Recap: I spent Tuesday basically doing nothing but sleeping, dozing, eating, and being hot. I decided that I need to make a plan for the next several days before I went to sleep so that I could be ‘productive’ for the last three days of my stay in Southern Italy. See said plan below:

Pretty busy. Pretty ambitious. Especially considering the battling exhaustion and motivation within me. (Exhaustion had been winning in recent days.) But I had a ferry to catch! And that ferry came at 8:35am, so I didn’t have much wiggle room there. I woke up around six and spent a couple hours being hot and messing around on my phone. Because of this, by the time I found the drive to get out of bed, I didn’t have any time to sit down for breakfast. I inhaled the warm leftovers of my pizza dinner (probably not food safe), threw on a swimsuit, rubbed on some sunscreen, and essentially ran the entire way to the ferry port. What made me sad was that I saw/ heard Francisco, the Airbnb host, setting up breakfast, but I just didn’t have time to stay! (I would regret this the next morning when I finally did have time to check out his breakfast set-up.)

So most of my walk was along this very busy street on this very busy sidewalk, and it was already past eighty degrees, despite being around 8 in the morning.

I held down my hat and walked quickly, barely making the ferry before it pulled out of the dock.

I did get a very pretty view of Mount Vesuvius and the coast of Naples!

I spent most of the hour-long ferry ride standing at the railing of the boat and thinking philosophical things about life. In fact, I was in a very thinking-heavy mood all day. (Probably not the best mood when traveling, but oh well.)

Finally, the island of Ischia came into sight. Plenty of pretty beaches and colorful shops and houses.

I spent a little while just wandering the streets lined with gelato stops and trinket shops. It was a jarring but refreshing contrast to the noisy streets of Naples I had left below my bedroom window.

At some point, I found a little botanical garden. Initially, I thought it was a private garden of sorts, but there was a man watering plants, and when I came up behind him, he stepped aside and offered a welcome of ‘Prego,’ so I ventured inside.

I ended up spending a couple hours in here, actually. I probably couldn’t tell you exactly what I did for this whole time aside from people-watching and life-pondering. All the life-pondering actually made me a bit homesick at one point, to be honest, and I finally moved on because my butt was getting sore sitting on the stone benches and because my stomach was losing its patience with me.

At one point, something scuttled out from behind me and stood a foot away from me on my bench, and it took me a second to realise it was a sort of little gecko lizard thing! So cute! I watched it for a while until it took its daring dash out into the sunlight to sprint to the other side of the park. (No picture, sorry).

Cue more wandering. I had found some shops and restaurants in the morning that I wanted to return to, but it seemed silly to backtrack all the way when there were other corners to explore. One thing I noticed was that in the two or three hours I had been in the garden, the streets of Ischia had become… eerily calm and quiet. Don,t get me wrong. The streets had already been nice and relaxing, but there were plenty of tourists and locals wandering around when I had first stepped off the boat. Now, around one in the afternoon, it was essentially a ghost town.

I decided to try to find water, thinking maybe everyone had retreated to the beaches to cool off in the rising heat, and I think I was probably right. I found a little beach shack manned by a boy in his early teens who spoke no English and a man who I assumed was his grandpa. Other than an older man smoking in the corner, I had the shack to myself. I ordered the spaghetti aglio e olio (garlic and olive oil) and a lemon granita and settled in to enjoy the view.

After downing the granita and finishing about half the pasta (Italian food is just so filling! even when I am so hungry!), I headed down to the beach to read for another couple hours, giving up on my original plan to make it to the island Procida and back to Naples in time to explore some more there. *shrug*.

I didn’t make it all the way into the water, unfortunately. I was too nervous to leave my purse unattended, and it really wasn’t that hot sitting right in front of the wind off the water. I stepped in up to my waist a couple times, but I regretted not doing a full dunk once I left the shore and the temperature raised about ten degrees again.

I did a little more exploring…

And then ate a little gelato…

I managed to get my gelato down my arm, on my hat, and in my purse. Go me.

Another quirky little thing I noticed about Ischia was that there were tiny little shop dogs everywhere, and they all seemed to just lie outside their shops or in the middle of the street, seemingly dead or close to dead due to the heat. I just wanted to give them a wading pool to swim in or something! I sure hope they were getting enough water. Whenever I found one, I usually bent down to give them some love before continuing on.

At this point, I felt my time at Ischia had been well (enough) spent, and that I would feel comfortable heading back to Naples to explore a bit and hit the hay early. I thought I had remembered there being a ferry to Naples leaving around six, so I made sure to head to the ferry terminal around five. I got in at 5:30 just as a ferry was pulling out of the dock, and it turned out that was the last ferry until 7:30….. Ugh…. Great planning on my part, right?

So what was I supposed to do now? I felt completely fulfilled and finished with Ischia, but here I was, stuck for another two hours… *sigh*…. Back to reading, I guess. I found a spot on a bench, made myself comfy, and spent the rest of my time on Ischia reading and watching sailors prepare their ships for some night sailing. I very much wanted to jump onto one of the boats with them, but it didn’t seem like the best or brightest idea, really. My fantasies would have to do.

Half a book later, I finally got on my ferry, got back to my room, and slept pretty darn well that night….

To be continued on Day Three in Naples.

Venlig hilsen/ ciao,

Lizzy-wa