Europe Day 18 - Naples to Paris to Singapore

Tuesday, 26 August, 2008

Last day of our European trip. Time to make our way home from Naples. We woke up at 6am, grabbed a couple of coffees and set off to look for the place to return our badly damaged hatched back.

We were running late for our very early flight, but if we could just drop it off and if we could catch the shuttle bus to the airport, we should be able to make it.

It was supposed to be a drop-off-and-go situation since it was very early in the morning and the office was not supposed to be open yet. But because we were late, the office had just opened. We went in to hand in the keys, and ended up having to fill up loads of forms for insurance claims for the damages the poor car suffered.

Luckily we had opted for all-in insurance, including excess. However there was still a 60euro admin fee. Ouch! If we had not bought excess insurance, it would have been way worse.

We then rushed to the airport.. and with some stroke of luck, the flight to Paris was delayed! Note that we still have a flight from Paris to Singapore to catch, but with my great planning skills, I had left ample time for nonsense like this plane delay.

Great, so we can have breakfast in Naples.

pb can't stand the very strong coffee I ordered. We spent some time doing some planning and admin work at this cafe at the airport.

Finally we could check in. Pb got stuck at the customs for his tripod, and had to go back out to check it in. Luckily I had gotten through so I went to buy a couple of very shitty cold sandwiches while he was sorting out all that. 'Capri' and 'Bufalino'. Well we were glaringly the only asians there, so I couldn't help but feel that we had been singled out at the customs and given a more thorough check because of our skin color. But, I can totally understand, any other airport would have done the same to the minority races. Moreover this was quite a small airport which probably gets less asian tourists than major cities like Rome and Venice.

pb doesn't like the food.


They sold cheese at the airport duty free shop! =D


Wait wait and wait some more.



First time going up the ass of the plane


We reach Paris! Guess what this is.. It's the Tax-Rebate counter! Loads of asians there trying to claim rebates for all their LV and Hermes stuff


Our last French McDonalds meal. That's a Royale Deluxe burger.


They let pets in!



the end!

Europe Day 17 - Ravello, Italy

Monday, 25 August, 2008

Q: Are these europe posts ever gonna finish?
A: Erm, yeah, very soon!!! This is the last day already!

Yeah, so let me give you a brief recap. We're still along the Amalfi Coast and have just left Amalfi town. It's already 5pm, but thankfully the days are long in the summer, so we still have time to check out Ravello. It's on the top of some hilly area so we have to drive up a little.

We were surprised to see a traffic light in the middle of one of the slopes up, causing some kind of a jam. Probably for alternating between the up/down one-way traffic due to the tiny lanes.



At Ravello..


We peeked into a little grape vineyard.. I've never seen a grapevine before!


The stupid kitty ran up the tree and was stuck there! Had to be rescued by its mummy (or dad?). We had a drink here while I fed Italian mosquitoes.



Here's Villa Cimbrone where we paid like 6 Euros each to explore.



I still can't believe that these are real grapes. Or are they fake?





Where our helicopter landed






So that was Ravello. The weather was fantastic and the sun + blue skies + blue waters were perfect!



We're back down on the coast and traveling East. We see this hugeass bus coming and I thank the heavens that I'm not the one driving.


Everyone slows down and I hold my breath as the monstrous thing squeezes through.




We finally arrive at Vietri Sul Mare, a little town on the Eastern end of the Amalfi coast that sells loads of ceramics. This is our last stop on the Amalfi coast and actually, our last real stop in Italy.



This is the messiest minimart I've ever seen.


So rubbishy right, how to find the stuff you need?!


Our last Italian gelato!!!


Picked up some cheapo pizza to eat as we drive towards our Naples hotel

We happily followed the gps' instructions to go up this highway when we realized that something was horribly wrong! Can you guess from the above pict?

These 2 cars in front of us have their reverse lights on! They are actually reversing on the ramp that leads to the expressway. Very dangerous, since we are supposed to be speeding up to get to the expressway.

The cars behind us too, had to reverse. We have no inkling of what on earth happened but it seems that we can't use the expressway! Wahaha.. Hopefully our gps could somehow help us. It was getting late and dark. However since the nearest landmark we had was our hotel, it was difficult to set the gps to take the smaller road (if there was any). Didn't help that Naples is probably the least safe city of all that we visited.

To cut the long story short, we drove around, roughly in the right direction. When we could, we asked some guys for directions (which were given in Italian). And somehow we managed to get on the expressway again towards our hotel!

So we're on our expressway and finally we reach Naples city. But now.. Naples != Hotel Joyfull, where we are supposed to be staying for the night. And we learn the hard way, that these little hotels in Italy are not like the Best Westerns and Travelodges of the US which are definitely in the GPS map. Even if you have the address, the Street of hotel (probably some little alley) cannot be found in the GPS!

We tried our best to navigate in the dark (and crime infested) streets of Naples. At one point, we drove into a little bus depot where there were a few bus captains in uniform to ask for help. Hey these guys are the bus captains so they should know the area well right?

Enjoy this little clip of me understanding his directions despite knowing only 2 words of Italian: ponte (bridge) and grazie (thank you).

You can see how dark the place was! In the beginning as I approached them, I happily rolled down my whole window and asked for help. One of them were so nice as to gesture to me that I should not roll down my whole window cos it was bloody dangerous. Only then that I realized that if they were crooks, they could have bashed/shot me/pb unconscious or something and we would never had made it back to S'pore. Yeah, it hit me that we're too sheltered and don't have such simple common sense as to protect ourselves.

I realize that I write more about these little stories than the place of interest itself. I suppose these are the memories that I take back with me from these trips!

So of course, after listening to his Italian instructions, we did manage to find the place in a dark little street. Thankfully, it was a really nice (though cheap) hotel! We didn't have much time to enjoy it since our flight was damn early the next morning and we had to wake up at like, 6am.

Hotel Joyfull