Picking up Rob and Beth

Saturday 26 June 2010: Today’s big assignment was to fetch Rob and Beth from their flight into Rome from London. By the time they arrived they had stopped in London, changed planes and been up more than 24 hours. They got very little sleep as the little girl next to Beth went to sleep and threw up. Eeeewww. But they were a little late and since my phone was now working, we made very efficient hook up with Phil snatching them as the came out of customs at Leonardo da Vinci airport.

 We loaded up and immediately began the sizable trek to Napoli and beyond. According to the GPS (our girl Francesca Putanesca) it would take us in excess of 3 hours. The only instructions we had from the owner was to take the Cava dei Terrini exit off the autostrata and follow the signs to the Hotel Scapolatiello. As we pulled into town, Francesca the GPS and the signs for the hotel seemed to agree. The signage was quite poor and we finally just relied on the GPS WHICH TOOK US APPARENTLY TO THE WRONG, SORT OF SCAREY SIDE OF TOWN. Thinking we must be completely lost we called out landlord’s mother. She had a neighbor bring her to where we were and they then guided to the completely opposite side of town where we were supposed to be. By now its dark and we can only tell that the roads are narrow and quite windy…and we are going UP- I mean very, VERY UP!!! We finally arrived at the top of the mountain which was called Corpo de Cava, an intimate little village with barely enough room for the cars to get by and never 2 at a time, The entrance to the square in front of this lovely four star hotel was only wide enough if we folded the rear view mirrors in.

It was dark when we arrived and all you could see was the 100 meter trek down the street narrow cobblestone street to the entrance to the apartment because the were much too narrow for any car. One Vespa couldn't pass another. Very 11th century.

We explored the apartment and Momma had made us a great dinner in case we were hungry. We were. Ate and crashed to face tomorrow. At first light, you had to gasp at the view from the kitchen balcony.