Italy-Ischia

I realized that I never posted about the second half of my trip to Italy. After Positano and the Amalfi Coast we ventured out to Ischia Island for 3 nights. Ischia Island is known for it's natural hot springs and thermal baths which are said to have healing properties. They have a big hot springs garden there (called Citara)  but we didn't visit that. We took a ferry from Positano directly there. It left bright and early and we were a little hungover due to overindulgence in wine (weird) so we napped on the boat.

Napping on boats, Ischia bound. One of my favorite photos from the trip

The ferry took us to the main port (Ischia Porto) on the northeast side of the island.  After some searching online we decided to stay in Forio which is on the west side of the island. Forio has a sort of laid-back, village vibe.  There's some shopping and restaurants and bars but it's not a late night sort of place.  We found Hotel Providence online after a lot of TripAdvisor searching. It had good reviews and was across the street from the beach.  It had a wonderful outdoor pool with amazing views.  The rooms are nothing special but clean and we didn't spend any time in them except to sleep. The staff was friendly, it was definitely a very quiet hotel that seemed to cater to an older crowd. It's also slightly outside the center of Forio but it's a beautiful walk along the water to get into Forio, takes about 10-15 minutes.

The view from the pool deck at Hotel Providence

We only had 3 nights and two full days in Ischia so we didn't get to do as much as we wanted to. Looking back I am really disappointed that we didn't find the time to hike up to the peak of Mt. Epomeo.  When we arrived we relaxed at the pool at the hotel for a few hours and then walked into the town to eat and drink more.  There's a little row of restaurants across from the water, all of the ones we tried were delicious.

The next day we took the bus over to Ischia Ponte to check out Castello Aragonese, one of the main tourist attractions on Ischia.  It's an old medieval castle just of the northeast side of Ischia and connected to it by a foot bridge.  We spent hours wandering around and taking in the amazing views...and checking out torture chambers. We even went for a dip in the water off the foot bridge on our way out. 

Magnificent Castello Aragonese

The view down onto Ischia Ponte from Castello Aragonese

The beautiful gardens

Our last day on Ischia was spent at the beach across the street from our hotel, Cava dell'isola.  We were told by the bartender at our hotel that it was the "young beach" and he was right. It seemed like the "high school hangout" with many over-groomed dudes in speedos playing soccer. I can't say I'm a fan of the speedo look but the beach was beautiful.  The water was extremely calm and warm but still cool enough to be refreshing. We baked all day then ate a late lunch at the restaurant on the north end of the beach.

Cava dell'isola

Speedos!

That night we ate and drank as usual and accidentally went on a date with two Italian dudes who quickly fell in love with us. What an uncomfortable evening that was. We went to a small romantic town called Sant'Angelo and got gelato.  It was a beautiful and classy little place however we were under the impression that we were going dancing at a club and I think we were dressed a little too risqué for the crowd there.  We got quite a few disapproving looks and I'm fairly certain that the crowd there thought we were paid companions. By the end of the evening we couldn't wait to escape back to our little hotel room.

The next day we took a ferry back to Naples where we had to spend the night for our 6am flight home. We got a little hotel room near the airport and Naples is not a safe place for 2 chicas to be walking around at night so we settled in, got some takeout and attempted to sleep before the long flight home back to reality.