15th/16th October

Singapore, a place we hadn't visited for 10years and noticed a big difference straight away.   The clean Streets, the green trees, the clean waterways and skyscrapers, the gardens, the people were friendly and we just loved being there. 
We visited the Gardens by the Bay, a magnifient project taking 6 years to build at a cost of 6 million dollars, whatever they do here is done beautifully as they have always done, making everything from Lakes, beaches, gardens etc.
They have built the Worlds largest glass greenhouse Flower Dome, a must see for anyone coming here.    We spent all morning wandering around this amazing man made covered, air controlled garden with plants from the five continents of the world.  A truly amazing place.  We went to the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and viewed the city by night.  Went to the Flower garden for a light display to music, was all wonderful.
As we werent flying out until evening, we spent the day seeing as much as we could, so took the cablecar to Sentosa Island which was a lovely way to spend our last hours.  Flew out at 9pm and spent 9 hours in the air on a Singapore flight which was bumpy most of the way, very hard to sleep but pleased to see Auckland even though a cold wind was blowing, after a couple of hours there we took our plane to Napier where we were greeted by family, friends and a warm sunny day.
Love travelling but always good to be home. Loved being in Italy and Croatia was amazing, but we think 5 weeks was long enough and once again felt very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit these places.

12th October

Leaving Capri was hard as we enjoyed staying in our old Villa which had wonderful views of the Ocean. We trundled down the Road with our suitcases and into the Village of Capri to book our fast ferry to Naples, 1 hour it took to get there and onto the fast train to Rome.  It's the way to travel that's for sure, the train got to speeds of 300kms hr, so another hour later we were in Rome for two nights.
This time we stayed in Trastevere which is a leafy suburb of Rome and a short tram ride away from many highlights.   We took an On Off bus around the city as we realised we were never going to find our way on foot to the many things we wanted to see. 

Once off the bus we made our way to the Navona underground, and archeological area that lies under Piazza Navona.  The Romans were a brutal lot, such an interesting city to visit though.  Once again the weather has been beautiful, blue skies and sunshine everyday, awesome. 

We had two nights in Rome and left late to fly to Frankfurt, a one hour time limit to get our plane to Rome.  We just made the plane as they were boarding so thought that we were really smart.    Only to find once we arrived in Singapore that they had left our luggage behind, not having time to transfer it to the next plane, oh dear.  A mark against Lufthansa, but they did give us $300 per couple to buy necessities, so we went shopping straight away, even though we had just had a 12hr flight with not much sleep.  However great Hotel in Singapore so all good.

This day in Capri we went to the Blue Grotto, a truly amazing sight to see.  We set off at 9.30am to beat the crowds (if anyone can ever do that) but it was better than waiting for later.   We booked our boat ride around the Island and taking in the Blue Grotto, when we arrived there were about 15 boats already there and we had to wait our turn which took about 3/4 hour.  When it was our turn we were put into little row boats, four of us in our boat with a boatman who rowed us into the Grotto, each boat had to wait for the water to be at its lowest and he then went by pulling on a chain and with us ducking our heads we sailed in to the huge cave and viewed the clear blue water below, it was incredible, the boatmen were amazing and all sang Italian songs whilst we were in there, took us around twice and then it was out again through the hole, after waiting our turn and for the tide to be at the right level, an experience we had never

had before and thoroughly enjoyed. After that exhilerating morning when back on dry land we went to AnnaCapri, a beautiful little town so high up the hillside we took a bus and they are something else, very narrow roads right on the edge, quite an experience to be in one.

10th October
There is quite a lot to Capri apart from the town at the port where everyone arrives, there are restaurants to burn, then there is Capri Centrale which is up on the hill, a walk up steep steps or a funicular which we took as the steps are getting to us as we had 85 steps to our accommodation each day, keeping us fit for sure.  The town up there was just set up for tourists as they were everywhere and the shops just set out for them, so we were not impressed with that area, a short ride back down on the bus and away from the crowds was the only thing to do.  The bus tours, mainly of Asians is incredible but we did find English, Germans and some Australians but mainly Asians.   The water is so clear everywhere around this coastline, it is amazing.

9th October

We finished our stay in Amalfi, one week of sunshine and relaxation in our appartment overlooking the beach and town, an amazing place to stay and watch the world go by, we enjoyed it so much, there was always something to see with the boats, people on the beach, buses bringing tourists in and boats taking them away, wonderful place to experience, the crowds were a bit much at times but we coped.  We caught the ferry to the Isle of Capri going via Positano which took 1 hour and enjoyed the sea voyage.  We were met at the terminal in Capri and taken by taxi to our accommodation which was an old Villa high on the hill overlooking Capri.  The Villa was built in the 1800s by two American women who lived there until they died and then bought by a man who now rents it out to people and while we were there an Italian film crew were renting half of the building to make a film so quiet was needed by us for a day.  We had just a quarter of the beautiful building which was enough for us, with beautiful views to Mt. Vesuvious and Napoli and the port of Capri, the Villa stood out all over the Island and we just loved staying there, t

he peace and quiet and the deck to sit out on was wonderful.

8th October

Today we set off for the towns of Maiori and Minori, just around the cliffside from Amalfi.  We went by ferry to Minori and bused to Maiori the bigger of the two towns and a very different town as they had so much more flat land, so a lovely promonade along the front of the beach (which was again stony) went for quite a long way, also a long main street going up towards to hillside made for a different scene.  We enjoyed another lunch and relaxed in

the sunshine, the weather is amazing.

7th October

We stayed for the day in Amalfi, firstly walking hundreds of steps up to the cemetary, all terraced and on the top of the hill with magnificient views to the ocean.  The cemetary was well planned with most coffins in the walls, if you would like to place flowers on graves you just climb the ladder, all very interesting.  Going back down was so much easier, although having to always hold the hand rail is a must in some cases, very narrow lanes with houses perched on hillsides, it is always eye opening stuff and lemon groves all on the terraced hillsides.  They are renowned for lemoncello of which we have tasted every night, it is cheap to buy so a good drink to help us sleep hah. 
We did some shopping in the afternoon (a must) here as they have lovely clothes although a bit expensive, the shops are mostly touristy with all the usual souvenirs.  We made friends with a local Pizzeria where we bought something for dinner and lunch sometimes, they were a lovely young couple who were always friendly each time we walked past and sold us super food to sometimes take back to our appartment for dinner, they learned a bit about NZ and we gave them some souvenirs to remember us by.