Lost on the Amalfi Coast

I'm not sure how we ended up lost on the Amalfi Coast. It's pretty much only one road down the coastline, but I think we've proven that if it's possible to get lost, we will. I had planned to take Ma to see Positano, the popular, Amalfi town that was so popular with both of her daughters on their Italian sojourns earlier this year. Ma and I set off on a sunny, warm day two weeks ago now, driving through terrible traffic, past Pompeii and Ercolano, through a tunnel cutting out several small towns and their corresponding, small streets, bypassed Sorrento, and came to a screeching halt just a few kilometers before the coast road actually becomes the coast road. Perplexed, I sat there staring at a big, road closure sign. Sadly, the sign had no details - as in, closed for only a few kilometers, closed for a few hours, closed for construction, closed due to accident, and most importantly, no "closed and here's your detour arrow." Knowing through painful experience just how useless my GPS would be in actually providing an alternate route, I used my incredible powers of navigation to drive us onto the tip of the Sorrentine Peninsula looking for the long way 'round...and promptly got us stuck onto a serpentine, donkey path no wider than the car (we were thankfully in the car with side mirrors that fold in!), at which point I reached full panic mode in thinking I was going to have to back the car out of this predicament. This is Nathan's forte, NOT mine. I remember muttering over and over, "This is a nightmare." There may have been some hyperventilation involved. The sheer relief when we exited into a parking lot the width of two of my cars - well, I really just can't describe it.

Once we managed to get on a road that gave us at least five inches of wiggle room, I determined that I was done searching for an alternate route. The town of Sorrento won by default. Of course, this was after I spotted a road sign pointing the way to Positano and excitedly followed it for five or ten minutes before realizing the route was taking us right back to the road closure sign. Yet another U-turn and we really were on our way to Sorrento. I like Sorrento okay, but I haven't been in love with it like many Americans here. I don't crave a visit to Sorrento. But this trip, for the first time, I really, really liked it. The sky was so blue, and I took a good, enjoying look at the colorful buildings that were oh-so-Italy. Corals and yellows and ochers, pretty balconies, palm trees waving, the sea sparkled at the end of the town's dividing gorge. Naturally, we'd arrived at riposo. A few shops were open, and there were just enough open to enjoy the pedestrian zone, but not so many as to be overwhelming. And glory be, we found gelato! Bad morning salvaged.

 

A Day in Sorrento

Wisteria blooming in Sorrento

My aunt and uncle left about two weeks ago, and I've been catching on my blog from both their visit and Paige and Julia's visit before that. In the intervening time, my days have been spent organizing photographs, cleaning, resting, and the like. We did take a brief trip down to Sorrento, on the Amalfi Coast, a couple of weeks ago. We'd started to feel a bit lazy on our weekends, and we don't want to leave Italy when our time is up feeling regret for lost weekends. With potential rain in the forecast, we made a plan to go to either Sorrento if weather was nice or to the Volcano Mall if it was raining. I have no idea what the Volcano Mall is other than a mall in the shape of a volcano. I don't know what stores it holds, if the volcano has mock eruptions, if it's a mall like an American mall, and so on. Nathan told me he saw a picture of it and thought it was a new soccer stadium.

Saturday dawned, and it was quite nice. The Volcano Mall is saved for another day. We elected to leave Scully at home because it's no fun dealing with our dog on a leash and every stray in a 5 mile radius snarling at him. It's actually a bit tense and frightening for me to always have to watch for attacking dogs. Things were going well for our pleasant afternoon in Sorrento...until we reached the turn-off from the Coast Road and came to a screeching halt. We crept along, unsure of how far we were from the main area, and after about half an hour, we passed a train station that I thought was the main one, so we parked in a nearby lot and began walking. As it turns out, we parked too soon - an entire town too soon. Rather than get back in the traffic, we just walked and walked and walked some more. Then we took a wrong turn and walked an extra 1/3 of a mile or so before finally reaching Sorrento's main piazza. I was not in a good mood. Nathan quickly realized he should get gelato into me fast - he knows exactly how to cheer me up!

Much restored, we returned to the main piazza to take in the beautiful vista to the sea. We'd planned to follow a little walking tour we had in our guidebook, but after all the walking we'd just done - no, thank you. Instead, we decided to just wander down whatever streets looked interesting. Sorrento has a pedestrian zone (I cannot tell you how much I love these zones, where I can relax from jumping out of the way of speeding Vespas or constantly be dodging the mass of crowds on the sidewalks and the mass of cars on the roads - and the cars on the sidewalks, since we are in Italy, after all). One little street was nothing but an alley, but seemed to be the main, shopping area. Throngs of people filled the tiny alley, most of them speaking English. When we finally reached a harbor overlook, we could see that there was no cruise ship there, so we never did find out why the mass of Brits and Americans filling Sorrento that particular day. Maybe it's always like that.

How to sunbathe in Sorrento

While Sorrento is nice, I'm not quite sure what I would actually do there for an overnight or longer term stay. Many Amalfi towns have restaurants with sea views, so if you don't want to do anything in those towns, you sit with gelato or wine or pasta or whatever and just enjoy people and ocean watching. Sorrento didn't seem to have these options. There is a train station with service north to Pompeii and Naples and buses with service south to the smaller, coastal towns, so I suppose it's a nice little anchor city if a visitor wants to see a good bit of the area. And I suppose the pedestrian zone makes for a nice touch, as well as language is not as much of a barrier due to all the other tourists, but...I just didn't find the "wow" factor. It was nice enough for an afternoon, and maybe if we'd been a little more energetic, we would have sought out the sites and been more impressed, but it really just seemed to be a crowded, Disneyland version of an Italian town. We'll have to return in the off-season and try to explore Sorrento's charms a little more.

Sorrento lemons are like no others!