Amalfi

For our last day along the Amalfi coast, we got back on the ol’ SITA bus and headed for Amalfi and Atrani.

Like our last bus ride, we headed into Sorrento to catch the bus early in hopes of getting seats. We did! Yay! This trip into Amalfi was faster than our previous trip, though we did hit a guard rail at one point. Which, btw, I would like points for not being the most panicked person on the bus when that happened. I barely even noticed - ask EDP! Soon, we were in Amalfi and heading up towards Cattedrale di Sant'Andrea. It was easy enough to find and we were soon in the cloisters, heading into the museum. Most cathedrals are just the church - but Cattedrale di Sant’Andrea has transformed itself into a museum, as well. So, we wound our way through the museum, down into the crypt (which was the most elaborate crypt I can remember seeing) and then through the church before heading back out into the sunshine.

The other thing we wanted to do today (okay, the other thing I wanted to do today) was head over to Atrani. It’s only about 500m or so away from Amalfi and you can walk there quite easily. We didn’t have much in the way of a map so we did the best we could with the little map from the guidebook, finding some tiny alleys that led us into the square where there is a tunnel that takes you most of the way. At the end of the tunnel, we went a bit further down the road and then down a number of steps to land on the coast. It took us all of 3 minutes to walk from one end to the other and given that it was still fairly early in the day, EDP declined lunch at a restaurant that came highly recommended (and frankly, was pretty much the main reason to head over to Atrani…) so we wandered into what seemed to be the main square and then heading back to Amalfi, following the signs that wound us through the residential alleys of Atrani, climbing tonnes of stairs but avoiding the bland tunnel and the Amalfi coast road. It took us about 15 minutes and we were soon right back at the Amalfi marina where we were then presented with an incredibly important choice.

Which beach to choose?

I had intended us to head to Duoglio, which is only about one km away but has about 400 steps you need to descend to get to the beach. It’s a bit sandier than most of the rather rocky beaches in the area and given that it’s not in the middle of major tourist towns, I presumed it would be a bit quieter. Well, the existence of the 400 steps was enough for me to be overruled and told we would be spending our beach time in Amalfi with the rocks and the children. So back to Amalfi we went when we then had to decide which of the various beaches we wanted to pick. Well, essentially, we chose based on umbrella. There were several different beaches with blue umbrellas, a beige-y one, a yellow & green striped one and a red & white striped one. We went with red & white and were soon settled in our loungers, sipping Prosecco and enjoying our last bit of downtime. We spent some time in the water, with me being brave and flailing out further than I usually do. There were no jellyfish stings this time around though there were many more potential victims in the water for them to pick on. We enjoyed a tasty lunch up in the restaurant - with one last Aperol spritz for me - and then lounged around on the beach for the afternoon. The sun was warm and the waves were crashing and I didn’t even fall asleep!

Around 5, we called it a day and headed back to Sorrento for one last dinner before packing up for the flight home. With a 2pm flight out of Rome and three trains needed to get there, we figured aiming for an 11am arrival would give us enough of a buffer to miss a quick connection and still make our flight. Early this morning, our cab picked us up for our last trip down into town, we got onto the Circumvesuviana (caught an express one this time, I think!) and soon were in the Naples station, booking tickets for the 2 hour trip into Rome. It was a quiet ride and we were in Rome just a few minutes too late to catch the Leonardo Express that was leaving shortly after our arrival so we got tickets for the next one and waited the half hour for it to arrive. It whisked us away to the airport where we had plenty of time to drop our bags, go through Rome’s incredibly speedy security and then settled ourselves for lunch before the flight. Before we knew it, we were back in Toronto, claiming our bags and heading home.

Now there is laundry to do, photos to sort through, a dog to pick up… Oh, and time to get on booking the next trip - Belgium & Luxembourg in October. It’s pretty much already planned, just gotta get things booked.

