can walk on the many trails throughout the park and discovery much more wildlife than just the crocs. We saw koalas, kangaroos, finally found a couple cassowaries, and more wallabies. During the lagoon boat ride you learn about the natural habitat in which the rescued crocodiles live along with getting to see their hunting skills as the guide lures the crocs with chicken on a pole for feeding. The park is also  a crocodile farm where it breeds and raises crocs for their meat and skin. The farm raises Estuarine crocodiles whose skin is particularly popular in fashion for its high quality grade skin. We toured this part of the park and learned why farm raising crocs leads to sustainability and conservation of wild crocs and their habitats. It's illegal to kill a wild croc in Australia. 

After a week of relaxing lagoon side at our resort and exploring the surrounding area, discovering so many cool new sights, trying new foods, and having the best day out at Opal Reef snorkelling and diving, it was time to head back to Cairns Airport and hop on a 2.5 hour flight south to Sydney for the last few days of this incredible trip. 

Aussie bound

We had talked about a return trip to Australia for some time and thought this year would be the year, though originally we talked about travelling there later in the year. But an opportunity came up to join a special celebration in March that helped seal the deal. The plan was to explore a couple areas we had not explored on our trip 11 years ago and then head to Sydney to join the celebration festivities. We had booked a direct flight into Brisbane, rented a car and planned to drive over to the Gold Coast to explore the surrounding area, then head back to Brisbane for a couple days before flying down to Sydney. The night before we were set to leave, we discovered a weather system that was hanging off the coast of Brisbane and threatening the area to make landfall as a cyclone during our time there. This made us rather concerned as it would put a huge damper on our plans but more importantly could be devastating for the locals and cities affected. Being a tourist there while this was going on seemed irresponsible. So, we made the last minute decision to revamp our entire first week and a half of our trip to avoid the cyclone. Thankfully everything we had booked had cancellation options and it was low season, so outside of the stress and extra work to cancel and rebook everything that we had planned for a couple months, we (let's be honest here, Z did all the work) managed to rejig our entire front end of this trip. The only unchanged part was our red-eye direct flight to Brisbane. 

The advantage of this flight is arriving in the morning so you can get time zone adjusted quickly. The flight itself, while long, was quite good. We both got a decent amount of broken sleep which helped and the time did seem to go by quickly. Arrival in Brisbane was smooth and going through immigration was pretty quick and very easy. The late summer heat was noticeable immediately after deplaning and was very welcome. We quickly got on our way to the hotel and thankfully our room was ready when we arrived. This makes a huge difference after a long flight. After a quick refresh we started our exploration of Brisbane on foot. We had a couple days in Brisbane before heading north and we were fortunate that Cyclone Alfred decided to continue its pause off the coast and not create a disturbance while we were here. There was plenty of coverage and news trying to prepare people for when Alfred was expected to make landfall; some locals considered it scare tactics, but it’s better to be safe and prepared than not. All estimations had Alfred make landfall a few days after we would move on. We did notice the wind increase though over our couple days in Brisbane. 

Brisbane is a multi cultural city situated along the Brisbane River. We stayed at the W Brisbane, a funky new hotel situated along the river’s boardwalk. We had a beautiful river view from our one bedroom suite. The city is quite walkable with numerous bridges connecting north and south Brisbane. There is a water taxi service that costs $0.50 per ride that is very efficient. Their larger sized ferries are called City Cat, a smaller one called Kitty Cat, and one called City Dog. You can guess how these ferries are painted. Also available everywhere are scooters for rent, again an easy and convenient way to get around. There are lots of parks and green space throughout the city and in the south bank neighbourhood you can also find a city beach call Streets Beach in the middle of a park. We found plenty of great eateries, including a Columbian restaurant which we really enjoyed, and coffee shops which didn't seem to stay open much past mid afternoon. 

The city is filled with old and new architecture, mostly skyscrapers. The recently completed Brisbane casino precinct at Queen's Wharf is worth a visit. This is a mixed-use development that includes the Star Brisbane casino, a hotel, shopping, and many restaurants. But the highlight is the arc-shaped sky deck that offers 360-degree views situated 100 metres above the Brisbane River, is free to access and has several restaurants and bars. The city is amazing to see at night as well as all the bridges are lit up in different vibrant colours and many of the buildings along the river are donned in lights too. Taking the water taxi at night is a great way to see the city lights. We felt quite safe walking around the city at times of the day and night. We felt we got a good sense of Brisbane in our three days there.