Final Trip Photos

And here are the rest of the Siena photos that I wanted to share...

Siena's Main Square, Il Campo

Duomo interior - reminds me of a Dr. Seuss book

We spotted this through an open doorway on a quiet street - no idea of it's significance, but wouldn't you love to ride in this carriage!

Duomo exterior is so ornate and fun

Duomo exterior again - I loved how this lion seems to be looking right at me

We came across this...thing while attempting a shortcut to Siena's market; it's not listed in any of my guidebooks. There are two more arches just like this one, a pool of water in the covered area (filled with koi) and a tiny amphitheater. We liked the two decorative lions here having a little chit-chat.

Several times, we found ourselves on a road with a view towards this church. We never found out the name of it, but we always paused to enjoy the view.

Panoramic View of the Duomo and the rolling hills of Tuscany

Travels in Italia - Siena

Our final stop on the Italy tour was Siena, and what a finale! We had a rough start with a windy, bus ride through foggy Tuscany that left both of us feeling a little carsick. When we finally arrived in Siena, we set off for our hotel, this one being the only hotel for which we didn't have a good map of the city or clear directions. An interesting fact about Siena: it is hilly. Very, very hilly. At this point, I'd done almost all of my Christmas shopping and about half of my birthday shopping for the rest of the year, so traveling light was a distant memory. After a long slog up and down hills, backtracking about six times, and passing a breathtakingly beautiful Duomo, we reached our gorgeous hotel, Il Chiostro del Carmine, located in what was originally a 14th century Carmelite monastery. Entering into the courtyard of our hotel wiped away all the negatives from our Volterra hotel and exhausting walk to the hotel. Peaceful and beautiful...we were back on our hotel jackpot streak.

After a little rest, we hit the town, or at least Il Campo, Siena's main piazza. I'd visited Siena in 2003 and remembered only one thing about the entire city - Il Campo. It's a huge, sloping, circle, anchored at the bottom by the City Hall and it's huge tower (over 300 ft) on one side. I love Rick Steves' description of the Il Campo colors in his Florence & Tuscany 2011 guidebook: "The square and the buildings are the color of the soil upon which they stand...a color known to Crayola-users and other artists as 'Burnt Siena.'" The setting sun hits those colors and cause the piazza to turn a glowing pink, giving evidence to the reason artists flock to Tuscany. In need of a little refresher, we headed to Il Palio for cocktail hour and sat at the window staring out at this beautiful town square. We only left when a man sat down outside and caught us staring at his luscious, pink martini. Apparently, he mistook the lust in our eyes as aimed at him, so in order to avoid an awkward moment, we quickly paid our bill and headed off to dinner.

The next day, our only full day in Siena, we walked through the car-free old town to the weekly market, held on Wednesdays. A little note here - markets in Italy can cover a wide range of items. Generally, the solo word "market," means clothing and household items, possibly a section with produce and flowers. Markets a big deal here to American spouses - huge deal, actually. I've only been to one so far. I have no good reason or excuse for this. The one I visited here in Naples was interesting, but filled with an awful lot of junk. K thought the same about the Siena market, but I was wowed by it. I absolutely loved it. We found a vendor selling mill ends for thread/yarn on cones (K and I both knit) for only 2euros per cone, there were children's wool coats, lined in silk, for only 15 euros, and so much more. But, we were only in Siena for a day, and we had several more things to see.

We needed some lunch and picked a place we passed while walking on a quiet street near our hotel. Seated next to an Australian couple living in Siena, we got to talking with them. As it turns out, by sheer luck, we'd landed in one of Siena's best restaurants. We enjoyed our lunch so much that we immediately made a reservation for dinner as well - the final dinner of our trip.

