From Sorrento to Maiori, a journey in three parts.

Part 1: Sorrento city bus from Marina Grande to the railway station.

We were at the bus stop in the bay in good time to catch the 9.50am bus to the railway station, which was also where we were to catch the bus to Amalfi.  It didn't arrive.  We enjoyed the now-familiar scenery in the fishing port and across the bay to Mt Vesuvius, and then caught the 10.20am bus.  We had a routine trip to the station.

 Part 2: Sita bus from Sorrento to Amalfi.

By the time we arrived at the bus stop there was already a long queue for the Amalfi bus.  When we got on we were lucky to get two of the few remaining seats.  By the time the bus left Sorrento, the aisle was packed with people who had to stand for the 90 minutes trip, an uncomfortable experience.  The distance between Sorrento and Amalfi is not great (31km) but the terrain is terrifying!  The very narrow road wriggled up and down, in and out mercilessly.  However, the bonus was that the views were absolutely stunning.  Blue sky, blue sea, olive and lemon groves -  picture postcard stuff.  The driver was clearly very familiar with this journey, signalling his presence to oncoming traffic at blind corners by tooting his horn.  The greater the number of toots, the tighter the corner!  We met a Trafalgar tour bus on one very challenging corner, both drivers patiently manoeuvred their buses to allow safe passage of both vehicles.  We quickly decided the best thing to do was to look at the scenery and not frighten ourselves with the scary road.  About halfway to Amalfi is Positano, where friends of our stayed just a year or two back. We were quite grateful not to have chosen it as our destination. The bus stopped very high up the hill and there didn't seem to be any easy way down the steep road to the town with suitcases in tow!  We were also both thankful when we arrived at Amalfi.  J was feeling a bit seedy, unexpectedly so, as bus trips had never made her feel ill before – but this was no ordinary bus trip.  We had a bite to eat near the bus stop, took in some fresh air, and had a quick look around, not easy with suitcases.

Part 3: Sita tourist bus from Amalfi to Maiori

This was by far the best bit of the journey as we were in a purpose-built sight seeing bus.

As you can see the middle bit of the bus was missing making it easy to appreciate the view – and the open top meant we could enjoy ample quantities of both sunshine and fresh air along the way.  The trip took about 30 minutes, with roads as twisty and tortuous as the others.  In stark contrast to the bus to Amalfi, there were only three passengers, the other was a local.  The tour guide rattled off some instructions, gave us ear pieces so we could listen to a commentary in English and then proceeded to ignore us completely.  Incredibly, the tour guide (female) and the driver (male) chatted amiably for the whole journey.  Frequently, the driver looked at the guide instead of the windy road, which was a bit scary.  However, he still managed to toot at all the tight corners and to complete the journey safely.  At one point, we came around a corner to find four cars coming towards us.  The bus came to a stop and waited until all the cars backed up and found places wide enough to let the bus through – just run of the mill stuff for the locals, apparently. 

As we drove into Maiori we could see this was our kind of beach!  Two long sweeping curves of sand and crystal clear water to swim in!  We could also see we would not have to do the mountain goat thing to get to our hotel, or from the hotel to the beach.  In fact, it was just a 100m of flat footpath away - bliss!

From Ekeren to Sorrento

Our temporary home in Ekeren (Antwerp)

6^th October. Winnie and Regnier, our generous hosts for four days, took us to the Ekeren Railway station to catch the 3.37pm train to Charleroi. The train arrived on time and we arrived, as expected, two hours later in Charelroi where we caught a bus to the airport. It seems a feature of Belgium that public transport runs on time. We familiarised ourselves with the airport ready for an early start the following morning: we had a 7:30am flight with Ryanair, our first experience of a no-frills airline in this part of the world. Ryanair gives a baggage allowance of one one cabin bag per person of a specific size weighing 10kg or less. We needed to pay for any checked baggage and had decided we could manage with one 20kg suitcase between the two of us. The allowance are strictly enforced and you pay a hefty price if luggage is overweight. After much weighing and reorganising of luggage to comply with those demands, we did manage to sneak in within the allowable limits. Remember that we had with us everything we needed to bring back to NZ.