Paestum & Ravello

When we started planning this trip, I knew really early on that Paestum was one of the sights I’d want to see the most. And not long after, I realized that Paestum was going to be one of the hardest things to fit in, given that it’s about a 2-3 hour trip from Amalfi and being based in Sorrento would add at least another hour to that. But we eventually decided to rent a car for just one day and Paestum got back in the itinerary

Paestum, or more accurately, the Archeological Park of Paestum has some of the best preserved Greek ruins in the world. It’s not part of the Amalfi coast but part of Cilento on the other side of Salerno. We don’t have plans to come back to Italy in the near future and when we do, it’ll likely be to the north so that EDP can snowboard or somewhere along the east coast. So this seemed like my best chance to see Paestum. Because of it’s location, you can access it via the crazy Amalfi coast road or you can head north and take a major highway. Once we realized that, renting a car became much more feasible and we booked the only automatic car we could find in Sorrento.

This morning, we picked that car up and tried to start heading toward Paestum. Unfortunately, the cell strength isn’t great around here so we couldn’t get directions up on EDP’s phone. I knew we needed to head towards Salerno and the A3 so EDP made his best guess at what direction to go and off we went while I tried to get the directions. We did get them soon enough and after getting a bit turned around as to what way we were supposed to go, we were on our way. We were on a lot of city streets and back roads, though - it didn’t feel like we were quite on the right path. We made it into Pompei (or maybe only near Pompei?) without taking a highway. We then started seeing signs for the A3, but the map wasn’t sending us that way. That’s when EDP pulled over, fiddled with his phone for a few minutes and then handed back saying that we’d be good now because he had turned off the “avoid toll roads” option. Which explained a LOT.

It wasn’t long before we made it to Paestum, got the car parked, lathered on the sunscreen, armed ourselves with tickets & a little guide and headed into the ruins. Wandering through the ruins - the forum, the temples, the amphitheatre - was amazing, I loved every minute of it. The three temples are in amazing condition and with two of them, you could go right into the temple and see things right up close. I’m so happy we were able to fit it into our itinerary and I think EDP enjoyed it much more than he expected.

Then it was back into the car to make our way over to Ravello. Ravello wouldn’t have been overly difficult to reach by bus - it’s just past Amalfi so after the initial bus ride into Amalfi, it would have only been another half hour or so to get to Ravello. But with it being at the very end of the coast, it made sense to combine it with our Paestum day. We did have to drive along some hairpin turn roads but not on the crazy Amalfi coast road - I think I only worried about dying once and I didn’t even need an Ativan. We saw some sheep and some goats and a fair number of horses along the drive but not a lot of other cars or buses. Once in Ravello, we headed into Villa Rufolo, which is renowned for its garden & views out over the waters. The views were quite nice and I even managed to get up to the top of the tower for a very quick look from the highest point. Then it was on to Villa Cimbrone, also known for the gardens & views. Maybe it was just because it was so hot by that point but I wasn’t overly impressed with the garden but the views were quite nice. I certainly preferred Villa Rufolo.

Once we were done at Villa Cimbrone, we looked at the clock and thought it might be possible to get back to Sorrento and return the car before closing so that we didn’t have to find the drop-off location. Stopping for a quick lemon sorbet on the way back to the car - that I ended up drinking more than eating - we were back on the hairpin roads and heading for Sorrento. It was easy enough to start and for a few minutes, we thought we might make it back to the car rental place before it closed. Then we started hitting traffic and our ETA kept creeping up. It would have been faster to walk the last ten km or so - I joked with EDP that I’d get out of the car and start walking and we’d see who got there first. In the end, we didn’t get back anywhere near enough in time to return the car so we dropped it off at the drop-off lot and walked the rest of the way back into the old historic centre where we ended up having one of the best meals of our trip.

We had passed by this little restaurant called O’ Murzill a few times and there was always a crowd out front while the restaurant next door had literally no one in it. That seemed like a pretty good recommendation and we were fairly early in the evening so we figured we’d give it a shot and sure enough, we were able to get a table inside. There were so many things on the menu that looked fantastic so we ended up decided to share two pasta dishes and a chicken dish (along with a bottle of Prosecco.) One of the pasta dishes was oriechette with sausage and artichoke sauce, which was amazing and the other was a tagliatelle with bolognese, which was also fantastic. The chicken was roasted with tomatoes and mushrooms and was SOOOO good.

After the frustration of yesterday, it was nice that things went a bit smoother today. Tomorrow should be another smooth day. We’re heading off to Amalfi for the day, exploring Amalfi and Atrani in the morning and then hanging out on the beach for our last afternoon. The forecast is calling for another hot and sunny day so it sounds like the perfect day for the beach.

Sentiero Degli Dei

Today was not without its hiccups.

