V5 travels: Breakfast, Steps, Beaches, and the return of the trusty Toyota Yarris

Our last full day in Priarno, we enjoyed yet another leisurely breakfast and slow start to the day. Alessia - one of our hosts (along with Luigi, Frederico, Daniela and Sandra) was patient with me in explaining the history of the hotel. It is run by a family, and the Papa, Luigi, has been there since birth. They do a marvellous quiet and patient job with guests - nothing is too much trouble! But back to breakfast, Luigi piles the table with food and Alessia makes coffee, while we just sat there taking in the view!

We then walked into Priarno and decided to explore by taking a path down to the water - we were aiming for a beach, but ended up in a rock cove - it was beautiful. Down many many stairs, we ate fresh panini rolls by the water. The rocks were warm, and the birdsong loud and varied while the waves lapped against the edge. We were soon laying our heads down and enjoyed a sleep/meditation by the water. Both of us were just lulled into a state of pure relaxation. What came next was exhausting…..451 steps down, meant 451 steps up. V4 smashed it, but I was stopping every 50 steps to let my heart rate calm down! More aerobic fitness needed before I start aiming for a long hilly walk!

Well, you heard about the Breakfast, Steps and Beaches, now onto the next one…...

We left the next morning, V4 conquering the chicken game with the Italian Drivers on the road to Positano. She did another sterling job of getting back to a relatively safe autostrade and into Naples. This time we decided to stick to the main road, and found ourselves at the rental car drop off just after midday.

We expected things to move slowly for drop off as it had been an extremely slow collect process - we were not disappointed. V4 had read some reviews of the company online, and they are noted to trying to collect ‘damage’ money…and they did so with us. While I took photos of the car and wheels before driving out - I neglected to get a photo of under the front bumper….our customer service representative (I use this term VERY loosely) found two scratches that were there but was claiming we had damaged the car - initially she was pointing at wheel arches and it was only after getting the manager involved this was downgraded to two 10 cm scratches on the underside of the bumper….325 Euro in damages!!! I ended up toe to toe with our customer service rep who actually started to push my hand away - she was a complete bully - telly a fellow customer not to stand near our car as it was not his (he stood his ground). We will attempt to claim the damage from travel insurance but it is obviously a complete scam! Cheap car rental is not so cheap when you add this sort of money on top! We wondered, if had we paid their insurance they were insisting on at the beginning of the rental (probably a similar amount), would we have had any issue????? we will never know.