Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Here's a little taste of our twelve hour travel day to Sorrento:

Wake at 2.00 a.m. in London to take the number 37 bus at 2.30 to Clapham Junction station to take another night bus at 2.56.

The night bus took us to Liverpool street where we waited for an hour and a half (we misunderstood the schedule) to pick up the 4.40 Standstead Express train to Standstead airport.

Arrived at the airport at 5.45. Boarded the 7.20 am flight to Naples, arrived at 11.30 and sought out information about Sorrento transport.

We found out that a coach service left for Sorrento at 1.00, so we embarked on the coach at 1.00 and arrived in Sorrento about 2.

It would have been nice to enjoy a bit of Sorrento at that point, but it was raining, we still had our luggage and we had no idea where our hotel was, since we had tried calling from London and the Naples airport and still couldn't get through. Google maps wasn't very clear either. We asked around, discovered that a taxi would cost us 40 euros, and then luckily found a tourist office. They told us we could take a bus, but we had to wait an hour or so so we enjoyed a margherita pizza and calzone at a little cafe and unfortunately missed the next bus too (timetables aren't the most reliable in Italy...) Finally, at about 4.30 we got on a crowded bus and enjoyed the short trip just outside Sorrento to Massa Lubrense.

After about 15 minutes we got off a bit early, enquired at another hotel, and then were told to walk about 500 more meters along the road. Soaked by the rain and drenched by puddle water from cars who raced down the road next to us, we tried to avoid getting hit by oncoming traffic and finally arrived at the Conca Azzurra resort. Home at last! We celebrated by taking nice hot baths and eating a delicious Italian dinner.