Our plan for today was to hike the Sentiero Degli Dei path between Bomerano and Positano. Well, if you want to get technical, the plan for today was Capri but then I got all my days mixed up and we did Capri yesterday. But the hiking plan was to get the bus to Amalfi, switch to another bus to take us up to Bomerano and then hike all the way to Positano before collapsing on a beach.

We’re staying just outside of Sorrento, on the road to Amalfi. The bus technically passes in front of our hotel. But we were highly advised to catch it in town or risk standing for the hour and a half ride along all the hairpin turn roads. Not ideal. So, we added about a half hour onto the travel portion of the day by taking the first shuttle from the hotel into town, walking over to the train station and catching the 8:30 bus to Amalfi. We were there about 15 minutes early and did manage to get seats but not together. The bus was standing room only right away from Sorrento and just got more and more crowded the closer we got to Amalfi. Once we got to Positano, folks started getting off but it was a long, slow trip - and we had a 10:15 bus we had to catch to get up to Bomerano. The ride wasn’t what anyone would consider smooth - there was lots of honking and inching forward to barely scrape past cars, including one time where we sat literally for minutes while a car blocked us from going forward (and he couldn’t get by us) and did everything but the most logical move of just backing his damn car up, like every other vehicle behind him.. And the clock ticked closer and closer to 10:15. We were just at the outskirts of Amalfi when we saw the bus we needed to be on pass us by. Ugh. And there wasn’t going to be another bus until 12:30. Ugh.

Once we finally got into Amalfi, 15 minutes late, EDP went to see if we had any other options for getting up to Bomerano. When he was checking into that, he saw some other travellers who also missed the 10:15 bus (and I’m sure there were many more…) He came out of the tourist info place and said we could try a cab or we could take a different bus over to Praiano and take the stairs up to the trail. I immediately shut down the later option because it’s literally something like 1500 stairs. And that didn’t seem like a good way to start the hike. Meanwhile, the other travellers were chatting through their options, completely misunderstanding the bus schedule so I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong to tell them that no, there wasn’t an 11:15 bus, that only went on Sundays and were they interested in splitting a cab with us. They said no, they already had their SITA bus tickets (us too, buddy… But I held my tongue on the sunk cost lesson.) So we shrugged and went off to investigate. The taxi driver was going to charge us ONE HUNDRED EUROS for the ride. No thank you, sir. He then said there were some other people looking at going and we could split with them so only fifty each. Still no thank you, sir. It’s not that long a ride and there was still another bus coming.

So we had an early lunch of sandwiches overlooking the beach, grabbed some beach towels from a little shop (we’re now the proud owners of two over-priced blue towels with a multi-coloured turtle on it and Amalfi Coast scrawled in giant letters… Just my style…) We hadn’t done anything, towel-wise before leaving because we assumed it would be like the beaches in Nice where our sun loungers came with towels. Not so much on the Amalfi Coast. Anyway. Then we loaded up on sun screen and started watching for the bus.

It was such chaos - so many people were looking for that Bomerano bus! And there weren’t designated places for certain routes, it was just one bigger area where the buses would back in and then after a few minutes, switch their sign. Every time a bus pulled in, multiple people would swarm it to find out if it was the Bomerano bus. We were definitely not the only people who missed the 10:15. Just before 12:30, a bus pulled in that I was pretty sure was ours so we tried to get ahead of most of the crowd (success!) to make sure we got on. It was a massive group of people, way too many to fit on the bus, including a tonne of school kids that needed to get home. They knew what was what so they were right at the door and got on the second it opened. We managed to get on but did not get seats. The bus was packed and about half the crowd didn’t manage to get on, including those other travellers we had tried to split a cab with.

We were soon hurtling up towards Bomerano on a hot, overcrowded bus with an overly aggressive driver who really enjoyed the sound of his horn. It was SUCH a fun ride. We weren’t 100% sure where to get off but I had enough of a description that we had a rough idea of what we were looking for. Then we heard some other travellers talking about getting off in Bomerano and that we were there and we were all “hmmm, this doesn’t look as described but we’d better get off!” So we did. And we immediately saw a sign for the Sentiero Delgi Dei so we felt much better. But a lot of the other folks, that we assumed were also heading for the path did not get off. We walked a few hundred metres up the street and found the square that we had thought we’d get off at. No sign of the bus, no sign of other travellers. We were soon heading towards the path, wondering what all those other folks were heading towards - we never caught up with them on the trail so we’re thinking we stumbled into getting off the bus at the right time. EDP’s guess is that the bus eventually loops back so that they were way behind us. My guess is that a lot of people had a really annoying day.

