Alessandro and I have been planning to go away somewhere for a few months now. We first thought of going to Portugal, and then we thought of Sardinia. In the end, we decided on Casamicciola, which is a town that is located on the north part of Ischia off the coast of Naples. I had never been south of Naples except to a conference in Sorrento, and I couldn't wait. Especially since most of my friends took off in August.
The past few days I had been trying to finish up a few projects and see some of my friends as well. In the end, I didn't get to see everyone I wanted, and ended up getting a broadband card for my computer so that I can get Internet by using a mobile telephone provider.
We boarded our train in Florence at almost 9AM and arrived in Naples at noon. We quickly walked to the taxi station to take a taxi to the porto (port) to catch an aliscafo (hydrofoil) to Ischia. I had never been to Naples before, and our tassista (taxi driver) took us on an interesting ride. There was a manifestazione (manifestation) at one point with garbage bags thrown in the street, so we had to go down another street, which was so narrow that two cars couldn't pass at the same time. I wasn't afraid because I was certain that the way he was driving was normal. I had never heard so many cars honking as I did in Naples.
We arrived late for our aliscafo for Casamicciola, so we took another one to Ischia Porto. After an hour of a bumpy ride across the Mediterranean, we walked across the street to catch a taxi to Casamicciola.
Once we arrived at the hotel, the guy took our documents and he quickly took us to our room. He immediately opened the doors to the terrazza (terrace) so we could look out at the Mediterranean Sea.
It was humid in Florence and Naples, but in Casamicciola, it was sunny, but not that humid. We went out for a walk around Casamicciola and took a picture of a spiaggietta (small beach) on our way to the downtown area.
We sat on a terrazza of a bar to get a drink. I was surprised that the people weren't as friendly as I had expected. Alessandro's response to me was, "Isolani (Islanders)." I had expected everyone south of Florence to be warmer as most people complain that the Florentines are freddi (cold).
I enjoyed walking along the water and looking out at the Mediterranean sea. I'm looking forward to more sunny days along the water. I wish I could say that this is really a vacation, but I had to bring my computer and get to work a little bit as well.
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