Our day continued yesterday after we finished with the wifi
at the B&B; Bonnie and Jane arrived from their day trip to Capri just as we
finished before five o’clock. We all
walked up to the apartment and enjoyed their stories of the trip to Capri. They enjoyed the chair lift ride up to the
top of the mountain but missed the boat for the ride around the island and the
exciting tiny boat ride into the cavern that is usually the highlight of a trip
to Capri. They were late in leaving and
the only tickets left for returning were the early ones; four o’clock was the
last boat with tickets available when they purchased their tickets.
They had purchased delicious cookies in Capri and we opened
the wine and enjoyed the treat while we played several rounds of the card game
“hearts” while listening to their stories and sharing our day with the Hop On
and Off bus. About seven o’clock we
cooked our pasta, put the salad together and enjoyed a dinner together in the
apartment; our first since Siena. By
this time the rain had begun; we’d assumed it would stop as it has every night
before. By eight o’clock they decided
they should head for their hotel even though there was no break in the rain as
the last buses were leaving soon. They
had plastic ponchos and we gave them our umbrellas. There were still buses in the harbor who were
loading the last boats that were arriving from Capri. They climbed aboard and headed up the hill
to Piazza Tasso. They ended up walking
the mile to their hotel in the rain.
They called us on the cell phone after they’d arrived. No trip downstairs for wifi calls home
tonight. We used the Italian Cell phone,
called Jim in California for a brief talk and he called Phil in Florida to let
him know we were okay.
To bed about ten o’clock and then the fun began. There are lots of photos in the slideshow of
our night and this morning. The rain
continued and increased in intensity.
The volume of water coursing down the street became very deep and flowed
into the side streets below our building.
Soon it had lifted a large concrete lid that covered the sewer system;
it was covered with extremely heaving stones as it was also part of the street. Water and mud was coursing into the
buildings and in to the hotel lobby that is located directly under the cliff.
They opened a manhole cover in the street to relieve some of
the pressure and then the officials started to arrive. And, they continued to arrive until noon the
next day. By midnight we had a fire
truck, pumper trucks; a small tractor with a scoop arrived about one
o’clock. That scrapper worked most of
the night scrapping mud off of the public area so that when tourists arrived in
the morning they would not be walking in mud.
The noise was terrible and no one in our building was sleeping, except
for Mary who had taken a sleeping pill!
She missed all the fun! Many
officials continued to arrive all night.
Cleaning up the mud seemed very important, but not so for
our area including the first ten feet into our building; so we are walking
through two inches of mud to get to the steps to our apartment. They pumped water out of the hotel and
storage rooms on the first floor. About
two o’clock I gave up watching and put in the ear plugs and headed for bed. Woke at seven o’clock to even more
noise. The cleanup continued until
noon. But the buses and taxis continued
to bring tourists; the little white train started running and boats came and
left to go to Capri. Other than
stopping to look at the damage; life continued.
We’ve enjoyed our morning watching all of the activity. It looks like it’s going to rain again
soon. We’re hoping to go between drops
to the B&B for some wifi time.
Hope you enjoy the slideshow of the power of rain in
Sorrento Harbor:
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