It is a five minute drive from the airport at Charleroi to the Etap hotel where we were staying for the night but – try as we did - it proved impossible to walk there. There are no footpaths and the roads are too narrow and too busy to walk along trundling a suitcase. We had the choice of paying 25 euro to go by taxi (the taxi drivers obviously – and understandably - didn't want the short fare from the airport) or wait a little over an hour for the free hotel shuttle bus. We opted for the latter and settled in to read our books. The hotel, when we did finally get to it, was basic, cheap and clean. There wasn't a dining room in the hotel but they do have an arrangement with a pizza delivery outfit.The pizza and salad delivered to our room were delicious – much better than expected.

5.15am on Friday 7^th saw us in the hotel lobby ready to be taken to the airport. Ryanair took us to Rome on time, efficiently and cheaply – absolutely no frills but even we can manage two hours in the air without food and drink. It took an hour and just 4 euros to go by bus to the Roma Termini railway station to catch a train to Naples. We had enough time to buy something to eat and drink, and fork out one euro each to go to the toilet! The train left late and had lengthy stops at some stations, so arrived in Naples one hour late. It will come as no surprise that punctuality doesn't seem to be a feature of Italian public transport ! We then scrambled to another part of the Naples station to catch a Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento - no time for a comfort stop! The distance to Sorrento isn't great but with 34 stops along the way, the trip took nearly 2 hours and there was no toilet on the train! However, you couldn't complain about the price – our tickets cost just 4 euros each.



The road to the port - Sorrento

Sorrento is very steep in places with lots of steps. Walking to the hotel wasn't an option as speed was of the essence, so we took a taxi - a good decision as maps do not always indicate just how hilly a place can be! It was a relief to get to the hotel and to finally be able to make the much-awaited comfort stop!

Our hotel- in the bottom left of the photo

Our hotel – the Hotel del Mare - was lovely, clean, well appointed and an easy 100m walk to a delightful little fishing village. There are a good number of small cafes offering a variety of food options. Our evening meal was a modest one of gnocci for J and a fish for C with a shared salad and a bowl of fries. Oh yes, a couple of glasses of rosé too. We looked out over the calm sea to Mt Vesuvius with the bonus of a sound and light show: a thunder storm somewhere nearby harmlessly lit up the sky and provided a rumbling in the background, rather like the Pompei show we went to see in Te Papa about a year ago. That event nearly 2000 years ago was far from harmless. We slept well that first night; it had been a long day and we were exhausted!

The all-up cost of our journey from Belgium to Sorrento (door-to-door), including the night in Charleroi was 223 euros. That's less than it usually costs the two of us to fly to Dunedin, although the journey admittedly did take a little longer...

Food in Flanders

Our friends, Winnie and Regnier, tell us that it is a time-honoured Flemish custom (especially in Dendermonde where they come from) to ensure that guests never go hungry. I think this is true for many cultures but I'm not sure that many take it to the lengths that our wonderful Belgian hosts do. I can assure you that during no point in our stay with Winnie and Regnier did we ever get close to being hungry – or even to thinking that we might possible get hungry! We were treated to wonderful food during our stay – some of it typically Flemish, some of it apparently designed to get us in the mood for our holiday in Italy. Regnier's mussels (without chips) will go down as one of the most memorable meals of the year and we will be trying to replicate the recipe at home. We're not sure that we'll be able to find the wonderful Geuse Boon beer to accompany the meal though but we're sure to be able to find some Hoegaarden as a back up. We both developed a taste for it during our stay in Belgium. We are almost certain not to be able to find the wonderful dipping sauce that accompanied the mussels – it's a kind of light curry mayonnaise and is utterly delicious! I don't think I ever seen the like in New Zealand.