Feeling much better with a good lunch in us, we headed to Siena's wedding cake, 13th century, Duomo. It is spectacular. Black and white striped columns line the nave, inlaid marble designs cover the floor, there's a Michelangelo sculpture, a Bernini chapel (my favorite sculptor, and unfortunately, the chapel was closed for restoration...which means I will definitely be back), a carved, marble pulpit that is so intricate I can't even believe human hands created it, and best of all, a side library with vibrant frescoes, painted in the 1400s and never restored, yet still as bright as if they'd been painted last year. The Michelangelo statue adorns an alter that was supposed to be for the tomb of a cardinal. That cardinal became a pope, so the tomb was never used. Michelangelo was supposed to carve several of the altar's statues, but the "David" project came up, so he left Siena having only completed one statue. Visiting the side library with the vibrant frescoes, we took note of the strong warning to keep the line moving - then entered to find a completely empty room. where we could stare and take photos to our hearts' content. I love off-season Italy!

Duomo interior is as beautiful as it's exterior

Michelangelo's statue of Paul

The Piccolomini Library's amazing frescoes tell the story of Pope Pius II, who was from Siena

Just a small section of the marble pulpit, with relief panels telling the story of Christ's life; It was carved by Pisano in the 1200s.

One of the many marble, mosaic floor panels - this one shows Siena in the center with other, lesser cities surrounding her

With the plan to climb the tower of City Hall, we headed over there and disappointingly found it had closed just after lunch. So back we trekked to the Duomo, where there is a museum with a rooftop, panoramic view. We just made it in before they closed and got to run up for a marvelous view over the town and countryside. This gave the added bonus of being able to view the exhibit containing the original, stained glass window of the Duomo up close, as the museum has it in a beautiful, well-lit display.

And so, our trip came to a close. I can't think of a better city in which to end. K preferred Florence to Siena, but I really fell in love with Siena. Even in the off season, the streets were crowded at dusk, time for the passagiatta (typical, Italian walk around town at dusk), so the town was active enough to not feel creepy yet small enough to have a quiet vibe. I cannot wait to return.

Volterra Catch Up

I completely forgot to mention one of the most interesting things about Volterra! K and I found this beautiful, stone pathway on our way to the "other side of town" - Volterra is very small, so the other side of town was less than a 10 minute walk. As we walked along, we noticed this old fortress up on the hill. Thinking it was some sort of tourist site to visit, we checked the guidebook that night to see if we'd want to visit it in the morning. We definitely do NOT want to visit it. This is a Medici fortress, about 500 years old, and now a maximum security prison holding only 30 of the criminals the Italian government consider the most dangerous. I suppose an old fortress is a pretty good place to use for this sort of thing.

And now, as I've done with the other cities from this trip, a few more photos:

A Foggy Morning in Volterra

The Roman ruins were even more interesting as they appear out of the fog

We were able to peek through some doorways and windows; Volterra was full of interesting ceilings - arches & frescoes abound.

Despite being above the clouds, the Tuscan sunset was stunning

More Firenze Photos

As I did with Venice, I've now gone back and added some photos to the previous blog posts. You can scroll down to those posts if you want to see the embedded photos. In addition, I've put up a few more of my favorite photos in this post...as you'll see, I'm a big fan of the up close statue photos...

A beautiful grave statue at San Miniato Church

Duomo

Odd little statue tucked into a niche in an alley.

Part of the Duomo exterior

Base of statue in Piazza della Signoria

Found my dream car!

