Italy – Salerno 11/09/16 – 18/09/16

It’s another Sunday travel journey, we hadn’t planned it this way, it just happened. Today we travel again, by train, from Rome to Salerno, this time by a different train company. Italio trains are super fast, and amazingly today’s ticket (first class), was cheaper than any of its competitors. It does pay to research these things, as our journey only cost us €24 pp like I say in First Class. The journey took 2 hours, (as compared to over 4 hours with any other company), we had a cinema on board, a trolley dolly whizzing around with beverages, (all free), and luxurious leather reclining seats, each with its own wifi connection. Great value. We passed through some amazing countryside and towns of various sizes, the train stopping only once in Naples. We are staying in central Salerno, in an awesome Airbnb apartment and our host was at the train station to meet us and give us a lift. What a bonus and with this kind of service we could tell we were in for a fab apartment. Hosts going the extra mile is not very often and such a great surprise when they do. Yep today’s journey has been a very pleasant experience indeed, we feel spoilt. Once settled in our lovely apartment we decided to get some food in so headed out. We wondered up a few little streets but most shops were closed and no-one about so decided to go out later, we haven’t had a night out in weeks. Well, we were out at 6.30 and what seemed a very small empty town certainly isn’t now. We found the main shopping street which is quite long and full of high-street and boutique shops, restaurants and cafes and boatloads of people! No idea where they were earlier but Salems Lot comes to mind. Loads of restaurants but the one we chose had a DJ playing – great, except he finished as soon as we sat down. Checking out the menu there was Sausages with grilled potatoes and Grilled sausages with potatoes, nope, the waiter didn’t know the difference but ‘it’s chips’. “does it come with a sauce or salad?” i asked, yes he said, you want a green salad? What arrived was 2 pale sausages cut in half and grilled (i think) and the rest of the plate was plain lettuce, erm and no chips! Our next culinary odd ball was 2 hot chocolates with Panna (cream) and we watched in silent amazement when the guy piped creme pattisiere into them! We did find a couple of decent bars though and downed a few drinks.
Next day we went into Salerno to see what it’s day life has to offer. Again like most places we’ve visited, Salerno is bigger than its first impression. It has a huge promenade (5km long), 2x stunning ports, a medieval castle high upon one of the many mountains overlooking the town, a great beach, and lots and lots of shops, restaurants and bars. It’s positioned on the Italian West Coast not too far from Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. In fact it’s stated as the last of the towns along the Amalfi Coast when travelling south in Italy. Therefore as we wondered through the town we bought bus tickets to the town of Amalfi, great price too only €4.40 return. As its a port town, and as we are only. a stones throw away from the Isle of Capri we bought tickets to visit the island later in the week – (the cost of these €50 pp return).
Salerno has 2 claims to fame in its history, firstly it’s where the first ever medical university was in the world, (the town has a virtual museum in the original university building), and secondly it’s the place of the first botanical garden in Europe.
We have been to Capri and 2 towns along the Amalfi Coast which we will do separate posts for. We have had some evenings out and a dip in the sea which wasn’t as cold as thought it would be.