Holly and I went straight to Sorrento from Naples and Bari. It was quite a long travel day to get from Bari to Naples and then on the ferry to Sorrento! But Sorrento was gorgeous. It’s perched high up on the cliffs, and it’s just so incredibly picturesque there are no words.
The first night we got in, we went to a local restaurant and I had gnocchi alla Sorrentina – which was gnocchi with red sauce and mozzarella melted right in. It was fabulous. We had Sorrento lemon cream cake with our limoncello for dessert, and the whole meal was just perfect. Holly and I both fell in love with ending meals with limoncello.
Watch out friends – not only have I decided to take that habit home, but I’m going to try my hand at making it from scratch! So potential spoiler on what everyone’s getting for Christmas!
The next day, we woke up and it was forecasted to rain all day. So we decided not to head over to Positano, because it seemed like it would be miserable in the rain. We decided to go to downtown Sorrento to explore until it rained, and then planned to spend the rainy afternoon just hanging out in our apartment.
Whoops. Even though the forecast put the rain chances at over 90%, it never actually rained! Forecasters in Italy are apparently lacking in one precision. 🙂
But we had a great day just wandering around Sorrento, in and out of the most lovely little shops selling all manner of lemon products, ceramics, inlaid wood and leather. Can you guess which products it’s famous for? It’s funny how many stores of each of these things are supported there. I can’t believe there are enough tourists to buy from 30 or more different lemon-themed stores, but apparently there are.
In the morning, we had a cup of coffee down on the water, and it was so wonderful to look out at the water and then enjoy the warm drinks. Even though it was September, it was getting a bit chilly on the water. And in my Florida opinion, Europeans are CRAZY for what they’re willing to swim in. Seriously crazy. They will consider it “warm” to swim in water that’s in the low 70s! My Florida self won’t consider it if it’s under 80!
In the afternoon, we walked down the coast and just enjoyed the views. It was really wonderful! The next day we did more of the same before heading back to Naples. The silly rain forecast was wrong again, so we never made it over to Amalfi or Positano (sad day!). All the same, it was nice to just hang out and catch up, and experience all that Sorrento had to offer.
We got an AirBnB apartment when we were there, and it was the apartment of this incredibly cute old Italian couple. There was definitely a language barrier – their English wasn’t great, and out Italian was worse! But you could tell they loved each other deeply. They were bickering like an old married couple on the movies, and then they saw the forecast of floods.
The week we were there, there was some terrible flooding north of Rome, and even up into Venice. The forecasts said that the flooding rains were coming that night, and so the two of them came to our apartment to show us what to do, and bring a flashlight! The apartment we were in was just at street level (and then even built down), so they were concerned water might start coming in. So they even showed us how to get into their house (which was attached!), just in case water started coming in. It was so incredibly sweet!
It’s wonderful when you realize that kindness and concern for others transcends any sort of language!