So with getting to the trail finally behind us, we started walking. It was a lovely, easy walk to start with good views out over the water. There were a few places of scrambling around on some rocks but for the most part, we were fine without our hiking poles and our sneakers were perfectly good footgear. We saw the odd person hiking in sandals, which looked like an incredibly poor life choice but what’s a twisted ankle on a path in the middle of nowhere that has signs placed every 1/2km or so with coordinates for an emergency helicopter to find out? And oh yes, we definitely saw the helicopter heading towards the path at one point. Someone else was not having a very good day.

We were soon in Nocelle, where the path officially ends and there is a cold drink kiosk where we got the most wonderfully cold & tart lemonade that made for a nice reward at the end of the hot hike. We were definitely hiking in the hottest hours of the day, although even if we had made the 10:15 bus, it would have been 11:30-ish before we got on the path so no matter what, we were hiking in the heat. Once in Nocelle, we had the option to take the stairs down into Positano (about 1500) or to keep going on another path that would loop us around Positano and bring us out at a nice, quiet beach. We tried the latter and just couldn’t figure it out. So we back-tracked and took the stairs down to Positano. All 1500 of them. In a row. That was also super fun. But soon we were at the bottom and we walked the little distance into Positano. By this time, it was after 4 so we headed towards the first set of sun loungers that we saw, paying far too much for a relatively short amount of beach time. But we were hot and tired and it felt pretty good to jump into the cold water.

Until EDP got stung by a jellyfish, anyway. I’m really hoping that the children within earshot don’t speak English because EDP had some rather colourful comments as he frantically headed back towards shore. He insisted he was fine, declined to go to the lifeguard and then disappeared a few minutes later. Turns out, he did go find some first aid - he was hosed down and then given something with some ammonia in it, but was told it wasn’t a bad enough sting to warrant a doctor. He was told to stay out of the sun for a bit so we settled in with a few drinks and our books, enjoying the last of the sunshine and the cooling air. Then, it was back through the little streets of Positano to catch a bus back to Sorrento, seeing one leave as we were less than 50 metres away. Happily, the wait wasn’t too long and the bus wasn't too crowded.

But the long, hot day had gotten to me and when we got off the bus in Sorrento, the twists and turns of the road had left me feeling a bit queasy. So I told EDP I didn’t care what we did for dinner, he just needed to pick something because I needed a bit of quiet time to settle my stomach. He settled on Fauno Bar quickly enough that I think he already knew that’s where he wanted to go for dinner. It’s right on Piazza Tasso and has the reputation as the best place to people-watch in all of Sorrento. It was pretty packed, we weren’t sure we’d get a table any too quickly and sure enough, we were told there weren’t any but we could sit inside for a few minutes with a complimentary glass of Prosecco until something opened up. Sign me up! We didn’t have to wait too long at all and ended up with a table in the second row from the street - so prime street-watching territory. We had a delicious dinner - me with a pasta dish with the cutest tiny meatballs and EDP with a lobster pasta dish. Often, you expect these sorts of places to flake out on the food but this place has earned its right to be busy. Then, it was back to catch the shuttle and head off to a well-earned sleep.

Anyway. Yeah, not our smoothest day of the trip.

Capri

The original plan for Capri involved getting on the earliest ferry that we could and coming back on the latest one possible - because I had a whack of stuff I wanted to see on the island, including a hike along the coast. But, it was going to prove difficult to get even an early-ish ferry, let alone the first one.

Our hotel is outside of Sorrento but conveniently has a shuttle that goes into town every hour. The first one for the day leaves at 7:45, which puts us in the historic centre around 8. The ferries leave from the marina and we figured we were easily another 15 minutes to get there from the shuttle stop, plus time in line, etc., etc. So EDP asked at the hotel front desk about a taxi - and while he was doing so, the clerk suggested a tour that they offer to Capri. Armed with a pamphlet, EDP came back to sell me on the idea of getting picked up at the hotel at 8:!5, on a ferry around 9, having 6 hours of free time on the island and then a tour around the island to see it from the water. A couple of quick searches showed this tour got outstanding reviews and it seemed far less stressful than figuring everything out on our own so he went back to book it. We figured we’d cut the hike we had planned along the coast, since we’d be seeing it all from the water and that we’d be able to still fit everything else in. Yay!

