Wheelchair Worries *Sorrento Edition - Tuesday 27th June 2023

Going Home

Our flight wasn't until 20:30 so we did some mooching around and then headed back to where we'd parked the car at Polio supermarket. It was going to take over an hour to drive to Ecovia so I thought I'd have one last Sorrento pee, ya know just for the memories. Dad checked out the public toilets and said the gents was going to be difficult and had no toilet seat, but the ladies looked do-able and it had a toilet seat. I jumped at the chance... an Italian women's toilet! I know how to make the most of my holiday...

The toilet was at the end of a two metre long very narrow stall. I transferred to the loo and Dad took the chair and waited outside. He shut the door. Click.

"I think that's just locked itself" Dad announced.

"Really?"

He tried the door and it wouldn't open.

"Nope it's locked. Is there a panic chord in there?" Dad asked

"Nope and I can't reach the door."

Great, I thought. They don't have toilet seats. Most toilets aren't disabled. Some are down stairs and they lock you in. I'm getting the feeling I'm not welcome here...

The stall was so narrow I could stand up and keep my self upright by pushing against the walls either side. Like Spiderman I crab walked down the stall and unlocked the door.

All that was left was to return the car to Ecovia, we were expecting them to make this as difficult as our arrival. We arrived three and a half hours before our flight took off so we wouldn't miss our flight if they were as difficult as they were on our arrival.

Here's the rest of Dad's review

On our return, the same person was much more welcoming and helpful, saying that she'd hold the shuttle for us. Unfortunately, the driver had other ideas and left. On his return, after about 30 minutes, he wanted to put my son and his chair in the luggage area, unsecured and among other unsecured luggage. We argued that this was unsafe and I helped him into a normal seat. I'm astonished that this company remains in business, and can only assume that they survive thanks to Easyjet, who should be more selective about whom they recommend.

You read that correctly, they didn't have any facilities for disabled passengers, so they were going to stick me in the boot like luggage.

I'll explain exactly how this went. I was invited onto the bus, I am in a wheelchair. A couple of inches off the floor is a rusty step into the bus. I asked if their was another way to get on and pointed at the wheelchair. He didn't speak a word of English, he said something in Italian gave a signal that I thought meant roll on and went inside the shabby looking port a cabin. He came out with another member of staff who was fluent in English.

"You want to get on the bus?" He asked

"Yes please"

They then got either side and were preparing to lift me.

"Whoa whoa whoa, are you going to put me in with the luggage? You can't put me in there".

The non-English speaking driver just shrugged his shoulders. He didn't know what I said, but it was pretty clear I was refusing to go in the boot. This is a perfect metaphor for my experience of Italy. Wheelchair users are as insignificant as luggage and they care so little they just shrug.

I proceeded to wheel round to the side of the van with Dad trying to point out "it's not safe." Dad helped me step up onto the rusty step which moved under my weight as if it was going to collapse. I sat in the front left seat directly behind the driver. It was a boiling hot day, there were lots of us in the bus and we were barely moving. I felt the occasional cold air from the drivers air con. It must have been misery for the other passengers.

I checked their website to see what it says about disabled customers.

I didn't realise the first link on the Google results page was a sponsored link for a different company.

Ecovia have got a lovely website, I thought. It's like a travel website. You enter your pickup destination, your arrival date and departure date, then you are taken to a page where it checks all of it's suppliers and then comes back with pictures of all the cars they offer, their prices and customer reviews.

This website wasn't in keeping with how Ecovia present themselves. To get to the premises, you drive through the back streets of Naples until you get to a portacabin in a public car park behind an Esso garage. This website says they have a rating of 4.48/5 from 234,117 customers. It also says 'Compare car rentals and save up to 50%'.

The penny drops.

This is a car rental comparison site and Ecovia barely feature in the results. When they do you can see that they have a poor rating.

This site is economybookings.com and shame on them for not even mentioning how disabled customers are catered for. There should at least be a notice before you purchase "economybookings.com is a price comparison website, please check the providers website for their disability access." Not all wheelchair travellers can get out of their chair. A wheelchair bound passenger who can not get out of their chair might have flown for hours, reached their destination and then find they can't get in to the car. The car rental sites MUST notify you before you rent the car how far it is from the airport. How you will get there (a shuttle bus at their expense or public transport) and if it is via shuttle bus, whether it has wheelchair access or not.

So, I'll give Ecovia benefit of the doubt and make sure I'm checking there website.

