We are in Sorrento……with Chris & Alina in a very small marina, just one pontoon, at the bottom of the cliff. It’s lovely and we feel lucky that we got in here. Sorrento is pretty & upmarket & very very busy with tourists but still charming. We have wandered through the small streets, visited the Marina Grande (which is in fact a small fishing village with good restaurants), we have sat and people watched - all good fun.

Today we took the tourist ferry to Capri (the marina there didn’t respond to our request for a berth). We went early & I am so glad we did because it too is just over run with tourists & by the time we left (mid pm) was just heaving & unpleasant. We did manage to get the furnicular up to Capri town & have a walk around the designer shops before the crowds. We also got to the chairlift in Anacapri to the top of the mountain for the stunning views before most of the tourists. We took the unique Capri taxis around the island and along the crazy roads & hot a good sense of the place, stunning but just too many people. Pleased we went but don’t need to go back (unless out of season!).

Tonight is our last night here & tomorrow Chris & Alina head home & we move on to Positano.

A short trip around the very beautiful Sorrento peninsula brought us to this very rolly buoy mooring in front of Positano. It is rocky & rolly because there is a constant flow of fast ferry boats coming in & dropping off huge numbers of tourists, sometimes a queue of 5 ferries waiting to dock & discharge or pick up!! We should be staying here for 3 nights but despite the amazing views it’s just too uncomfortable so we move on today to Cetara along the coast a bit where there is a marina.

Positano is lovely but like Sorrento & Capri just far far too crowded for us sadly. Walking around the streets is a little bit like walking in the USA there are so many Americans here. The shops are all pretty much the same in every town here, you can buy anything & everything lemon 🍋 🤪. It is beautiful & steep & amazing but it is in danger of being spoiled by over crowding & exploiting tourists with outrageous prices. I am pleased we have been but I won’t rush back.

We arrived safely here in Cetara, a nice quiet, still, small marina where we will spend the next 2 nights peacefully.

Cetara is a more normal Italian coastal village which is less impacted by the Sorrento/Amalfi hype so is rather quaint. There isn’t much here except a few shops & restaurants, a small beach & a nice marina. So we did jobs & took a couple of days off sight seeing.

Salerno is a lovely real Italian town again with none of the pretentious of the Sorrento peninsula or Capri. We like it here. The centro historico has narrow streets filled with normal shops & restaurants (not over priced). The harbour side has a twin building to the Lloyds building on Bristol waterfront. The Duomo is wonderful.

We were supposed to go to Pompei from here but just didn’t make it. Shocking I know but sometimes it’s nice to just chill especially when it’s getting so hot 🥵. Anyway Salerno is a real find & we are happy we came here.

It’s time for us to start moving South again. We fly home a week tomorrow & we have another 130 odd nm to cover.

We are further south now in Agropoli & starting to see the Greek influence on Italy more & more. After all the Roman stuff we have seen, tomorrow we are going to a Greek/Roman Ruin at Paestum which should be good & will add more after our visit.

Agropoli is another really nice normal Italian town with a great old town on a hill & Aragonese castle (yes another one!) which we visited yesterday. We also caught an amazing sunset over Capri.

Paestum was very interesting, 3 huge Greek temples dating back to 5th century BC surrounded by Roman villas, forum, baths etc built from 200 BC. In the museum we saw wall paintings & pottery from burial tombs.

It’s only a week to go now before we fly back we are in the start of close down mode, using up stocks, emptying the freezer & generally preparing to leave the boat. This time it’s only for a couple of months so not quite so much to do.

Today we did a longer than normal trip from Agropoli to Maratea, almost 6 hours at sea. It was pretty dormant out there today, a slight swell, very little wind & the occasional tuna fish \240sighting but we did have splendid views of the Cilento National park & some stunning cliffs.

Maratea is a tiny, one night stay town. Very pretty but not a lot here except a very nice gelateria (my first for ages & it was only a very small one) and a few nice looking restaurants and bars. We head off again tomorrow on our continued journey south.

So we did a quick stop overnight in Maratea (which was pretty) & today have travelled another 30nm down the coast to this place, \240Cetraro. It’s one of those places that you wish you didn’t have to stop at but if we hadn’t it would have been a real slog of 80nm so we are here, for one night only & early tomorrow we will leave again.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with it but the town is a good 45 mins walk from the marina, it’s really really hot so we are just not going to find out. This marina is in the middle of nowhere pretty much! We have no choice but to walk to Lidl later because we have no milk left & even that is 20 mins each way and we hate Lidl. Hey Ho 😩. We have visited so many beautiful & amazing places we just have to accept the occasional dud.

Tomorrow we will discover where our new winter berth is & what our new home town is like, hopefully much better than here.

We have arrived at Vibo Marina Stella del Sud - end of Season 5 Part 1 San Remo to Vibo. Our grand tour of Italy covering 715 nm and 22 stops is finished for now (it’s just too damn hot) and we will be back in Sept.

VA is all clean & closed up & we will be testing the Ryanair flight from Lamezia Terme airport for the first time today!

Arrividerci Italia 🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹🇮🇹

Part 5

Stromboli & N Sicily