It’s been a long day, so I’m planning on a short letter to you so I can go to bed soon! Philip and I were up at 4.30 this morning and walked through to Heathrow airport. We waited at the designated spot for our Oak Hall group going to Italy but couldn’t find them. Still not sure where they met. Philip rang the emergency numbers we were given, and eventually found the right contacts and we were rushed through, for which we were very grateful. A smaller plane and a two and half hour flight to Naples. I got a window seat – mostly clouds. But as we flew over the Alps the clouds cleared and I was surprised at their height, and how steep the dark green mountains topped with snow were. They were much more extensive than I’d realised.

From the airport, we had a coach ride for an hour south of Naples on a four-lane highway. Lots of dilapidated two to four storey buildings with laundry or plants on their balconies and lots of weeds and quite a bit of rubbish strewn around. We drove south down the winding coast road, the high, steep, dark green hills tumbling almost straight down into the Mediterranean Sea, with houses and towns perched up and down the steep hillsides. We’re in a mid-range hotel in a town that’s called Vico Equense – it’s between Naples and Sorrento. But all the towns along this coastline seem to run into each other, and I can’t see where one starts and the next begins.

The streets are very crowded with tiny shops, not much bigger than a closet opening straight onto the street. Scooters, motorbikes and small cars whizz by very fast. It is much warmer here and we changed into shorts and sandals.

Our hotel wasn’t ready for our group. We left our ports in the lobby and went off to find pizza for lunch. The pizzas were about half a metre long – enough for several people. I can’t eat pizza, and Philip’s pizza tastebuds aren’t suitable to share with most other people. So I suggested he and I go off to find something else. We found a little shop where Philip bought a bread roll and we asked for one slice of prosciutto cut from one of the huge hams hanging all round the shop for him. I bought a couple of peaches and some figs. I mimed and gesticulated at our needs, and it was fun to be in another language. I guess I could have used Google Translate, but where’s the fun in that?

We walked back to our hotel and ate our lunch at a pergola where you could see the sea in the background between a couple of buildings, and we sat under a huge pergola of wisteria to eat it. The peaches were not quite ripe, but refreshingly tart and juicy. The figs were very disappointingly bland and they were what I was most looking forward to eating. We were there for several hours and chatted to some interesting people from the group when they arrived back from their pizzas.

Our leader, Lisa-Rose a Scottish girl took us for a walking guided tour around our immediate area to help us get our bearings. Here’s Philip at a lookout with Mount Vesuvius in the background.

And here’s a nearby beach where we can go swimming. Swim anyone? I will probably have a swim there later on, just so I can say I’ve done it. Something to tick off my list, but at this stage, it doesn’t look appealing. Coarse black sand and lots of pebbles. There’s a swimming pool here at the hotel that I doubt I’ll use. This photo does show how far down the ocean is though.

We’ve done our laundry and draped it round the bathroom and the room and had our dinner at the hotel. I didn’t think I was a food snob, but I was disappointed with the food – very carb-heavy and not a lot of flavour. But we had some fascinating conversations with people from our group while we ate. I’m now definitely ready for bed and won’t need much rocking to sleep! It’s already been so much fun with new experiences to relish and treasure.