The minibus arrived right on time this morning and we were soon off towards Marina Del Cantone where we soon boarded the ferry and headed off to the island. At that point, we learned that we could have 6 hours completely on our own or we could use the tour company’s shuttle service, giving us an hour and a half in Capri Town and 3 in Anacapri. We hemmed and hawed - we needed more time in Capri Town than Anacapri but we knew that getting around the island was expensive and time consuming so we decided that we’d cut out Villa Jovis since it was mostly about the views, anyway. We signed ourselves up for the shuttle and off we went when the ferry docked. The shuttles were really helpful - they would send one off as soon as it was full so we weren’t sitting around and waiting for all the buses each time we changed locations.

Once up in Capri Town, we headed over to Giardini di Augusto, which gave us stunning views out over the water before lamenting one last time about having to cut the villa, getting some sandwiches and heading over to Anacapri where we headed straight to Grotta Azzurra with the help of our shuttle bus. The Grotta Azzurra (or Blue Grotto) is this little cave that you can get rowed into and then be dazzled by the glowing blue water, which is created by the sunlight bouncing into the cave. We were lucky in that the lines weren’t very long - when the 50 or so of us arrived on the shuttle, there were only four people ahead of our big group in the stair queue. You can wait for hours to get into the grotto, and you’re only in there for a few minutes, which is usually not my kind of thing but the pictures are stunning and we had the time so hey, why not? The folks on the stairs get priority over people on boats so our group earned more than one dirty look from boat folks who were unimpressed that they got bumped back 50 people or so. Soon we were in a rowboat and laying flat, heading into the grotto. The sun had been hiding most of the day but started to peak out a little while we were standing on the stairs and was in full shining mode when we went into the grotto. It was really cool, it seemed to be glowing and EDP & I were both fascinated by it. Is it an incredibly over-priced tourist trap? Yes. But it was pretty spectacular. I wouldn’t have wanted to wait for two hours but we had a really short wait so it all worked out. Soon, we were back on a shuttle, going back up into Anacapri where we decided to take the Seggiovia del Monte Solaro chair lift up to the Monte Solaro, the highest point on the island. The chair lift was incredibly terrifying, i nearly plummeted to my death multiple times - umm, shouldn’t the lap bar lock in place?! - but the views were worth it. The sun was out in full force by that point so the water was sparkling and everything was stunning. Monte Solaro hadn’t been on our plan for the day but I’m really glad we fit it in - it definitely was a good substitute for Villa Jovis. We ended our time up in Anacapri with a walk over to Villa San Michele, another villa on the list for the the views, this time, overlooking the marina. We skipped the museum, opting to fill the last of our time in Anacapri with some gelato before heading back down to the marina for the last leg of our tour, the trip around the island.

Getting to see the whole island from the water was fantastic. We were able to see the Punta Carena lighthouse, the Grotta Bianca, and the Faraglioni which was an unexpected delight. We would have seen the Faraglioni rocks on our hike but we got to be much closer to them on the ferry, going right through the arch, and we wouldn’t have gotten to see the lighthouse or the Grotta Bianca at all. So all-in-all, the trade-offs were worth it.

We were soon back at Marina Del Cantone and heading back to our hotel before heading into town for dinner, where we decided to wing it and just pick somewhere that looked okay. It was a miss. Well, it was for me. EDP had pasta and meatballs, which he enjoyed, but I had carbonara and frankly, they relied far too heavily on the cream to pull it all together. Now, I don’t want to tell the Italians how to make pasta but carbonara should not have cream. At all. Let alone a lot of it. I should have known better. Well, lesson learned. Okay, I’m off my cream-based soapbox now.

Tomorrow, we’re heading off to hike the Sentiero Degli Dei and spend some time on the beach in Positano. It’ll be our first day on the SITA busses, which while preferable to driving, is still not something I’m looking forward to.

Our private gastronomic tour

What a fantastic day! 

