Birthday Adventures, Part 1

This year my birthday (November 22) happened to fall on Thanksgiving Day.  We decided it was high time our family experienced an overnight vacation!  After all the work of getting moved into our house, it was so nice to get away from it all for a bit.  We chose to explore the island of Capri, approximately a one hour's ferry ride away from the Bay of Napoli.

Ted booked our hotel reservations--2 rooms with 4 people in each--at the Floridiana Hotel in Capri for Thursday and Friday nights.  We were up bright and early Thanksgiving morning.  The kids and Ted surprised me with presents at the breakfast table.  I wasn't expecting presents...going to Capri was a gift in itself!  But my family likes to spoil me on occasion, so I'm not complaining!

Note my cute handmade hat from Charis and the felt slippers Ted brought me from Estonia!  Tobin made coupons for me, Arden wrote a sweet card as well, and Kenna gave me a box of...interesting...assorted items, including a Batman yo-yo, painted rock, mirror, and Disney princess tin. :-)

We left the house around 9 a.m. and drove to one of the Navy installations which is right next to the Naples airport.  We were able to park in the garage there for free, then walked over to the airport to catch the bus that would take us to the port for our ferry ride.  We were plenty early, so once we got the tickets we walked to Castle Nuovo, which is right across the street!  We didn't pay to go inside, since we didn't have enough time to do it justice, but it was cool to cross over where the moat used to be and look inside at the courtyard.  One of the cool things about living in Europe...city, city, city, BAM!  Ancient castle!

We ate a quick lunch before boarding our boat to Capri.  The ride was uneventful; there were enough seats that the kids spread out in search of windows to peer out of, and Ted and I amused ourselves trying to figure out what the daytime cooking show people were saying in Italian.  (That show followed one discussing the credibility of UFOs!)

Arriving at Capri was so exciting!  It was beautiful!  And the weather was just gorgeous--sunny and warm but not hot.  We rode the funicolare (cable car) up to the main square of Capri and from there walked to our hotel.  We checked in, exclaimed over our beautiful rooms, settled in a bit, and then took off for our first adventures!