Katya, Winnie and Regnier - after the mussels

We loved the different mayonnaise-style sauces that accompany barbecued meats, chips and other foods in Belgium and we also really enjoyed the selection of breads there. Even though the French have extended their range of bread types over recent years, they have a long way to go before they can match the Belgians in that area. We ate waffles (another speciality) in the cafe of an outdoor transport museum that we visited one fine afternoon and we tasted one or two more of Belgium's world-renowned chocolates (you'll remember that we tried two each in Ghent).

There were some “traditional” Flemish treats that we didn't try. Regnier likes speculaas biscuits or gingerbread on his buttered bread for breakfast; we preferred to stick to ham, salami or any of a selection of local cheeses on our ours. We did, however, have to concede that eating jam and cheese together (as we do) could be considered as weird a combination of foods, and we didn't even broach the subject of vegemite...

Two marinas; two worlds

Antwerp is a harbour city. It's commercial port is the 14^th busiest in the world (for those who like to know that sort of thing, Shanghai is tops) and second in Europe after Rotterdam. It has numerous marinas for pleasure craft, most of which are the homes of boat clubs but two of which provide moorings for visitors such as us.

The Willemdok, where we stayed when we first arrived, is on the right bank of the River Scheldt. It is near the commercial shipping docks and close to the historical and business centres of the city. The surrounding area is very busy as you would expect. The streets are narrow, usually cobblestoned and sometimes with tram tracks, just for good measure. The marina is secure – entry is only through a coded door next to the harbour master's office – but surrounded by the city: there are apartment blocks – most of them new or newly renovated - all around, as well as restaurants, cafes and shops. The whole dockside area has undergone a renaissance in recent years and is now a very popular residential and retail zone. It also houses the brand new MAS - Museum an de Stroom – Antwerp's fine arts museum. The whole area is a hive of activity from early morning to late at night and lots of pedestrians go by looking down from the street at the boats below. As ours was backed onto the pontoon, they were pretty much looking into our living space, and from time to time a group of tourists would stop right beside the back end of our boat and stare in (or appear to) while their guide explained something which our poor grasp of Flemish never allowed us to decode.

Willemdok marina

The marina and its “residents” seem as well-heeled as the land around it. It is filled with beautiful boats, many of them motor launches, although there are a large number of yachts as well. The beautiful people are there too. Our boat was certainly one of the more humble vessels in the marina. One of the boats that was for sale had a website reference, which we visited: the asking price was a mere 1,495,000 euros and it wasn't even even beautiful.

Central Antwerp from the left bank

After five enjoyable days in Willemdok, we moved to the Linkeroever marina adjoining the Koninklijke (or Royal) Liberty Yacht club (KLYC) , which (as its name suggests) is on the left bank of the Scheldt. This is where Erewhon will spend the winter. The two areas are as different as chalk and cheese even though they are separated by just 400m of river. The left bank is largely residential, quiet and calm. People do walk by the marina but they are fewer and further from the boats. The marina is set back from the road, so there is little traffic noise. The boats are almost all yachts (again ours was an exception) and the place had a peaceful, holiday air to it in contrast to the hustle and bustle on the other side. The KLYC has a club lounge with bar and cafe facilities beautifully situated between the marina and the side of the Scheldt. From there you can (and we did) have a meal and/or a drink and enjoy a fabulous view over the busy-ness of the Scheldt, including all the comings and goings at both the Kattendijk and Royers locks, and back over the city. With the cycle and pedestrian tunnel just a few hundred metres down the road, it was easy for us to visit the city centre whenever we wanted to but I think it's fair to say that we all felt more relaxed and “at home” in our left bank mooring than on the other side... although we did prefer the Delhaize supermarket near the Willemdok to either of those near the port on the left bank. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Linkeroever marina

