Change In Plans

This short post is about arriving back at our cabin in the Catskills, after the first eight weeks of our trip. It is a sunny and crisp fall day, the foliage is simply spectacular, and we are all glad to be back.

The flight from Madrid to New York seemed to take forever: left a little late, strong headwinds, long delay in starting the kid-distraction movies. Mostly, I think we were just eager to get here.

Once we landed, everything was almost unbelievably smooth. The flight touched down at 7:30, by 7:55 we had all of our luggage and had cleared customs, and by 8:20 we had taken the Air Train out to the remotest parking lot and gotten in the car. Lu was even courteous enough to pee in a dark corner of the parking lot, and save us a stop.

We pulled into the driveway of our darkened Catskills cabin before 11:30, having travelled a total of 20 hours door to door from Positano.

Everyone was up before 5am, confused and jet lagged. The night sky was exceptionally clear, and the stars were bright and beautiful.

At dawn, we went up to look at our pond, and to admire the brilliant foliage up and down the valley. It is a truly spectacular fall day, like Robert Frost would write about, or state tourism boards would photograph feverishly for next year’s brochures. India went for a run in the mountains (carrying her “bear bell”), and was gone so long that we went looking for her. She said that it was so beautiful, and that she felt so good, that she just kep on going.

We have a lot to to do in the few days we are here, starting with about ten loads of laundry. For the time being, though, the kids are playing happily with their long-forgotten toys, and we are just enjoying being in our own place.

This short post is about leaving Positano, and starting the long trip back to our cabin in the Catskills. We will be in the U.S. for the next three weeks (with a short side trip to Canada to see polar bears), before leaving for the second leg of our trip.

We left Hotel Le Agavi in Positano at about 9:30am. The staff there was very helpful (particularly Signor Raffaelle at the front desk) and very friendly, but I think they were not entirely sorry to see us go. Most of the guests were American couples in their 60s and 70s, and the running and shouting of our “mostri bambini (monster children)” disrupted the ambience a little.

We drove up to Naples in about 90 minutes: an hour on twisty, narrow roads perched high above the sea, and 30 minutes on the highway.

Naples airport was in a state of complete chaos. It took a long time to get through each step of returning the rental car, getting the shuttle bus to the terminal,ticketing, checking the baby backpack in the mysterious “special baggage area,” and getting through security. We saw our young friends from the Capri trip in the security line, as they went off to Barcelona.

The kids and I had time for one last espresso (for me) and cold water (for them), and we ran for the plane.

The flight to Madrid was very bumpy. For the first time in our traveling lives, India (a nervous flier) asked me whether she should take Xanax or Valium or something on flights. We will look into supplementing our medical kit, but I can’t imagine her taking pills. Lu slept the entire way, and aside from spilling a glass of water on himself, Zola drew battle scenes and did schoolwork.

We have boarded the flight from Madrid to New York, and should take off soon. This is a long day of travel. Zola and I have been working on a summary of the first leg of the trip.

We are looking forward to being at our cabin
Late tonight, and to spending Columbus Day in the Beaverkill.

This short post is about our trip to the Blue Grotto, a (pretty amazing) natural attraction on the north side of the Isle of Capri.

We took a day trip from Positano to Capri today, and made sure to get on one of the boats that stops at the White Grotto, the Emerald Grotto, and the all-important, “must see, can’t miss” Blue Grotto.

We took a funicular and then an elevator to get from the lobby of the Le Agavi Hotel down to the hotel’s private beach, roughly 700 vertical feet below our balcony. We were picked up at 9:30am on Le Agavi’s rickety private dock (steel scaffolding turned on its side and placed in the water). The boat was a fast and comfortable 30-foot cabin cruiser. The only other passengers were a group of eight young friends from California, who had been picked up earlier in the morning.

The White and Emerald Grottoes were nice to look at from the water, but we didn’t venture inside. I was surprised that at both spots, in the five minutes or so that we were sitting there three other tour boats pulled up to look. We had been told that in the summer high season, sometimes people “line up for two hours at the Blue Grotto.” This was a little confusing, because we were already in a boat, and it wasn’t clear what we would be lining up for.

When we arrived at the Blue Grotto site at about 11am, the warning made sense. The scene was a complete carnival.

In order to get inside the Blue Grotto, you have to transfer to a four-passenger rowboat that is small enough to get in through the cave mouth. There were a half dozen big motor boats, with a total of at least 50-60 tourists, waiting for their turns in the little rowboats.

