Tag: Europe

Best Pizza in Napoli!

Sorrento is beautiful. Everyone says that right? “Oh you’re going to Sorrento? Its beautiful!” And it’s true – Italy never disappoints. You can choose to stay in the town, but it makes a great base for exploring the local area, plus day trips to Pompeii  and Ischia.

Flying into Naples – just a 2.5hr flight from London – gives you a chance to visit the city first, or take the bus straight to Sorrento. At €10 it’s not cheap but its easy, direct and the scenery (if unlike me you can stay awake!) is much more impressive than the cheaper rail alternative. Not to mention the impossibly narrow streets that somehow accommodate head to head coaches! Just over an hour later you’ll be sipping a coffee or cocktail in one of the many bars in town. Happy days!

Wandering round Sorrento is rather splendid. A little town split by a raveen and perched, fledgling-like on a cliff edge, Sorrento offers small shingle beaches, stall-lined cobbled streets and enough food and drink to satisfy even the most ravenous of tourists.  Visit Vallone dei Mulini, a minutes walk from the main piazza, which houses an old mill deep in the valley of the town. Its a pretty cool relic overgrown with moss and surrounded by lush Amazonian vegetation and a small stream that runs to the sea. Its a little slice of tranquility bizarrely situated 50 feet below a busy road. From there you can walk down to Marina Grande via a pavement-less meandering road to lay on the tiny beach, spot scurrying cats looking for fish and see Vesuvius across the bay, bearing down on the city of Naples. Grab a table by the waters edge or have a picnic. Not a bad way to spend a day.

If that wasn’t enough to get you Sky Scanning then perhaps Positano will entice you. 45 minutes further along the coast (and some more hair-raising costal roads) this epic village proffers striking colourful buildings semi-circled around the beautiful sandy beach. However, be warned – if you commit to walking from the bus stop down to the beach, prepare yourself for many many stairs! Taxis will ask you for 2 handfuls of gold in exchange for the short trip so take a slow walk and you’ll find all sorts to amuse you on the way. Positano is expensive, but once you are supping your €6 diet coke in the sun with some chill out music and a view to rival any other you won’t care! There are lots of shops and restaurants – we found a brilliant place hidden from the tourists that made delightful local dishes, but I don’t want to spoil it by telling you where! (follow the road into the the cliff) I will however say be careful with the buses – the advertised times are only a guide, make sure you’re at the bus stop a good 15 minutes beforehand, if you miss the last one its a long walk home!

We also managed a quick trip to Capri (accent the CA-pri to sound like a local) which start at around €55 including minibus to and from the port, ferry and boat trip around the island. We knew that Capri was gonna be expensive, especially as we discovered that there is no more planning permission to build, so current real estate sells for around €12,000 per square meter! Yes Capri is expensive but its not hard to see why – walking through white-painted alleyways without knowing where they lead, the sparkling sea gently kissing white sands…Its easy to see why people are willing to pay so much to live here! We collapsed in oversized deck chairs with a frozen cocktail, lulled into catatonia by the blissful sound of the waves and the baking sun. It was impossibly beautiful – and crowded! Be prepared to fight your way onto the bus that saves you from the uphill trek from the beach back to the town (worth it though).

Our last stop was Naples where we queued for 2 hours to sample the best pizza in Italy. It was pretty good, but I was so hungry I would have eaten the box by that point! But its the thing to do and the queue remained jovial (aided by the local bars selling beers while you wait) and the service was swift and friendly. And after 2 beers on an empty stomach you almost don’t care how good the pizza is! If you like shopping then Naples is the place for you. If not, stroll around the harbour to watch the cruise ships coming and going, find a cool bar for a drink or some music – the choice is yours. Italy provides all the goods – so get going!

Greece – A Cretan Introduction

DSC_03192 weeks of island hopping ahead, where better to start than Crete, with its prolific history and antiquated beauty? I knew nothing about Greece, having only stopped overnight in Athens en route to Cairo once in 2010. So I was hoping to explore, learn and eat everything I could in the time I had there. I admit I was a little nervous about backpacking alone (it has been a while) so I took a friend with me for the first bit to ease me in gently!

Arriving in Hania (Also Chania and Chani – this happens a lot in Greece) – easy, actually. After a slightly delayed – and slightly boozy flight it was simple to find the airport bus waiting right outside (buy your ticket at the little booth before boarding). Its roughly 30 minutes to the bus station, and with a bit of help from Google maps we arrived at our beach hotel, and most importantly, the beach! After the longest GoT winter at home the weather was gorgeously hot and not a cloud in the sky! We grabbed a couple of free sun loungers and promptly passed out, our pasty bodies soaking up the heat like hungry lizards. Hania seafront is a lovely little road (currently being re-tarmacked) dotted with the usual hotels, restaurants and little news agent-type shops that always hold some secret and fantastically foreign treasures. We found gin-in-a-tin which was a fab way to keep the party going until the sun slinked behind some lowly clouds and it was time to find some dinner.

