Tag: Castellammare di Stabia

Italian Adventure Part 4 – Spa Day


Typical, about as accurate as any British weather forecast, the local Italian forecast was for rain and thunderstorms today, 65% chance of precipitation. So far we have had a mix of blue skies, sunshine, and clouds. Yes there were a few specs of rain, but nothing that would have stopped us from doing that touristy thing. Because the forecast was so dire we had opted to stay at the hotel and for Gerry to visit the spa.

After breakfast we dropped in at the spa reception and booked Gerry in for a Hot Stone and full body/facial massage. Her session was booked for 14:00, which left us with a couple of hours to fill.

We went for a stroll  round the grounds and took a few external photos of the hotel.

Newly Constructed Beach. Not open during our stay.
View From Hotel Terrace Looking East
View From Hotel Terrace Looking East

Whilst standing down on the dock, we were accosted by a lady offering to take our photo. We gratefully accepted and then I  did the same for her. As we were chatting, I asked her where she was from.

Mount Vesuvius – Clouds and Blue Sky
Towers Hotel – More of the industrial architecture
Towers Hotel West Wing – Where we stayed
This is what 65% chance of precipitation, cloudy skies and thunderstorms look like.
Towers Hotel East Wing – Showing the towers after which the hotel is named.
Towers Hotel – Looking west along the shore line.

Well, what a small world. Turns out she is from the other side of Waterlooville, where we live. Much of her family are scattered around roads close to our home. After a bit more chat we went our separate ways.

Towers Hotel – Terrace leading to the pool
Towers Hotel – Terrace leading to the pool

By the time we reached the pool Gerry decided it was warm enough to brave catching some rays by the pool.

Towers Hotel – Viewed from poolside
Towers Hotel – Looking west from poolside

Meanwhile, I was foolish / brave enough to test the arctic waters of the pool.

Towers Hotel - Pool
Towers Hotel – Pool

Bearing in mind this is an outdoor pool, unheated and we haven’t seen any real sun for a couple of days. Despite knowing this, I still went in. Although there weren’t any icebergs it certainly felt cold enough for them to put in an appearance.

To be honest, once I was in, it felt ok. And after a few lengths, I was so acclimitised, I was reluctant to get out. There is a shower room close to the pool which I made good use of. Back in dry clothes once again, we strolled along to the bar for tea and coffee before Gerry headed to to the spa for her hot rocks massage.

Castellammare15
Although no storms or rain the wind had picked up. These two guys had to walk backwards to carry the pictures or risk having them bent and broken by the wind.

Having escorted Gerry down to the spa reception and made sure she was checked in OK, I headed back to the bar for a spot of lunch. Tuna & Tomato in a Ciabatta roll accompanied by, yep you guessed it, a Nastro Azzurro.

Gerrys spa treatment lasted for just about an hour and by the time she caught up with me at the bar it was time for her to have a plate of fries and a Nastro Azzurro all to herself.

We then headed back to our room to finish of that second bottle of Sicilian Syrah.

Our room has windows looking both North and East which makes it a great vantage point for any nautical activities.

Fishing Boat
Fishing Boat
Sails Across The Bay Of Naples
Fishing Boat
Ferry Boat – Possibly from Capri heading into Castellammare di Stabia
Fishing Boat and Sail Boats
Sails Across The Bay Of Naples

And to finish off for today here are a few photos from my phone.

From the roof of the garage looking towards the hotel
The route from the garage towards the exit
The route from the garage to the hotel.
From the roof of the garage looking west
Vesuvius by night
From the roof of the garage looking away from the hotel

Well that’s it. Going for dinner shortly as it is just after 20:00

Good night all.

Italian Adventure Part 1 – Home to the Hotel


Not much sleep Monday night. Tried to get some shuteye but failed and eventually, 02:00 Tuesday morning, it was time to load the car and head off to the airport. The journey was uneventful apart from the small issue of the entry to the M23 from the M25 being closed.

