Wednesday 30th – 1st November 2024

Salerno to Rome and Towards Seoul and Home

Woke to the creak of the bed and the less than harmonious singing of a lady across the way.

Quickly found an Italian Breakfast provider and dined on the last croissant and  Cafe Americano  con latte caldo.

Dropped our bags of at a storage place near railway  and wandered  in the opposite direction along the beachfront under the shade of the palms towards the Liner Terminal. Streets were pretty busy and sellers already out with their array of useless articles.

Quite a few homeless in the shade  and a local rifling through a wallet, taking the cash and scattering the rest in different garbage bins- must have been a lucky find??

Plenty of Mum’s with little bub’s strolling along the beachside. A few people on the beach in ideal conditions but none daring to have a swim.

High in the hills were the usual church and castle and two separate  expressways funnelling the traffic up the Amalfi coast. We tunnelled through the hills later in the day in our train journey.

No ships  berthed but plenty of boats in the marina which sat behind a huge apartment development with remarkable views. Something must have happened to the developer because many of the units were unoccupied and a shopping centre below had about 5 out of 50 shops occupied and many others full of building supplies and covered in grafitti.

Wandered back through the suburbs and two streets back from the main drag was no showpiece. It’s amazing how much rubbish is just dumped in the streets. That said there was still some nice murals and our first sighting of lemons which are synonymous with the Amalfi.

Had our last bruschetta and Aperol Spritz before heading to the station to start our trip home. Bit of a nervous wait as we only had a 20 minute window between changes and when the train to Napoli was 11 minutes late there was plenty of sighing and deep breathing. 

In between we got a great view of the mountainous area including Vesuvius when the train finally took off.

Train made up and then lost time on the way and two sweaty travellers were glad to find 5a and 5b on the connecting train to Rome – 4 minutes before departure.

When travelling at 300 Kms an hour it didn’t take long to get there and we were soon caught up in the jostling crowd that only Roma Termini can deliver. Warded off a couple of locals paying too much attention to our backpacks at the ticket dispenser, before jumping on the train to airport.

A few hours in the Lounge and then onto the plane for an hours delay before closing our eyes and somehow losing 31/10/24 to the time fairy or some Halloween phenomen.  

Arrived in Seoul a bit late, prettied up in the lounge and then onto another flight for a 10 hour flight to home .

Very comfortable flight home on a very new plane, with great service and tasty Korean food, enjoyed watching copious episode of Ruverdale, the modern day version of Archie comics.

A quick Uber home, unpack, hurdle the washing and do a stocktake of belongings. Didn’t lose anything but watch was damaged, brand new sunnies had a smashed lens and somebodies window sill has a pair of hiking jocks still trying to catch the morning sun.

There endeth another journey with unreadable memories and a starting point for planning the next one.