Under the Scheldt

As is so often the case in this part of the world, riding bikes is a joy. There are good cycle paths everywhere but best of all from our perspecive is a special tunnel under the Scheldt just for cyclists and pedestrians. (There are two other tunnels for motor vehicles.) You ride to the entrance of the tunnel, get in a lift with your bike and go down 31metres. When you get to the bottom, the tunnel is wide enough for three bikes to pass each other easily. It is also clean and fantastically well-lit. All these factors combined mean that you can cycle the 570m length of the tunnel as fast as you like. You then take another lift up 31 m to the surface and voila - you are on the other side of the river. So easy and quick and such fun! We can't wait for the day when they decide to put a cycle tunnel under Auckland Harbour!

Thanks to Marilyn D - a photo of the pedestrian/cycle tunnel

Over the Scheldt...

If you read our bloggeral account of getting to the Willemdok marina in Antwerp, you will understand that we were in no hurry to take on the Scheldt again as we needed to. Our final destination for the season was the Koninklijke (or Royal) Liberty Yacht Club in the Linkeroever (Left Bank) marina. We hadn't gone straight there initially because the tidal nature of the river means that it's only possible to enter or leave the marina an hour either side of high tide (the photos below showing the marina entrance at high and low tides will give you a better idea of why this is the case). We had to run with an out-going tide to get to Antwerp, so we arrived about three hours after high water with no possibility of entering the marina that day – at least not in daylight. Rather than spend a night moored to a pontoon in the middle of the busy and tidal Scheldt, we chose to go into Willemdok for a few nights. That meant going up through the enormous commecial lock, the Royersluis, then through two lifting bridges, called the Siberia and London bridges. These are to be found at either end of the Kattenjijkdok – a long-term mooring area for passenger boats and sundry other craft but not available to us.

Ever since we started talking seriously to people about going to Antwerp (i.e. since we were in Ghent), there has been mention of the planned re-opening of the Kattendijksluis – a lock dedicated to pleasure and passenger boats that would provide a more direct link from Willemdok to the Scheldt. It would cut out the need to go through one of the lifting bridges and pleasure craft would no longer need to share space with the huge commercial barges in the Royersluis. It's re-opening had been scheduled for months ago but the Belgians assured us that if all went as normal, it would be open sometime early next year.

As it turned out, a stroke of enormous good fortune saw the inauguration of the lock take place the day before we planned to cross back over the Scheldt. Apart from those who took part in the opening ceremony, we must have been one of the first boats to use it. Our crossing was in stark contrast to our arrival just days before. The weather was sunny and still. The new lock worked exactly as it should and we only had to share it with two other boats, one of which was our fellow Kiwi boat, Hermaton. Because the tide was nearly high, we had a very short trip down in the lock before crossing the river and being able to go almost straight into the Linkeroever marina without having to wait around at all. The only real challenges involved were negotiating the narrow entry to the marina with the tide running at right angles to it (which J managed with great skill) and finding a mooring space in the marina when we arrived (which the harbour master eventually sorted out for us.)

An apology

Yes, we know it's been a long time since we posted anything here and we are sorry we've made you wait but we have our reasons...

First of all, we were in need of a bit of rest and recreation after our adventures on the Scheldt. Then there was Antwerp to discover – we were busy getting out and about getting our bearings and visiting the city. What's more, the weather suddenly turned sunny and we were able to enjoy something like 10 consecutive days of glorious Indian summer sunshine. After the weather we've had this summer, we weren't going to waste that!!! We also had socialising to do – with our new kiwi friends and Scheldt travelling companions, Di and Dave, as well as with our Belgian friends that we met on our Mediterranean cruise last year, Winnie, Regnier and Katya... If that wasn't enough to keep us busy, we had to plan our southern Italian adventure (book travel, accommodation and the like) and had to dry out, tidy up, pack up and cover our lovely boat in preparation for the European winter. So we haven't exactly been slacking around – but we do promise to catch up in the next day or so, so watch this space.