Seems every time I go to the airport, these days, some part of the roads system is totally closed. Be it the A3, North or South bound, doesn’t seem to matter. Or the M25, so many opportunities to cause chaos. Anyhow, we managed to navigate around the road closure and were soon at the airport. At 04:00, it was a tad cool, actually just 3 degC and as usual there is a guy wandering around in shorts and t-shirt. I guess he was an optimist.

Our next hurdle was check-in / baggage drop-off. Having nailed the online check-in Easyjet are now trialling passenger self-service baggage drop-off terminals. Basically they have done away with a friendly person and replaced them with a computerised set of scales.

This was a painful, financially, experience. It turns out that our holiday deal, via Secret Escapes, only included 15kg of hold luggage. I missed that little nugget in the Secret Escapes paperwork. I already knew we were one or two kilos over our allowance after doing due diligence and checking Easyjets allowances on-line. 23kg it says.  We had 24kg. Our new friendly (sic) computerised scales cheerfully informed us that we were 9kg over our limit and that we would need to pay a charge of £10 / kg. 90  jaw dropping quid. “Is that the total for the return journey ?” I enquired of a real human. “No, just the one way” she replied. She was a bit more helpful and suggested that once we were in Italy we go on-line and amend our booking, pay for extra baggage or another hold bag. That way we would pay a significantly lower fee.

Suitably chastened, educated, and therefore wiser, we coughed up and proceeded through security to go and find a cup of tea while we awaited our departure gates announcement. When said gate was announced we made our way to the waiting area. There we discovered that we had to take a bus ride to the plane. I haven’t had to do that since the seventies. The ride took so long we are pretty sure that, although we were booked into the Gatwick North Terminal, we actually departed from the South. Either that or, as one wag quipped, we had travelled half way to Naples by road.

Another niggle with the boarding process was that we had paid for extra leg room and priority boarding and should have boarded first. Instead it was more like the January sales. Two coach loads of passengers arriving at the plane together and boarding from both ends at the same time. It was never going to end well. I know, we all have allocated seats but it is the principle and of course, the money.

The  plane took off pretty much on time, we had a smooth flight and arrived at Naples airport around 09:40. Even at that time of the morning Naples was significantly warmer than the UK.

Our next challenge was to find the car rental office. There is a courtesy shuttle bus, apparently driven by the grumpiest, near mute, guy imaginable. He efficiently navigated the 5 minute drive to the rental offfice. Still no happier, he started to unload the luggage, then just wandered off leaving the rest for his clients to sort out for themselves.

The car rental experience was much more pleasant. An upgrade from a Renault Twingo, to a Citroen C3 with more luggage space and most importantly, for me, more head room. Also, surprisingly, we only had to pay around 20% of the deposit we had been told was due. i.e. 300 euros as opposed to 1500 euros. The lady at the rental desk was very helpful, providing us with clear directions to escape the chaos around the airport, and get us on our way to the hotel.

The journey to the hotel was not as slick as it should have been. It started well, using my phone as the satnav. However we entered a tunnel, after about 15 minutes driving, and the GPS lost it’s bearings and couldn’t  reconnect. It took us a while to find a safe place to pull over and restart the navigation exercise. We were then taken round in a huge circle. Having been through each of two tunnels twice in each direction, we weren’t sure the app and GPS actually knew where we were. So, another stop and restart seemed to sort things out and we eventually arrived at the hotel.

Old Building on the Mountainside Behind the Hotel
Old Building on the Mountainside Behind the Hotel

The Towers hotel is in a superb location and we are really pleased with the room, which has fab views, across the Bay of Naples. Mount Vesuvius is visible directly through our window. We both enjoyed lunch sitting on the terrace with Vesuvius as a back drop …..

Vesuvius – Viewed over Cheeseburger and Fries
Gotta Love A Peroni – My First Beer Of Our Stay In Italy

….. and after a brief walk along the shore line we returned to our room and crashed.

But not before I had taken a few snaps of the surrounding area …….

Scoglio di Rovigliano
Castellammare Di Stabia
Heading For Home
Mount Vesuvius and Coastal Lights

 

 

Annoyingly, the cold that I had just over a week ago, has decided to put in an encore appearance. So due to that, and the rather large cheeseburger and fries for lunch, we decided to bypass dinner and headed for beddy-byes.