They have a very nice website, there's a booking form and then it brings up a list of cars matching your search criteria and informs you of a few features like number of doors and seats and whether it's auto or manual. I followed the buying process all the way through to providing payment details and there is no mention of disability access. So I went to their FAQ section to see if disabled access is mentioned for the shuttle to pick up the car. It wasn't.

So I had a quick look at some other car rental websites and did a search in their FAQs:

Europcar - no

Hertz - yes

Hertz have a search box that I entered 'disabled' into. There was one answer and it just directed you to the contact us page and it was about adapting the car. They do at least acknowledge disabled customers exist which puts them ahead of Ecovia and there might be nothing about transport to pick up the car because they are on site.

Avis - yes

Avis have a search box that I entered 'disabled' into. There was one answer and it was about adapting the car.

Enterprise - yes

They actually have a link on the main page - Customer Service > Disabled Customers. They have a section of the website dedicated to it. There are three sections - Adjustments, Surrogate Drivers and Permanently Adapted Vehicles and a link to contact them if they haven't answered your question.

Sixt - no

Now I only had a very quick search in the FAQs. In the case of some sites (Hertz for example) there are dozens of links that could hide information on what I'm looking for.

when I was looking at the Ecovia website, I noticed a link to 'Become an Affiliate'. I don't know if Ecovia do any due diligence, because I would say that either Ecovia don't know who's representing them at Naples airport or they do and aren't concerned that it's affiliates are representing them this way.

In Conclusion

Sorrento was an adventure and a place I would like to return to, but I would do it completely differently.

First of all I would stay in an accessible hotel. I didn't enjoy staying where I did, I don't like that the accommodation lied that there were 'disabled facilities'. I felt like an afterthought and expected to just manage. The person who rented us the accommodation could have ruined my holiday because of her desire to make a quick buck. Fortunately I'm a swell guy who managed to soldier on...<-sarcasm

However, I wouldn't do Sorrento again unless I could rent an electric wheelchair. I wouldn't go to Italy unless I was with people who could help me get to the loo. 

I would put up with the cobbled streets and the lack of drop curbs because I don't see it ever changing. I don't see how the cobbled streets could change and I don't think it should. I think the look of Sorrento is to perfect to modify.

I wouldn't go to Pompeii. Again there's an awful lot they can't make accessible but there's an awful lot they can and have, I did this completely wrong. I would say if you're disabled you should go on a disable friendly tour, check out https://disabledaccessibletravel.com/accessible-pompeii/

If you are disabled I would highly recommend viewing the website Sage Travelling

Wheelchair Worries *Sorrento Edition - Monday 26th June 2023

General exploring

It was Monday and we'd be flying back tomorrow evening, we were going to have dinner tonight at Da Gigino so we had a look around town. We went down some of the alleys and side streets. Again it was exactly how I had imagined Italy. It was generally the rear of shops, but the doors would be open, so I could see in. You would hear people chatting in Italian, mopeds were parked up that employees of the various shops had ridden to work. A side street would suddenly open into the outside seating area of a restaurant. We would walk down side streets with restaurants on one side and then an outside restaurant on the opposite side. Whenever you were near an outside restaurant (which seemed to be every few metres) there would be music playing. When there was a shop that wasn't a restaurant it would generally be a gelato shop.

The streets are particularly unforgiving in these side streets. Think of the classic Hovis ad where the lad has got the bread in the basket of the bike and he's riding on a cobbled street.

There's a lift down to the coast so that one and all can get down to it. I think it costs €1.10. I say 'think' because we never had to pay it as I'm in a wheelchair and they always let me go through free.

I didn't think the view from down here was as good as the views from up above, the views are better when u can look down at the boats from above or across at Vesuvius. Although the view down here wasn't too bad I s'pose (I'm currently looking out the window at a wet drive and some wheelie bins).

Now came my loooooooooooooong quest to find a toilet. We rode the lift down to the coast and I announced my need for the loo. It wasn't urgent as I'd learnt now that I had to find a suitable toilet, which in Sorrento ain't easy, so I gave notice long before it was needed.

We saw a sign for toilets, followed the direction into a little courtyard but couldn't see any toilets. After an investigation of all the shop fronts we noticed that one was open. It had a sign above the door saying ATM inside. We went in and saw a small queue of people waiting to go into a room and a bathroom attendant handing out single sheets of toilet paper. I didn't like the look of this, I had the distinct impression it was going to be the nastiest of public toilets. It wasn't! There idea of not having a toilet seat means that men have got a larger target to aim for so the toilet and toilet floor isn't as it would be in an English toilet, if this was England you'd have had to burn your trainers after walking on that floor. Not surprisingly it didn't have any grab rails though so I wasn't able to use it. Dad said no good to the attendant and he signalled to us to follow him and he unlocked a door and revealed a toilet with grab rails either side of the toilet. I couldn't believe my eyes and pushed down on the bar to see if it would hold any weight. It did but the grab rail had a single metal pole that connected the grab rail to the floor, like a walking crutch does. With a crutch though your weight is directly over the foot of the crutch, so the crutch foot can't move. That's not the case when you're holding these rails so these grab rails moved all over the place as soon as I put weight on. I shook my head, said thank you and continued our quest.