When we started looking for a food tour for this trip, EDP really wanted something that would take us along the coast, not just keep us in Naples or Sorrento. Eventually we landed on a private tour - a total indulgence but so good!

We were picked up by our guide, Aaron, at 8:30 and whisked away to an olive oil factory, where Susie took us through the gardens, showing us olive trees, hazelnut trees, fig trees, lemon and orange trees (most of the old orange trees in Sorrento have now been grafted with a lemon tree so both fruits are on the same tree.) Then, it was over into the factory to show us how they produce their olive oil. It’s not harvest time right now, so we were able to peer right into the machines and Susie showed us pictures of what the process looked like in production. Once we learned all about how the three different types of olives are used, we tasted over a dozen different olive oils - many of them infusions based off the four main olive oils produced, like vanilla, mint and lemon (of course!)

From there, it was off to Cantine Stinca, a small family-run winery where we saw where they ferment their wines and then tasted two white and three red, all made from local grapes. We also met a very friendly dog named Hang, who was pleased to meet us but even more pleased to be bribed out of the way with cookies. While tasting our wines, we enjoyed cheese, prosciutto-wrapped bread sticks, bread and olives. A great spread to go with some great wines. 

Then, it was on to a local family farm where we met the world’s suckiest golden retriever that needed pets and to play fetch and generally flop down on our feet while we waited for the transfer down to the farm. We had a lovely walk from the farm entrance down to the house, joining three other guests and learning all about the various gardens and animals from Francesco. We saw some horses and a goat, along with some new vineyards that he got his first wine from last year and his young lemon trees. We also met Peppa, the potbellied pig, who seemed intent on ridding the farm of every weed in sight. Francesco and the other guests seemed baffled at how much snow we told them we got each year and we seemed baffled that it rarely goes below freezing there. Once down at the house, we had a cheese-making demonstration from Maria, who showed us how she makes a soft cheese from unpasteurized milk and rennet that has only been sitting for a few minutes, followed by a mozzarella from the same unpasteurized milk and rennet that had been sitting much longer. The curd was sliced and then hot water added to it while Maria stretched and twisted it into a delicious ball of mozzarella, popping off some boccaccini for us to taste. Then, it was on to making pizza dough - flour, a little salt, drizzle of olive oil, water - mix it all up and presto! Dough! Because we didn’t have time to wait for our dough to proof, we use dough Francesco had made the night before, learning how to properly knead it out to keep the circle shape before adding sauce and cheese and moving it into the pizza oven Francesco built himself. I earned myself a standing invitation to be a chef in their restaurant but I think I’ll stick to my day job. The pizzas were freaking delicious. We each ate slices of each one as it came out of the oven, enjoy the hot, gooey goodness. Once we had all made pizza or focaccia or lemon pizza, we moved over to a large tent to sit down to the remains of the pizza plus a spread of roasted vegetables, bruschetta, salami & prosciutto, and of course - the cheese we had watched get made. After stuffing ourselves silly, it was time for panna cotta, which was lovely. And it was time to meet another member of the family, a nameless turtle.  Peppa also kept us company because it turns out, she adores pizza. Shocking, I know.

Once we were overloaded with food and wine, it was time for the last stop on our tour.  We bid goodbye to Francesco and Maria  (and Peppa the pig) and headed to a limoncello factory where they were hard at work peeling lemons to make their limoncello. We got to taste several differ liqueurs including an amazing walnut liquor with hints of vanilla and cinnamon that was amazing. 

Then it was back to our hotel to figure out our Capri day (spoiler alert: we joined a tour) and into Sorrento to have a light dinner (spoiler alert: gelato.) And now, it’s time for bed and to rest up for our day on the water. 

Sorrento

Well, Sorrento certainly is a bustling resort town. 

Having crossed everything off our Naples to-do list, we had a lazy morning yesterday before packing up and heading off to the train station to catch a train to Sorrento. It’s the same line that serves Pompei and Herculaneum, which is crazy busy, so we were hoping that by going mid-day, we’d be able to get seats. We were also hoping to get one of the fast trains. We managed seats but it was not the fast train.  An hour and a half later, we pulled into Sorrento, stored our bags at the train station and went into the old historic centre for some lunch and to do some exploring. After a drink and light lunch at the edge of Piazza Tasso, we wandered down the main road in the historic centre, overwhelmed by the insane number of limoncello shops. We stopped for some gelato (panna cotta and chocolate orange) before continuing to wander, exploring the tiny side streets, filled with their limoncello and lemon paraphernalia. After not too long, we went back to the train station to collect our bags and catch the shuttle to our hotel. 

