Rental car experience

Today started out just fine. We woke up at 7:00 and had nice breakfast and then headed to the airport. We took the train to Rome's central station (Termini). All things are good at this point. We then had to get another train to get to the airport to get the rental car. The train ended up being late which put us about 45 minutes after the pickup time. We then had to wait about 1.5 hours for the rental car company to get us pushed through the line. So we started off the day quite a ways behind schedule. Now the fun begins.... My first time driving anywhere outside of the United States was today. I would say the beginning was a little Harry. To start things off it was the first time I had drove a manual transmission since high school. I learned that it was just like riding a bike though, I picked it up no problem. What I was not ready for was the 19 roundabouts that I needed to go through just to get out of the airport. All I could think about was Clark W Griswold on European vacation (Big Bend... Parliament). Except for us it was..arriving flights.....rental cars.....departing flights..... Every street is twelve words long and by the time you found the right one it was too late. We eventually gave up on the street signs as very rarely were they accurate. Following the "highlighted" route turned out to be the better option.



We finally got out of the airport area and then had two hours of 81 mph (speed limit) fun from Rome all the way to Naples. Not sure how fun it was, the rental car now known as "El Lancia" did not have cruise and beeped at me every time I hit 81 mph, waking Mandy up in the process. Once we got to Naples was when the real fun begins. I read that Naples was the worst driving city in the world. I thought it seemed odd when I read that the first time, but after experiencing it, that book was spot on. I got to witness my first car passing another car IN THE SAME LANE!! I got honked at about every 3 minutes for driving the speed limit. We eventually got past naples and stumbled our way into a great little coastal town. No idea what the town was called. The problem was that it was right in the middle of town. The roads were not roads they were alleys. I eventually had to give up on looking out for the vespa's as they were flying at or near me from every direction. It was at this point that I was very happy to be driving my little 2.5 cylinder El Lancia, because I had about 4 times where I had to "get skinny" to get through the streets. We then got to meander our way through the cliffs and eventually wound up in Sorrento. Sorrento is shoppers haven. Every little boutique shop imaginable is here. The garmin told me take a right on the street that our b&b is on and I couldn't help but laugh. The street was literally 6 feet wide with wall to wall people and shops set up. I would have run over somebody for sure. Eventually we made it to the b&b and now that we are settled in life is good. Of course we immediately had to down a Litre of bier each to ease the nerves from our action packed journey..


The city itself is beautiful. We are 1 block from the cliff that over looks the ocean. They have a path that is carved into the cliff that allows you to walk down to the ocean level. We experienced our first Limone cello today. It is the famous drink of the Amalfi coast. It has to age for about a month and consists of lemon peels, sugar, and a strong dousing of Everclear!! Mandy did not realize it had Everclear in it until after she took a drink. I am pretty sure the drink has an octane rating of 86, but other than that it was good. Tomorrow we are geared up for some more driving. It will be the the famous Amalfi drive for us. And of course, we will take lots of pictures with the camera now known as "the child".

The last two pictures are either from our room or right outside our room. Lovely B&b with a nice family that owns it and a pizzeria down the street.

Ciao,
Bryce



















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Location:Rome-Sorrento