We stayed down by the coast and were walking up and down wondering if we could just wander into a hotel reception and ask if we could use the toilet as non customers. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation to have in different languages. We kept this idea as a last resort and kept searching.

We found a bar and Dad went in to see if the toilet was suitable, it looked like a nice bar so we'd stay and have a drink, I didn't want to do a 'piss and run'. The toilet was up a flight of stairs, it did have a bannister but was to narrow to walk side by side. The manager knew where we could try but her English wasn't very good so the owner came over to translate. The manager suggested we try just next door, but the owner pointed out some issues with that idea. The owner told us to go back up via the lift again and there's a public toilet there although she can't remember if it's disabled or not.

We went back above and found a public toilets. Now my memory is we found it by following a sign which showed disabled toilets, but this toilet wasn't disabled. I don't think I've mis-remembered this as it was in a massive stall which would suggest it is what they consider a disabled toilet. There were no grab rails and no toilet seat though, it was what I consider NOT a disabled toilet. This was a big room with a seatless toilet in. I could at least have the wheelchair in front of me so I could hold onto the chair for balance. It didn't do the trick though as I started to tip to my right, I was heading towards the concrete public toilet floor but luckily my leg pressed against the toilet bowl allowing me to put more pressure on the chair to hold myself up.

We had our final meal at Da Gigino, a restaurant Adam and Ruth had stopped on there way back from Mount Vesuvius yesterday.

They raved about the food here, but warned me that wheelchair access is non existent and the toilet is down some steps again. Although nowhere near the amount at Fauno Bar. This place even had a toilet seat!

I said "not a problem" but secretly thought "bit of a problem!" and enjoyed another amazing pizza. This one had cheese on (I point this out because pizza in Italy doesn't have cheese unless stated), Aubergine and several chunks of freshly cooked sausage sprinkled all over. Not discs of some sort of meat as you would get in England, but chunks of actual sausage. I needed to go to the loo before dessert, so Adam wheeled me as far as he could (people were moving their chairs to let us through) we were packed in like sardines. We get as close to the stairs as we could and then walked to the top of the stairs. Then holding on to the bannister I descended the steps to a toilet I could actually sit on.

Adam joked with a lady I was drunk, a joke that normally destroys in England but he had to assure her he was just joking.

This toilet trip was relatively simple compared to others I'd experienced in Sorrento.

Once again we returned to the table for dessert. Dessert is the best course of any meal. You're just plain wrong if you disagree with me. The first thing I do is look at the desserts, if they're not on a separate dessert menu. I've been known to refuse to go to places based on their dessert menu.

Wheelchair Worries *Sorrento Edition - Sunday 25th June

 

Vasame Part II

Dad and I went back to Vasame for dinner as it seemed like a nice place to eat outside, the disabled loo wasn't a deciding factor. Honest... We ate outside, it was early in the evening, the temperature had dropped to about twenty six degrees and there were hills in the distance. It was hell <- more sarcasm. My Italian experience was mainly about the food. Italian cuisine is my favourite, so I wanted to try Italian pizza ✔ I wanted to try Italian pasta, which I could now ✔ off my list and I wanted to try an Italian Tiramisu ✔

Wheelchair Worries *Sorrento Edition - Saturday 24th June 2023

Pompeii

We were going to get the train with Adam and Ruth but they rang us the night before to say they'd met some locals who recommended we shouldn't risk taking the train. There is a gap from the platform to the train, the aisles are too narrow to fit a wheelchair and finally apparently there are two stops the train can stop at. If the driver is instructed, they will re-route the train at Pompeii Scavi and you will depart at a wheelchair friendly stop. If the train isn't re-routed visitors coming from Sorrento will have to go down and up many stairs. 

We arrived there and one of the employees asked us if we were going into Pompeii, we said we were and he said there were steps. We said we'd pre-booked the tickets and we were assured Pompeii was wheelchair accessible. He volunteered to take me and Adam on a considerable walk to get to a lift that would take us to meet Dad and Ruth. It would miss out some of Pompeii as there wasn't wheelchair access to some parts. Seeing Pompeii was the reason Adam and Ruth had wanted to get Dad out here, he'd always wanted to see it. 