Base of the arches in the sculpture-filled loggia of Piazza della Signoria

Just one of the gorgeous statues in Piazza della Signoria loggia

Campanile (Bell Tower) of Duomo

Travels in Italia - Volterra

This was K's Grand Tour of Italy before returning to the U.S. I lobbied for a hill town visit as that's quintessential Italy. We picked Volterra. This would have been a great choice if (1) we hadn't had fog the entire time we were there blocking our view, and (2) Volterra weren't quite so off the beaten path. That appealed to us, and the trip to and from Volterra included a nice bus ride through the Tuscan countryside. Sadly, Volterra was actually ABOVE the clouds the whole time we were there, meaning that gorgeous view over the hills of Tuscany was completely obscured. In addition, this was the only hotel we booked on the fly, and it was horrible. Since we were only staying one night, it was fine, and since our trip was eleven nights and four hotels, having one bad seed wasn't too bad. Our hotel, Albergo Nazionale, only had two redeeming features: (1) It is quite literally, the closest hotel to the bus drop-off piazza, and (2) the view over the hills would have been incredible had it not been foggy. We were first assigned to a room that had not been touched by cleaning staff, even down to unmade and rumpled beds. We were then assigned to another room that had all the elements needed for a nice room, but was so dated and put together so poorly, that I stayed up all night long, waking from multiple nightmares of being eaten by bed bugs (to be fair, we did NOT get bitten by bed bugs at this hotel).

Despite this, the town of Volterra is a nice walking town. I think we were the only tourists in town, and this being the off season, many shops and restaurants were closed. Volterra does have a very interesting, Etruscan Arch, dating back to the 4th century B.C. It is part of the original city walls for this once important trade route city. Hard to imagine sleepy Volterra as one of the region's most important cities, but I suppose things can change in 2300 years.

The most amazing thing about Volterra is the virtually unadvertised, ancient Roman ruins that are fascinating. We could see no evidence of opening hours, the possibility to visit the ruins, or any other marketing ploys, but we were able to get great views by looking down from the old city walls. Apparently, these ruins were only discovered in the 1950s. There is an amphitheater, still containing parts of the columned stage, and our guidebook states this theater dates back to 10 B.C. There also seem to be what looks like a Forum area or perhaps some covered market stalls. We had seen some little signs on Volterra's street corners pointing the way to various sites around town, but for the most part, we just wandered around on our own. This made these ruins that much more delightful to find. We had no idea of their size, and this is one of the delights of Italy. The country is chock full of absolutely ancient ruins, and you never know what you're going to find when you turn a corner. It could be a dumpster full of garbage, an ugly, Mussolini era building, or 2000 year old ruins casting a bit of ghostly magic about the surroundings.

All in all, Volterra was a nice little break, but I was glad to move on to Siena.

A Volterra Street View

Twilight fans take note...the Volturi are from Volterra and parts of New Moon are set in Volterra. However, while a few scenes were filmed here, the majority of on-location filming was in another hill town, Montepulciano

Travels in Italia - Firenze III

Our last two days were fairly relaxing and quiet. Our feet were starting to really hurt after a whole week of walking all day, every day. We ate both nights at the most fantastic restaurant, I Quattri Leoni, located in the Oltrarno neighborhood, across the Ponte Vecchia bridge. We could not get enough of the food at this restaurant, including a wonderful, avocado salad - something I haven't had since moving to Italy. Our final day, we did take the bus up to Piazza Michelangelo, on a hilltop overlooking the city. And of course, after six straight days of gorgeous blue skies, this was the day we had fog and haze. The view was still excellent, we just missed the backdrop of blue behind the rooflines. We also found where the men of Florence hang out. To our delight, the town of Florence was filled with women. Finally, we were in a place where other women were out together, eating together, in the coffee bars together - we no longer got strange looks (as happens in Naples). Up in this piazza, the men had congregated with their vintage cars. We got to walk around Cinquecentos, Fiats, a cute Katerina, Alfa Romeos - very fun and as interesting as the view over the city.

In this photo, you can see the old City wall

Behind the piazza is the San Miniato church, a cute, little confection in the same pink and green marble of the Duomo. It's quite beautiful inside, but mass was going on, so we popped in only to move our eyes around. It was freezing inside, which goes a long way in explaining why 90% of the women in the nord wear fur. Fur coats, long and short, fur on their boots, fur hats. I didn't even know people still wore fur on a regular basis. PETA would have a field day in northern Italy.

