Day 2: from London to Salerno, Italy

Wednesday, we woke up, re-packed our bags, grabbed breakfast, and lugged our stuff to the tube. We had a hard time finding a train with room for us and our stuff. They were very crowded at 9:00 am. Finally we just pushed our way onto one, and we were ready for the hour-long ride to Heathrow airport. Unfortunately, the train had zero ventilation, and I started feeling very bad. When a seat opened up, I took advantage of it, but the ride seemed unbearably long. I was more light-headed than nausous, but the headache was just awful. When we finally arrived, I managed to pull my suitcase to the Alitalia desk, where there was a line of over 50 people. Fortunately, it was moving, if slowly. By the time we got to the front ourselves, I was in real danger of passing out. So I sat on the dirty floor while Greg handled check-in. Then he carried my small carry-on the rest of the morning. We spent less than an hour in the airport before we got on the plane. The flight was delayed a little, and they didn't display the gate number until they called for boarding. I was able to lay down for most of that time, and felt much better. Then we were off to Milan.

The airport we flew into, Linate, was rather small. There is another airport in Milan, so maybe it is bigger. When our plane landed, it didn't pull up to a gate. Instead we had to walk off the plane and into a bus, which drove us 50 yards to the door. We had about an hour before our flight to Naples, so we just sat and did some reading.

Getting onto the plane for Naples was fun. Of course, no one queued up orderly; it was just a free-for-all crowd. Greg and I really stood out. There were zero other tourists on the flight, and all the Italians were dressed in dark colors, most of them in business suits.

We arrived in Naples shortly after sunset. Again, our plane did not pull up to a gate, even though there were plenty of open spots. Once in the airport, we tried to pull 400 Euros out of an ATM, but kept getting an error. So we went ahead and got on the bus to Stazione Centrale. The drive there didn't take more than 15 minutes, and was just fascinating. The city is definitely the least clean we've seen in Europe. I hope that tomorrow is trash day, because every dumpster was overflowing with at least another two dumpsters' worth of trash spilling out onto the streets. Graffiti was plentiful, and most of the buildings looked in need of repairs or at least fresh paint. But there were people standing out everywhere. Dirty or not, they live here. Lots and lots of them. The driving was just as exciting as we'd expected. I'm not sure the bus driver remembered that he was not in his own small car.

We arrived at the train station and attempted to purchase a ticket to Salerno, but they only took cash. So we tried another ATM, but it was from the same bank as the one at the airport, so we went across the street and tried two more. After continuing to get errors, we finally called our bank on our $3-a-minute phone and were on hold forever. They couldn't seem to get ahold of the right person, then the right person couldn't figure out why we were having a problem. Finally she suggested that maybe the atm had a limitation on withdrawals, so we tried again. Ta da! Stupid problem, easily fixed, but it ate up a lot of our time. We missed the last express train to Salerno, so had to take the regular one that makes all the extra stops. We left the station around 9:00 and arrive about 10:15. Once in Salerno, we took a $13 cab ride to our hotel. Fortunately, 10:30 is not too late for dinner in Italy.

The hotel recommended a little mom-and-pop casual ristorante just around the corner. They were a bit flustered when we came in so late, and only gave us one choice of food: spaghetti al vuogli (sp?). I asked for mine without the mussels, so she offered me gnocchi alla sorentino. We both enjoyed our meals and watched Italy win the Europe soccer championship on the tv. We were the last customers left by the time we had finished, around 11:15. Tired and full, we were ready for bed.

Tomorrow is our big Amalfi coast drive!

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