Sorrento

Early morning Sorrento sounds heard while still in bed.  Doors opening and closing in the Bed and Breakfast.  Car tires squishing up a wet road, then cresting the hill and speeding down and quickly vanishing.  Little dog barks:  “Get away from me! Leave me alone! If  you don’t get away right now I will bite!”  Motor scooters slowly whine up the hill rising to a crescendo, then changing pitch as they slowly drone on down.  Big dog barking:  “I’m here!”  “Shut up!”  Italian voices briefly heard as fast steps quickly come and go.  “Click-click-click-click”  of three inch heels on the cement outside the window.  A motorcycle splits the morning, shifts gears  and then slowly disappears.

We stayed at the Villa Adriana which was one of the main highlights of our trip to Sorrento.  The Bread and Breakfast is actually an Italian villa which is operated b y its owners, Andrea and Valerio.  It is a beautiful place and they went out of their way to make our sty there a wonderful memory.  Sorrento was our jummping-ff place for trips to Pompei and Malfi.  It was also a place to collect our wi-fi connections for the iTouch and our new iPad.

Sorrento Navigation.  Street signs are scarce.  Some are hidden.  When you find one you feel proud. Street numbers are rare and inconsistent, numbers on one side of the street bear no relationship to the numbers on the other side.  There are many maps of Sorrento. But they are all the same map or poorly made copies of that map.  None of them reflect what really is there or where you might be.  “Lost” is the standard condition of existence.  Tourists gather under lights with maps held in front of them, then go wandering about looking for street signs.  The fact that some of the street names are written on the maps in something resembling font 2 doesn’t help.  After dark it gets dark unless you are on one of the main streets.  There is some street music but not as much as we have found in other European countries.

Several very deep gorges slice into the town and the vegetation is almost tropical.  Lantana, palm trees, great numbers of lemon trees.  That seems unreal for 40 degrees north latitude.  Cars park partly on sidewalks when you get out of downtown with two wheels in the gutter.  If you step carefully you might avoid stepping in dog doo.  Lots of cigarette smoke/gas.  There is a feeling that you are paying a lot of money to see a second-rate copy of a second class show that you signed up for by accident.  So the villa was wonderful and the day trips were good.  The food was OK but not close to that we experienced in the northern part of Italy.