Beside the church is little shop run by the monks selling their tonics and such. This must be a big thing in these parts, monk produced toiletry items. I rather like the idea, although I've yet to try my tonics. Walking down from the church, we got to wander through the Oltrarno neighborhood, a little off the tourist path. K went on for a walk while I stopped off at Pitti Palace to visit the Costume Gallery and Argenti Museum (Treasure museum). What a complete waste of time and money. I hated both of them. I thought the layout was ridiculous, the exhibits poorly lit, oddly designed, and just plain boring. The Argenti Museum has a mandatory, extra exhibit on wine, for which 4euros is added to your ticket cost. This is just plain annoying since I had no desire to see this exhibit. The Costume Gallery is located through a maze of staircases and turns. All in all, I was disgusted. I visited the palace's Boboli Gardens eight years ago and remember them to be a peaceful haven and respite. This time, it was cold and late in the day (and I was so annoyed), so I headed back to the hotel for a long rest. It wasn't the best final afternoon in Florence, but our second dinner at I Quattri Leoni made up for it - that's the dinner where we were at a table next to actress Judy Davis for those of you who read that blog posting.

Just a random, gorgeous building

Now, on to the Tuscan hill town of Volterra...

Travels in Italia - Firenze II

We had failed to do what every guidebook recommends regarding the Uffizi and Accademia museums...get a reservation. We decided to take our chances since we were in low season, and the chance paid off. We walked in with no wait at every place we visited (Venice, too, for that matter). With the Uffizi being the grandaddy museum and knowing it would be a couple of hours of intense art overload, we headed there first. Rick Steves has some phenomenal AudioTours on iTunes, and I surely don't mind pushing them. It was great to put in my earphones and wander through the museum, leaving my hands free of a guidebook and eyes free to take in the art instead of read about it. Still, though, my absolute favorite thing about the Uffizi is the ceilings. They are magical and every single square inch is covered with gorgeous paintings. Next time I visit Florence, I am going to take a hand mirror so I can enjoy those ceilings without neck strain. One of the Uffizi's most famous paintings is Birth of Venus (this is the one where a naked Venus, with her bits and bobs covered with long, flowing hair, is standing on a half shell). I have to admit that in person, this one didn't impress me as much as I was expecting, perhaps because it's surrounded by so much other talent or perhaps because the colors are so faded. I was expecting more vibrancy...and, I'm currently in my I-like-bright-colors stage. This will change in a few years, and then favorites will change as well. With our Uffizi visit over, we needed sustenance, and found it at a lovely sandwich shop, 'Ino, right around the corner from the Uffizi. We liked it so much that we returned the next day as well.

Next up, we walked to the Accademia, via the Duomo. Now Florence's Duomo is a sight to behold. It's exterior is all white, pink and green marble, which greatly appeals to my Lilli Pulitzer love. We walked past the Duomo another night right at sunset, and when the setting sun hits the facade of this marble, it glows. A little Duomo Fun Fact: Building started on it around 1300, and it's dome was the largest in the world for hundreds of years. However, at the time of building, there was no technology for a dome of that size, so it was built with just a flat roof, the people being confident that someone would come along eventually with the knowledge to build the dome that was designed. Even today, the dome is the largest brick one ever built.

A small section of the Baptistry doors

A quick pop into the interior of the Duomo proved to be disappointing as it's practically empty and has very little magic or interesting art. So off we headed to the Accademia and our date with David. David was originally commissioned for the roof of the Duomo, so Michelangelo carved him with a disproportionately large head due to perspective. But during the work, it was decided to place him in front of Palazzo Vecchio instead. A copy stands there today while the Accademia houses the real deal. Michelangelo ticked off all his fellow sculptors of the time because while they would pick out the perfect pieces of marble, then sketch designs onto them and chip out their designs, Michelangelo would just start chiseling away. He believed the sculpture was in the marble waiting to get out. The Accademia holds several unfinished sculptures of Michelangelo as well, which gives us a great look at his incredible skill, and visitors also get to see a detailed, gorgeous, carved wooden crucifix, which Michelangelo carved at only age 17. It was a thank you gift to a church that had allowed him to dissect bodies from their hospital in order to study the human form. Age 17!

