Sorrento and the Island of Capri

On July 3^rd, we set off bright and early to drive from Rome to the city of Sorrento. The drive was about 4 hours, and it was just beautiful!! The view from the bus was incredible, as we did part of the drive right next to the water.

Once we arrived in Sorrento we had time to explore the very cute city. It is known for its production of Limoncello, which is a lemon liquor. We all had a chance to try it out at a limoncello production store, and it’s pretty good!!
Since Sorrento isn’t a very large city, it was easy to walk around by foot, and I spent a few hours checking out the shops and eating delicious gelato!
That night we had dinner at a very nice restaurant overlooking the sea. The view from our table was so pretty:

That night we woke up to a very unpleasant and disturbing surprise in our hotel room. My 2 roommates and I were fast asleep in the middle of the night when we heard loud banging on our door. We decided not to answer the door for safety reasons. A few minutes later we heard a key in the lock, the door opened, the light turned on, and a man peeped his head in!! We were all shocked!! He then started questioning us about whether we had changed rooms and how we got this room, etc., and to top things off, he then let another man into the room to search for his football. Apparently this other man was a guest at the hotel and had our room before us and he had left his football in the room. When we didn’t answer his loud banging, he asked the front desk to let him into our room (a room of 3 young ladies, in the middle of the night) so he could find his football. And for some reason unknown to me, the front desk man let him do it! We were all so startled and half asleep when it happened that we couldn’t think fast enough to stop the two men from coming into the room.
Luckily they just took the football and left. But we were all very upset about it and had trouble sleeping from then on. We investigated the door and there is no way to double lock the door from the inside to prevent unwanted guests (with keys) from entering. The next morning we told our Contiki tour manager about it and she was shocked and appalled at this completely inappropriate, unprofessional, invasion of privacy. She discussed it with the hotel staff, who brushed the incident off as if it were no big deal. They agreed to give the three of us girls all limoncello shots to make up for it. We were all very upset and angry with the hotel management about this incident. Needless to say I’m almost positive that Contiki will not be booking with this hotel ever again. And I am telling all my readers: if you are ever visiting the beautiful city of Sorrento (which I would highly recommend) I would strongly advise you to NOT stay at the “Hotel Tourist”.
The next day, July 4^th, we spent the whole day on the beautiful Island of Capri!
We went on a boat cruise around the whole island. Below is a photo of me and some of the girls on the boat.

Our first stop on our boat cruise was the Blue Grotto, which is a small sea cave. It is entered by small boats, through a very small passageway. We had to climb out of our large boat into these small 4-5 person boats in order to enter.
The line-up of boats all waiting to enter:

The boat driver all instructed us to duck as we went into the very small entrance:

Inside the cave is a very spectacular sight: the blue water shines very brightly with the reflection of the sun through the small opening to the cave.

After the Blue Grotto we continued in the boat to see the beautiful island:


Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a summer villa on the island?


We then went to the Green Grotto. The boat driver stopped the boat and told us all to jump out. He pointed to the Grotto and said he would meet us on the other side. After a slight hesitation, we all stripped down to our bathing suits and jumped into the water!!
Below is a photo of the entrance to the Green Grotto. Unfortunately my camera isn’t waterproof so I had to leave it in the boat while I went into the water and swam through the cave!!

Swimming through the cave was the highlight of my day!! The water was so beautifully blue, and the cave was so interesting!! It was also incredibly refreshing, as it was extremely hot outside in the sun!! When we got out at the other end our boat driver was waiting for us.
We then stopped the boat at a beach on the island. The view was just beautiful!!


We then went on the boat to the famous Faraglioni, which is the name of the three large rocks off the island of Capri:

We drove our boat right through the middle of the center rock.

It is said that if you kiss your significant other while inside the arch of the middle rock then you will have everlasting love with them. I didn’t have anyone to kiss on the boat, but a set of newlyweds on our tour used this opportunity to secure their love for each other.
After the boat tour, I made my way over to the beach to soak up some sun and then finally I checked out all the shops!
All in all, it was a wonderful, fun and very memorable day on the Island of Capri!!