The size of the cave mouth itself changes, based on how big the swells are. As we waited, we saw some periods where the clearance was 4-5 feet high, and the rowboat pilots would zip in with their passengers lying flat in the low-bottomed boat. To speed through the opening, the pilots drop their oars and pull on a chain which is suspended from the cave ceiling for this purpose. We also saw several instances where big waves closed the cave mouth entirely, and the rowboats would bob (with impatient pilots), waiting for their chance.

To summarize, there is a small cave opening in the side of a sheer cliff, with waves crashing all around. A brilliant Mediterranean sun beats down on the dark blue water. Just outside the cave mouth there are 10-12 of these small low-bottomed rowboats, with passengers sitting low or lying flat, and their pilots jockeying for position. There is a slightly larger stationary rowboat next to the cave entrance, with three rough-looking men who collect the 10 Euro entrance fee from each passenger (nice business!) before the rowboat goes into the cave. Slightly farther out, the big tourist motorboats idle their engines, bob in the waves, and also jockey for position. No one seems to be in charge, the air is choked with diesel fumes, and there is a lot of shouting in Italian.

We ended up waiting for only about 30 minutes before the four of us clambered into a row boat, paid our 40 Euros, and waited for the cave mouth to open. Our pilot dropped his oars, grabbed the chain, leaned way back as if in a limbo contest, and zipped us inside.

Apparently there is another big cave which is underneath the Blue Grotto, and there is sand underneath th e second cave. Sunlight from outside is reflected off the sandy bottom, and up through 20m meters of clear Mediterranean water. This creates a spectacular fluorescent blue color that lights up the otherwise very dark cave.

The color of the water is exactly the same as you would see emanating from the undersides of certain tricked-out cars (particularly in California). That underside glow is usually matched with a glowing boundary around the license plate. Maybe a more recognizable reference: the water looks like a giant liquid glow stick in Mediterranean blue.

After five short minutes of marvelling at the water (with a lot of the other rowboat pilots singing loudly and badly), we zipped back out of the cave mouth and were rowed back to our boat. The pilot made it clear that he doesn’t get anything from the 10 Euro entrance fee, and that he lives on our tips alone.

It was a short ride, but unlike anything I had seen before.

This post is about our long day of travel yesterday, taking us from the gulet boat on the Turkish coast to a seaside hotel in Positano, Italy.

We got into the gulet’s launch a few minutes after 8am, after saying goodbye to the crew (kisses on both cheeks for all of us). By 8:30 we had transferred our bags to a minivan, and were on our way to Dalaman airport.

For the first time on this trip, we cut it a little close at the airport. There were long lines at seurity check #1 (x-ray and metal detector to get into the airport), baggage check in, passport control, security check #2 (to get into the departure gates). For some reason, our seats were scattered all over the plane, and even getting us seated in two groups of two (ie, not having the three year old sit by herself) put additional strain on the system. It is nearly the end of the 9-day post-Ramadan holiday,and Dalaman airport and Turkish Airways were not coping.

The layover in Istanbul was about three hours, which gave us enough time to wander around, spend money on magazines, look for a few gifts, and get the kids lunch.
Even without our checked baggage, I was hauling three heavy daypacks and a big steel drum (souvenir of Morocco). A better man would have borne these burdens stoically, but as I got sweatier and more frustrated with our rambling, I was pretty grouchy company. We definitely need to drop ballast when we get back to the US next week.

When we boarded the flight for Rome, the cultural change was immediately evident. Most of the plane was filled with Italians in their 60s and 70s, on their way home from a package tour of Turkey. The chatter, in sing-song Italian was comically loud throughout the flight. When we landed, everyone applauded wildly, and half of the passengers jumped out of their seats and started for the exits while we were still taxiing. Reinforcing wonderful cultural stereotypes.

Our 45-minute flight from Rome to Naples would have required another 4-hour layover, so we cancelled that, and rented a car. After a week on the boat, we felt as though we were seizing back control of our destinies.

The 250-kilometer drive from Rome to Naples was fast and very easy (unlike my last driving experience in Rome, which was horrendous), and included a dinner stop at the Italian equivalent of a Howard Johnson’s. Our kids fell on the pasta and pizza as if they had been starved during our five weeks in Islamic countries. Zola said, “Finally this meat is from a pig, isn’t it?” At least he learned something about Islamic dietary restrictions.

The 50-kilometer drive from Naples south to Positano is hairy. Narrow, twisty roads perched hundreds of feet above the sea.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Positano at about 10:30pm, almost 15 hours after we started moving. Aside from my sweaty grouchiness in Istanbul, and a couple of raucous-kid moments, everyone was on good form throughout a long day.

We woke up to see the spectacular views of rugged mountains and of the sea several hundred feet below our hotel balcony. The sun is bright, and the temperature is perfect. We are off to explore the Adriatic Coast, the last segment in our Mediterranean circle.