Okay...I lied. This is the interior of Florence's Duomo's dome - it has a gorgeous painting on it. However, this and a painting of Dante are really the only two pieces of artwork in the HUGE Duomo, so, relative to all the other churches we visited on our trip, Florence's Duomo interior was uninspiring...nice to visit since we didn't wait in line, but certainly not worth it at another time of year when lines are long.

After all this heavy art, it was time for some shopping. We headed to the nearby San Lorenzo market, a perfect haven for leather goods, silk ties, scarves, and trays. Haggling is acceptable here, and for those of you who read my posting on all my trip souvenirs, this market is the site of the dapper, young scarf seller. He's so adorable that you just have to buy a scarf based on his personality. This was the place for leather purses, suitcases, briefcases, wallets, and anything else that can be made out of leather. And finally, our last visit of the day was to the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy, begun as the herb garden of the church's monks about 700 years ago. Today, they sell perfume, elixirs, tonics, and even products for your pet. It's beautiful and ritzy inside, and would have been much more enjoyable without pushing and shoving tourists crowding the desks in each room. There is a room for teas and tonics, a room for home items & pet care, and a room for skin care and perfume. The staff dealt amazingly well with incredibly rude tourists, save one lady, who ignored me when I asked her a question, refused to help me in favor of people who'd come up after me to her table, then talked about me to her co-worker in Italian...but since we were in the "nord" (north), I could understand her. I only wish my Italian were good enough for me to have called her on it in Italian...it would have been a great "Pretty Woman" moment.

Have you seen the Hitchcock movie, "The Birds?" I think he got his inspiration after a visit to Florence.

After a busy day, we were ready to relax and had yet another enjoyable meal at one of Anna's restaurant recommendations, Osteria Marione. For me, one of the greatest parts of this trip was the eating out. We had delicious food everywhere we went, and it was so nice to get to order off of a menu...and to have choices other than pizza or seafood.

Venice Photos

I just embedded several photos into my previous posts on Venice. You can either scroll down to the posts or click on Venice in the Topic List on the right to see the posts with photos.

In addtion, there were a few more I wanted to share as well:

Grand Canal and Rialto Bridge

Murano Glass Art Display

The lovely colors of Burano

I love how this homeowner matched her cleaning bucket to her house

Exterior decoration of a little, tucked away theater in Venice

The horses sitting atop St. Mark's Basilica

Another Murano glass art display - with this one, when you stand in front of it, you can see  yourself in the woman's belly...very cool

I think I took about 125 pictures of gondolas - I just couldn't stop clicking that shutter

Travels in Italia - Firenze

Florence's famous, Ponte Vecchio bridge over the Arno River

Florence gave the world Galileo, Dante, Michelangelo, Donatello, Machiavelli, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, and a true example of last but not least, Salvatore Ferragamo. It ushered in the Renaissance age and woke the world up. As for K and I, we needed waking up. Venice was exhausting! We slowed our pace down in Florence, starting with our trip on the fast (Eurostar) train from Venice, which got us to Florence in about three hours. We had reservations at the lovely Hotel Relais Cavalcanti, a boutique hotel about a five minute walk from the Uffizi with two sisters running the place who are fantastic communicators. We had multiple emails prior to our visit confirming arrival time and providing incredibly detailed directions straight to the front door from the train station. After showing us the common areas and our very pretty room, Anna returned with a map of the city upon which she had handmarked in color-coded highlighters suggested sites and restaurants. She even included budget info with the restaurants! We quickly decided to follow her recommendations, and found all of them to be just great throughout our stay in her lovely city.