We wandered up towards the pretty little harbour to a busy but sedate restaurant overlooking the water for a fabulous dinner of seafood and salmon (no veggie options here unfortunately) and were given a free dessert too! This, it turns out, is very common throughout Greece, and part of the laidback, rather drawn out experience of eating – there’s no rushing, you should expect to be sat for at least an hour and a half and will usuallybe given a dessert or a shot of raki (local grape-based aperitif that tastes like petrol) or both! I believe it is supposed to aid digestion rather than get you drunk, though I can’t say it did a lot for my stomach!

The next day we trekked back to the rather modern bus depot for our next stop of Iraklion (Heraklion, Iraklio) which is the ‘capitol’ of Crete. For €15 a comfortable coach took us along the winding, mountainous roads, stopping at undisclosed but apparently locally known bus stops along the way. Some of the places looked beautiful! Iraklion was busy with traffic and tourists compared with Hania, but it was reasonably easy to navigate (ish – there’s a few twists that throw you) and we found our Airbnb apartment on the coast road. We checked in and went exploring immediately which included lunch in the tourist area I would usually avoid. But I have to say my veggie risotto was delicious and it was genuinely delightful to sit in the shade of a huge tree and watch the world do its thing circling the Morosini fountain, which is the main hub. We meandered around in the sunshine stumbling across the usual old churches and relics of all European towns and culminating with a walk out to the fort with a melty ice cream!

For dinner we may have got a little bit tipsy and wandered into the buzzing hipster quarter of the town around Al Greco Park. Again no veggie options but I have to say the €7 moussaka was incredible! On our way home we stopped for water (and possibly more wine) and ended up having a hilarious drinking session with Vlad, a Russian shop owner who was clearly keen to make friends for the night. He had a little stash of raki and something made from bergamot which was delicious, and every person that entered was initiated into our private drinking club! Brilliant, random fun – if you’re ever there please go say hi from us and see what I wrote on the wall about Jesus! (it made sense at the time).

With sore heads we left the next day to explore Knossos, the Minoan capitol of Crete which houses the ruins of the legendary palace built in 7BC. Supposedly the palace was designed so that once you were inside you couldn’t get out!

dsc_0374-e1528458682269.jpgIt is also the basis of the myth of the Theseus and the minotaur. It was reconstructed – rightly or wrongly – by a Brit called Arthur Evans, and this allows you to get a real sense of the place which was eventually destroyed by earthquakes. It is definitely worth the 30min bus ride and the entrance fee – as is the archeology museum which you can buy for an extra euro. (The museum is in Iraklion town, don’t ask to visit at Knossos because they look at you like you’re crazy!). The restaurant there was surprisingly good value too, and no tourist day out would be complete without browsing the tat shops on the way back to the bus stop!

 

 

 

 

Our evening was spent at the not-as-trendy-as-it-looks Café Mar on the seafront, just west of the fort. Its a great place for sunset and the drinks were large and the food tasty. Although we were the only ones in the place drinking anything other than coffee! I know that the drinking culture in Greece is cavernously different from the UK’s obliteration ethos but still, it was Saturday night! So we took full advantage of the giant-sized sangrias and the veggie and vegan options which were not half bad. I recommend it for a chilled evening out away from the tourists.

The next day was filled with weather warnings arriving from the east, so we decided to try and outrun the storm by heading 1 hour west to Rethymno, a simply gorgeous place right on the Cretan sea with a tiny beach, sprawling waterfront and beautiful cobbled streets meandering behind the hipster cafes. Along the way through stunning surroundings of fluorescent pink and yellow flowers against stark grey rocks we kept seeing these clusters of coloured crates. They almost look like beehives or chests of drawers. We couldn’t work out what they were for – I’d love to find out!

Its hard to know where to start with Rethymno’s abundance of qualities: Sipping cocktails by the water’s edge, men fishing by the lighthouse, groups of lazy 20 somethings lounging on sofas drinking coffee, the ominously-looming old fort overlooking the town. Best of all for me – wandering round the old streets not knowing where you’ll end up or what you’ll discover next. Every corner seems to unleash more beauty than the last. A truly stunning part of Crete that deserves a visit. You have to go, you have to!

Crete is easy to get around, friendly and inviting. It was a great launch pad for a trip around the Cyclades, which is what I chose to do. Travel to and from Athens is possible, as well as the Dodecanese and daytrips to Santorini. If Greece isn’t in your top 10 then you’re gonna need a new list. It just gets better and better.

Next stop – Naxos!