Adam and I got into the lift and after a short lift ride, we met up with Dad and Ruth. I have done some research before writing this bit, because my opinion of Pompeii is very negative and I didn't want to write my negative views and then have people commenting telling me I'm a moron because I didn't take the disabled route. 

We had been informed from a few sources that Pompeii was accessible, so maybe my lack of research meant I took the wrong route?

Reading the blog How Accessible is the Ancient Roman City Pompeii for Wheelchair Users? It would appear we didn't take the disabled accessible route. There is a route called 'Pompeii For All'. Although when we booked the tickets we made it clear we had a wheelchair user. So I don't know why we weren't told of this route. I don't know if the employee at the start thought it better to take me past the inaccessible entrance rather than having to send me away to a different area. He really did go out of his way to help when he could just given us directions rather than show us. We kept thanking him profusely and he kept saying he's happy to help and helping tourists like us coming from all over the world is what he enjoys.

I believe our journey began at the Basilica which looking at the map of Pompeii is quite far to the west, missing out a vast part of Pompeii.

It's clear that me reviewing Pompeii would be like reviewing a fridge that I thought was a freezer. So I will just make these points;

Wheelchair access throughout the streets is atrocious. I saw videos on YouTube of a person in an electric wheelchair going over a large impassable rock and there were two ramps either side of it that were at the exact same height of the impassable rock. I can only assume they filmed this when the ramps were first installed and they hadn't had thousands of wheelchairs going over them and the rock hasn't suffered from erosion and been chipped and battered. This YouTube video is a very idealistic view, like when you bake bread so there's a nice smell when your house is viewed. I think if you're going to show this video to get disabled custom you must keep the disabled access to this standard.

The signage in Pompeii is very poor. Pompeii is vast, but there are virtually no signs when you're not in a main street. When you are they are still very few and far between. There seemed to be hundreds of tours going on, lines of tourists following people holding flags of the language they were conducting the tour in, many people seemed to be on these tours and would be able to ask the guide if they wanted to get somewhere. The people that weren't had to rely on the odd sign. For example there would be a sign that says disabled toilets <-, so you would follow it, but after walking in this direction (for a long time). the next sign you come across points you back in the opposite direction, or doesn't mention disabled toilets at all.

There are only four disabled toilets at Pompeii, one at the Porta Marina Superiore, at the Porta Marina Inferiore, the Villa Imperiale and one at the other entry point, the Piazza Anfiteatro. The Villa Imperiale is the only toilet located within the site. The other three are located at the entrances. The remains of Pompeii's city walls are 2 miles in circumference.

Pompeii is a site to behold and if you get the chance and are able bodied I would go and see it. If you are wheelchair bound, I don't think you get the full experience and I would strongly advise you go on a wheelchair tour. I would say this is unavoidable though as this is an ancient Roman city and it might ruin the authenticity if there are grab rails and lifts attached to it. That said I think they have done the bare minimum in most cases or not at all in examples like the train. My experience was dampened by my uneducated expectations and also my woefully inadequate wheelchair. I have a manual self propelling wheelchair. It has big wheels at the back and small trolley wheels at the front. It has small anti-tip wheels attached to metal bars at the back to stop the wheelchair tipping backwards. Both Dad and Adam's legs were gushing blood where their legs had been hit while lifting the wheelchair up one of the streets high curbs. My manual wheelchair did allow me to see areas an electric wouldn't, but I was bothered I was damaging the ancient streets.

Wheelchair Worries *Sorrento Edition - Friday 23rd June 2023

I woke up the next morning and my phone wasn't on charge on the night stand as is usually the case at home, so I asked Dad if he knew where it was, and he didn't. I had an immediate nauseous feeling, my whole life is on that phone. "I can't believe I would have left it somewhere, it's always in my pocket, I never leave it on a table I put it straight back in my pocket." We logged onto Google and using Find My Android saw that it's location was behind the hotel, a few minutes walk away. Dad went to go and see if the taxi we went home in was there. It wasn't so he tried the 'play sound' hoping it would work. It said it was ringing but he couldn't hear anything, he was walking up to parked cars, staring in and listening for a faint sound. Nothing. However the phone that was under my bed was ringing clear as day! I shuffled up the steps on my ass and slid into the bedroom, it had fallen off the night stand onto the floor. It was reporting that it hadn't got any signal so we didn't try to play the sound. There was normally no signal up in the bedroom and the wi-fi couldn't reach it, so it was reporting it's location incorrectly.