Sculpture filled loggia outside Palazzo Vecchio

After a little rest, we headed out at dusk to explore the neighborhood. Our hotel was located in Florence's large, pedestrian zone in the historic district, so we were able to ease back into the world of traffic slowly. About three minutes from our hotel, we happened upon an outdoor leather market, held in a place that seems like it could have been hosting outdoor markets for hundreds of years. A little guidebook searching confirmed this - Mercato Nuovo...I missed taking a look at the circled X on the ground in the center of the market. This marks the spot where people were dropped from the ceiling as a bankruptcy punishment. Another few minutes past this, and we came upon the Piazza della Signoria with it's most beautiful, covered loggia containing a multitude of large sculptures and bronze statues. By now it was dark, but this loggia was well-lit and quite magical in the dark. The piazza was quiet, and the visitors wandering around the statues were contemplative. Palazza Vecchio, Florence's Town Hall and a museum, had it's doors open, and inside we could glimpse some decorative walls. We wandered in, only to find a gorgeous courtyard with frescoed walls and ceilings, carved columns that were a riot of swirls and vines, and beautiful paintings. It was a delightful, quick visit and an introduction to the reason Florence is considered one of the art capitals of the world.

Amazing courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio (a museum and the Town Hall)

All of this walk was designed to take us towards one of Anna's recommended restaurants. Arriving at 7:10, we were too early by 20 minutes for their opening, so we headed for cocktails at the bar next door, Moyo. And there we learned an amazing secret of Florence. The cocktail bars put out appetizer spreads to rival a buffet, and these are included in the cost of your 8euro cocktail. One drink, and a person could eat their fill of cheese, sandwiches, pizza, pasta salads, chicken bites, and the list goes on. In addition, Moyo makes a real deal Bellini. The Bellini was invented by Harry's Bar in Venice and is a peach puree in prosecco (Italian version of champagne). I ordered bellinis all over Venice and kept getting this premixed, straight out of the bottle drink that you can buy in American grocery stores. Disappointing. But at Moyo in Florence, I finally got a real one...and it was good.

Travel Day Disasters

Ischia's gorgeous, rocky coastline

What an exasperating day. Nathan & I were so looking forward to our relaxing spa day at Negombo Thermal Spa on Ischia. Negombo supposedly has many thermal pools of varying temperatures (most hot) set among lush gardens. Neither of us have ever been to Ischia, either, so we were both looking forward to see this island, which is billed as an equal to Capri, but more popular among Europeans. Our take...Ischia is nice if you're going for one of the spas, but it's not an island either of us has a hankering to "explore." But I'm beginning at the end.

Our first indication of how the day was going to go should have been upon arrival at the Pozzuoli port, where we proceeded to the ticket office of MedMar, one of the two ferry companies with boats from Pozzuoli to the islands of Ischia, Capri, and Procida. At the MedMar office, which is the address on their website, we found a building locked up tight with no indication of it having been open anytime recently. Since we can see the MedMar ferry from our Glass House, we knew it was operating...but where-o-where do we go for tickets? We asked a port official and were directed to the other company, Caremar, who did not have ferry times we wanted. But, we didn't know what else to do. We bought our tickets, and about 15 minutes later, watched MedMar's ferry come in for a landing. Heading down to the boat just to get some information, we found an out of the way ticket booth tucked in right on the dock and hidden behind the marina. Too late for us, we got all the info for return trips and waited another half hour for our company's ferry. The boat was comfortable, the day was warm, the scenery was extraordinary. Crisis averted, we were on our way for spa relaxtion!

