Another interesting travel day

July 10

We were struggling for our 6:30am alarm, but with big plans to meet up with our friend Leigh in Capri, we got moving. It was destine to be a day of travel struggles. We could not find a taxi to get us to the airport and we didn’t have enough time to take the train or a bus (let alone the patience to figure it out on short notice with bad internet). We ended up just wandering around for awhile and lugging our heavy bags, until our aimless wandering finally paid off and we found a taxi.

We made it to the Copenhagen airport with plenty of time and checked into our first flight with EasyJet. Both flights were actually with EasyJet, but they wouldn’t let us check in for both. We had to pick up our bags when we arrived at Berlin and then go through the entire checkin process again. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal since we had a five hour layover.

When we arrived in Berlin, we went straight to baggage to grab our checked bags. It took 45 minutes to an hour to get our bags. So now we’re down to just four hours left. When we left security, we were in major need of some food. The exit area had a few restaurants and the pizza smelled pretty good. It was a struggle finding a place to sit, but I took care of that while Michael tried to grab food. The area reminded me of Lima’s airport. It was crammed with people just standing around. Michael came back and informed me that they were out of pizza and told us to come back later. They were just too busy. Ok…

So we changed directions and went to check in our bags instead and grab our second round of boarding passes. We still had 3 hours remaining at this point in our layover, but the EasyJet employee wouldn’t let us get in line. We had to wait another hour to check our bags. So we sat on the ground (definitely no available chairs anywhere) and waited for our hour to be up.

After about 30 minutes, I realized that a pretty legit line had formed for our airline checkin. So Michael waited with the bags and I joined the line. By the time I found the end, it had snaked back and forth three times – and that was before you could even enter the gated checkin area.

Michael joined me in line another 30 minutes later. We were now officially “allowed” to check in our bags. But then came the most Un-German thing that has ever happened. It is unclear what the cause of the issue was, but the baggage group ran into problems and stopped accepting bags from the counter employees. So basically, counter employees could not help any new travelers because the conveyor belts were stopped and they had no where to put the bags. Everything completely shut down.

This picture shows the agents just standing around, confused.

And here are the bags piling up, with nowhere to go.

After being in line for nearly two hours, and fairly close to the front of said line, the worst thing for us started happening. Since it was such a disaster, they started taking certain flights all at one time. So entire groups of people got moved ahead of us in line. There was also a counter employee shift change at this point, so we got to see new employees showing up for work to a huge disaster. You could just see the look of horror on their faces. I’m sure all of them wished they had called in sick.

We finally got checked in and went back to grab a slice of that pizza we had our eyes on earlier. We made it through security without issue, arriving at the gate just in time for boarding. You read that right – we needed all five hours to get our luggage, check that luggage back in, have a slice of pizza, and get through security. At one point in our planning we had considered trying to run out to see Berlin for a few hours. What a joke that would have been.

By some act of God our flight was only about 30 minutes late arriving. It was on this second flight that I read that EasyJet article about Hija de Sanchéz. Hopefully their restaurant selection process was better and more thought out than their check in process.

Upon arrival to Naples, we had about two hours before we had to be on a ferry to Capri, so we had the taxi drop us off at L’antica Pizzeria Da Michele. Established in 1870, Michele’s is considered to be THE place to get pizza in Naples. It has won a ton of awards and was the pizzeria that Julia Roberts visited in Eat, Pray, Love. They claim to be the oldest pizzeria in Naples.

All of the awards:

The place was packed – but we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes to get a table.

Michele’s serves margarita and marinara. That’s it. Obviously we grabbed one of each to make sure we had a thorough experience.

The pizza was good… but we’ve had better. It is cooked on an open fire which left the crust tasting a bit burnt. The sauce and the cheese were both really good, but meh on the crust. Cool experience, though!

Then it was off to the ferry. In a day that had already had two cab rides and two flights, it was only logical that we’d have issues with the ferry. Michael had bought tickets online because we heard the ferries sell out. So we were all set with our electronic ticket when they began boarding at 8pm. We got to the front of the highly chaotic crowd of pushing Italians and the man told us we were in line for the wrong boat. Crapola. So we ran over to the next boat, got in that line of pushing Italians, got to the front and the man told us that we had to take our electronic ticket to the box office and exchange it for paper tickets. Crapola.

Michael dropped his bags and ran to the ticket office. I sat there anxiously waiting. It was the last boat of the night, so we were in a tough place if we missed it. The captain came over and asked why I wasn’t getting on the boat. He gave me a huge deep sigh after I told him the story and then pointed to every man he could see, one by one, asking “is that your husband? Is that your husband?”

“No… no… no… no… there he is! The one who is running at us.”

So Michael returned to inform us that the ticket office was closed so he couldn’t exchange the tickets.

We had been traveling for about 13 hours at this point and were pretty haggard looking, which I’m pretty sure is why the captain gave another deep sigh, took pity on us, and just told us to get on the boat. Stressful, but completely successful! The ride was about an hour long and brought us into this beautiful harbor right at sunset.

This is the first true sunset we had seen in weeks, finally being far enough South to get complete darkness at night.

We grabbed an open air taxi cab and were jetted off to our hotel in the center of the island. After a day of tough travel, we had finally made it to luxurious Capri (pronounced “kuhhh-pree” apparently).

Then, so excited to have made it to such a beautiful place… we went to bed. We can meet up with Leigh tomorrow…