Dad came back via the local supermarket Polio and picked up supplies, oh and chocolate! We had breakfast and then late morning ventured into town.

We got our first taste of rolling around Sorrento. Every street is cobbled some more severely than others. They look gorgeous though, exactly how I pictured Italy. I can fully understand why there is no accessibility on the streets because you would have to make modifications and then it would lose its distinctly Italian look. 

However, I don't think there's any excuse for the lack of drop curbs or in some cases there is a drop curb on one side of the road and an inch and a half high curb on the other that you have to pull the wheelchair backwards over because the smaller front wheels can't manage it. Or paths are so narrow you have to walk into oncoming traffic. As we were walking into town there was an elderly couple, the husband was walking next to his wife in a mobility scooter. They reached the drop curb and couldn't go any further because there was a car parked across it and a man in the car reading a paper. When Dad pointed out he was blocking it, he was very apologetic and said he would park somewhere else. This was the attitude I encountered all the time, the people couldn't be nicer but they clearly don't encounter disabled people often and don't consider them.

Vasame

Later on that day on our way back to the accomodation We happened to notice a sign on the corner of the street. Cafes and shops shaded by a portico were on the left hand side of a road that looped back on itself and came back in the same direction about a hundred feet away. More shops/cafes were shaded by another portico, again on the left side of the road. We walked under the shaded roof on a smooth marble 

like walkway and after a very short walk, we were outside Vasame. We weren't that far from our accommodation, but ol' Tommy here needed a tinkle. As I hadn't much luck finding a disabled toilet in Sorrento so far, I said to Dad "it would be great if it had a disabled loo". I said it more as rhetorical comment, never thinking for a moment this was anything but a reconnaissance mission for dinner later.

The manager said Vesame had a disabled toilet and the cynic in me thought "yea, of course you have." Earlier that day we had been to a restaurant to book a table for that evening that had said it was disabled friendly on their website. We parked outside and Dad went in to make the booking. There was nobody at reception but saw there were stairs up to the restaurant... in this accessible restaurant... Maybe there was a lift or another way upto the restaurant, we'd never know though as there was nobody in the restaurant either.

This was only my second day in Sorrento but I was already learning that disabled access had a completely different meaning here.

The whole of the front of Vasame slides open to either side so their was acres of room to move the wheelchair through. The floor was smooth from the outside walkway into the restaurant, there wasn't even a noticeable join in the floor where the glass front opened and closed.

The restaurant was lovely inside, divided into a small bar area and a restaurant. The tables are nicely spaced out, there's plenty of room to wheel through the restaurant, everything is on one level and the floors are smooth. They had a vast range of drinks and by the looks of the restaurant they would have a good menu as well. There were table and chairs directly outside and if you crossed the road there is even more tables.

I went to the loo. In the UK, the toilet area is usually behind a door (that opens outwards) separating the restaurant from the toilet area and for some reason the disabled toilet is behind a similar door. This toilet was behind a sliding door. 

I almost passed out with what I found. The disabled toilet was separate from the other toilets, there was enough room for two wheelchairs. I couldn't believe my eyes, there was a retractable guard rail! There was still no toilet seat and my thighs were on fire from yesterdays adventure at Fauno Bar, but it's so much easier when you've got something to hold onto.

Just out of shot on the right is a full length mirror, so you haven't been forgotten if you are in a wheelchair and can't see into the mirror above the sink.

This place has been designed with disabled access in mind from the start.

I had a BrewDog waiting for me on my return and with an accessible toilet and the freedom to get around on my own we stayed for a few. Adam and Ruth came to join us before they went out for their anniversary dinner. They found Vasame but were puzzled because the lights were off, it looked shut but the front door was open. Vasame normally close for a few hours in the afternoon, but they allowed us to stay. As Adam and Ruth had dinner plans we needed to find somewhere to eat, so we did. Here. The pizzas are to die for! The bases are like a light bread I would say. Here is the Tripadvisor page. There isn't one bad review and barely any that don't give it full marks. 

They have two outside sitting areas as well. The first is directly outside the restaurant which is as accessible as the inside, which if you go in the summer like I did, you're going to want to take advantage of. The second seating area is across the road. The road loops round so the exit is next to the entrance. The road is one way so the second seating area is on your right as you come in and on your right again as you're heading out. It's not easy to get to - especially in a wheelchair - but once you're there it's as accesible as any other table.

I highly recommend Vasame if you're disabled or not, but if you're disabled I would say it's a must. My experience of Sorrento would have been so much better if all bars and restaurants were like Vasame.