And how God laughed. We had the information for the proper bus to take to the spa, so all we needed were the tickets. Generally, in Italy, one must purchase bus tickets at newsstands or tabacco shops prior to boarding. On our way to the newsstand, we got the hard sell from a taxi driver wanting to take us to the spa for 20euros (the bus is 1.40), and as we were walking away, he tried to tell us the bus wasn't operating. Ugh. That's never a fun gauntlet to run, in any country. The newsstand did not have the all day ticket, which we thought we wanted, but the clerk directed us to the biglietteria (ticket office). We found a shop with that name on it, went in, and found one of those slick tour operators that pretend to be tourist offices. He directed us in a different direction for the biglietteria. We wandered up and down the street for awhile before finding someone else to give us more directions and finally found the bus "station," basically a small parking lot...and sure enough, a biglietteria. After a 20 minute wait, our bus arrived. Crisis #2 averted, and we were again on our way for spa relaxation.

Upon boarding the bus, we asked our driver for the Negombo stop, and he said he'd tell us. After passing three stops in the town on the island where we knew the spa to be, and three more stops down the road, the driver told us to get off and get on the bus going in the opposite direction as he'd forgotten to tell us way back when to get off. So switcharoo time, and driver #2 was kind enough to actually let us know our correct stop. Finally, a good hour after we arrived on this smallish island, we were just a short walk for our (now half) day of relaxation.

Walking down the curvy, downhill road with no sidewalks, we saw no signs indicating we were headed in the right direction. I kept thinking, why did I care about bringing a hair dryer again? Visions of salt-water hot tubs and steam rooms all day, then dressing for a nice, seaside dinner had run through my head for the last few days. Now I just wanted to throw my backpack off the cliff. We missed the almost hidden, shortcut staircase that cut off the road cutbacks down the hill, but finally made it down and found the spa...which was completely deserted. We'd checked the website, which has an entire section dedicated to winter hours and pools open in the winter. What we forgot about is that this is southern Italy. Nothing is ever logical or as it is "supposed" to be. Ever. We wandered around overgrown gardens, passed empty pools, and slipped around on mossy bricks before finally reaching a gorgeous beach set in a little cove. A couple played with their dog on the beach, but these were clearly not spa-goers. We wandered through more gardens and little hidden patios, finally passing one small hot tub filled with water and a building behind it that had steam coming out of it. Nathan went inside, only to find that there was one indoor swimming pool, the small outdoor hot tub, and a sauna open. That's it. Complete and utter bust, and at this point, we had been "traveling" for almost five hours. We'd planned on lunch at the spa's lovely restaurant overlooking the sea...which was all boarded up. In an effort to regroup, we sat on a pool patio overlooking the lovely cove, ate unripe, filched oranges from a tree in the garden, and enjoyed the warm sun. Hunger finally pushed us out.

Negombo's beach and cove - the water really was as gorgeous as it looks in the photo.

Checking the guidebook, we determined the town of Sant' Angelo, described as "chic," sounded like a nice place to have lunch. Back up the hill we went to the bus stop, and there we waited for quite a long time. By the time a bus came, we didn't even care where it was going. After a 20 minute ride, we did in fact stop in Sant' Angelo - this was the end of the line. We were so tired and had passed through several towns that had nothing looking like any type of restaurant or lunch place, so after a quick look around down the hill to the  very small village that seemed to be completely dead, we decided to get back on the bus (thankfully the driver was on break, so it was still there) to return to the ferry port. There, we could get lunch and be ready to board the next available ferry. After a long bus ride, we got to the port and found our options to be a ferry leaving in the next five minutes or wait another two hours. This disaster of a day needed to be over, so we quickly bought tickets and rushed aboard...and breathed big sighs of relief to be headed home!

Ischia has gorgeous ocean views, but the towns looked remarkably similar to the towns near our home (i.e., peeling paint covering all the buildings, and not in a charming way), the bus system is maddening and packed, it does not seem to be a walkable area at all, and we found most of the locals we encountered to be less than helpful or friendly. We will return (in-season!) to visit Negombo because we could tell just how beautiful it must be, and we'd possibly like to visit some of the other thermal spas that abound on the island, but it's just not a place I want to go and spend a weekend. Now we know.