Because this trip was somewhat last minute for us, we had a hard time finding a hotel in Sorrento - so many places were already fully booked or just didn’t really meet what we were looking for. Because we’re here for a week, we really wanted something with a balcony, preferable with a sea view. After literally hours of searching, we finally settled on a little place outside of Sorrento that has a shuttle into the town throughout the day. Once we realized that shuttles were fairly common, that opened up much more in the way of balconies with sea views so that discovery was good! After arriving at the hotel and getting checked in, we stepped out onto that elusive balcony and all that time searching felt worth it. We have a stunning view that looks out over Sorrento and the Bay of Naples. It’s been lovely to spend time out there with a book and take in the view. 

After a couple of hours, we headed back down into Sorrento for dinner at a lovely little spot tucked out of the way where I had some of the smoothest panna cotta I’ve ever had - along with delicious gnocchi while EDP indulged his love of seafood with grouper. And we both enjoyed a rather delicious bottle of local wine, the likes of which I’m sure I’ll never be able to find in Canada. 

Today was another day spent in town, walking down after breakfast. The roads are too dangerous to walk down but there’s a footpath that wound down, steep enough to make us not overly interested in walking back to the hotel. Once down in Sorrento, one of the things on the list to check out was Il Vallone dei Mulini, the ruins of an old mill in a gorge. Turns out, we passed it on our way into town and you can’t actually go into the gorge, as I thought you could. So we ended up back-tracking and seeing exactly what we had already seen. From there, we headed into Villa Comunale, a park, to get a good look at Marina Piccolo and Marina San Francesco before taking the steep footpath down to see them up close - and to get a better idea of the ferry we’ll need to catch for our day on Capri. Then it was back up approximately 7,174 steps back into the historic centre to start making our way to Marina Grande, the fishing village at the west end of town, and the home to a seafood restaurant EDP was particularly keen on. 

Things were still quiet so we decided to take a little one hour boat tour of the coast (no three hour tours for this gal, even without a single cloud in the sky.) It was a lovely little tour that kept us close to the coastline, taking us past the ruins of an old Roman villa with its secret cove “swimming pool” and past several of the little villages before dropping us back off at the Marina, right in front of the restaurant EDP wanted to try. And funnily enough, our boat driver (Captain? Skipper? Pilot?) was one of the family members of the restaurant, doing most of the fishing while his wife and daughter run the restaurant. With Prosecco in hand, we sat overlooking the marina and one of the huge cliffs looming up over us. EDP devoured a massive bowl of muscles before having some of the best octopus of his life, while even I got to have some fresh seafood! I rarely eat any kind of fish when we travel because communicating a shellfish allergy through a language barrier is just the kind of risky activity I like to steer clear of.  But this fantastic little restaurant had a page at the back of their menu outlining what common allergens are used in their kitchen and so all I had to do was point at the little pictures and was assured I was able to have the pasta with the catch of the day (tuna) without fear. And I did. And it was delicious. I was warned not to share EDP’s fries, though, because they were made in the same fryer as the shrimp. I really didn’t expect to be able to be able to have any seafood on this trip so lunch was a special treat (my mantra has been “I’m perfectly fine with pomodoro.”)

Once we were done with lunch, we headed back up into the town to kill some time before the shuttle started back up after its lunch break. Sorrento is a lovely little town but it’s incredibly touristy without much to do beyond buy limoncello, lemon candy, lemon-themed ceramics & linens, and lemon-scented soap. It’s not typically the kind of town we like to spend a lot of time in and had we realized what it was going to be like, instead of giving ourselves a full day, we probably would have done just a morning or afternoon and fit in one of the nearby villages, as well. Ah well, we know for next time. Before we caught the shuttle, we stopped at a little grocery store to get some strawberries, cheese, salami, and bread to enjoy a little picnic with the bottle of Prosecco the hotel had left in our room for us. It was the perfect light dinner to end the day after our seafood lunch extravaganza and in anticipation for tomorrow’s food tour, which we expect to be one of the highlights of our time here.