Here come the lemons!

Now we're getting to the pretty part of our 2007 Italian trip!  Not that Rome and Naples weren't pretty (and my traveling companions were prettier still), but nothing compares to the beauty of the Amalfi Coast.  IMHO, of course.  A zillion years ago, I saw the movie Purple Noon, starring Alain Delon.  As soon as they got to Positano, I said to my date (yes, I was on a date, so you KNOW it was a long time ago), "I.MUST.GO.THERE."  So, when my game show ladies and I were discussing using our prize winnings for a trip, I will admit to pushing a little bit to get to Positano.  It was a long-held dream and I was afraid this would be my only chance.  SO, there you have it.  Backstory.  Of course, we're not in Positano yet...

TRIP REPORT: SORRENTO AND CAPRI

Before leaving Naples, I made sure to call our B&B in Sorrento, Casa Astarita, to ask about location.  Giovanni was very kind and gave me good advice and excellent directions about getting to the hotel.  So we felt more prepared leaving Naples than we did leaving Rome.

The Circumvesuviana was an easy train to find.  We easily caught a train and took the pleasant journey to Sorrento.  The trains were a sight—completely covered in graffiti.  They reminded us of New York subway trains in the ‘70s!  But we enjoyed our train trip nonetheless, even though I had a brief moment of panic that we were on the wrong train.  I get travel anxiety very easily.  But happily, my worrying was for naught.  Plus, we were just happy that we were going to be staying put for four days!

After getting out at the Sorrento train station, Giovanni’s directions were terrific.  He told us to head for the Christmas tree (which they had just started to decorate for the holidays) in the main square and keep going for about 200 meters.  That was just about right!  Casa Astarita is right on the main drag of Corso Italia and easy to find.  We went through the lovely courtyard and up the stairs to reception.  

Adelida greeted us at the door and was just a delight.  Her English was charming, as was she.  We were quickly showed to our rooms and had our pictures taken to be displayed in the reception area!  A very cute idea.  Adelida got a kick out of our game show story, and, for the rest of the trip, referred to our gentleman travel companion as “the luckiest man in the world.”  We got a kick out of that.  J   Our rooms were lovely.   We were in the Romantica and the Mediterranea rooms.  They were a generous size and beautifully decorated.  We immediately felt at home.    We also loved the reception area where all of the guests could sit down and catch up throughout the day, or check their e-mails on the free internet provided  One of my favorite things about the hotel was the bottled water we could take from the frig at any time of day (though they were oddly hard to open - I'm sure our gentleman companion got tired of opening the water bottles of all the ladies at the B&B).  I highly recommend Casa Astarita.  We had a great time there, especially meeting all of the other guests.  It was a party atmosphere the entire time, but not loudly so.  Just convivial and fun.  Every morning, we all discussed our plans for the day, and nearly every evening, we sat and had wine and talked about what we had done all day.  It was really lovely.

After relaxing for a bit in the rooms, we set out to explore Sorrento and find a place for dinner.  We wandered around the old town and immediately found shops that appealed to the souvenir-buyer in all of us.  The shopkeepers were all so kind—the ladies who showed us photos of their infant niece and gave us maps of the area; the man who made the gorgeous inlaid wood boxes who told me he would help me choose one for my father; the limoncello store owner who invited one of us to the disco!  Everyone was just so kind, it was a wonderful introduction to Sorrento.  We told all of them we would be back to shop shop shop the next night, since we were starting to get really hungry for dinner.

The restaurant recommended by Adelida was closed on Tuesdays, but we found another nearby: La Lanterna.  It was delicious!  Our server, Antonio, brought us some complimentary bread with prosciutto baked right in, while we tried to decide what to order.  We got a bottle of the house red wine (which was delicious in every restaurant in Italy!) and I settled on the special, fresh tagliatelle with eggplant, tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.  Oh my.  I wish I had some of that right now!  It was incredibly delicious!  It was an enormous portion, though, and it made me too full to try something from the dessert cart!  I was very disappointed - that was one of the most beautiful dessert carts I’ve ever seen!  We resolved to come back another night and try those desserts.  We did sample the complimentary limoncello that Antonio brought out, though.  It was delicious and made us even more determined to go see the disco fan and buy from his shop.  We walked around some more after such a delicious meal and then called it a night for our first night in Sorrento.

We woke up to the smell of coffee and went out to join our fellow guests for breakfast.  There were delicious sweet rolls, along with savory rolls.  There were also incredible homemade jams and marmalades.  That lemon marmalade was one of the best things I ate in Italy!  Anna was our breakfast helper and was another lovely person to meet at Casa Astarita.  It was tempting to just sit and linger at the table, but we had some sightseeing to do.

We had originally planned to go to Pompeii on our first day, but because the weather was so sunny and glorious, we changed our mind and went to Capri instead.  We tried to walk down to the marina, but we actually walked to the wrong one.  Oop.  So we took one of the orange buses back up to the town square and changed buses to the one going to the correct marina.  We got tickets for the ferry to Capri, got right on (though I had to make a dash for it, which wasn’t pretty) and sailed away. 

The ferry ride was just glorious.  The smell of the sea, the breeze, the excitement. I got some wonderful photos and a couple of videos on my camera.    Once we got to Capri, we took the funicular up to the town center and just stood there to get our bearings.  The church bell was chiming and the sun was shining.  You could smell the sea and flowers and lemons, and, well, beauty.  It truly was a wonderful moment in my life, and I was sharing it with my best friends.  In fact, the whole day on Capri was one of the best days of my life.  Anyway.  We decided we wanted to hike up to Villa Jovis, built in the first century B.C. as a home for Emperor Tiberius and set off. 

The nearly 60-minute hike was just stunning—I must’ve taken hundreds of photos just of the view and the path and the houses around us.  I also developed a fondness for all the beautiful entryways to the houses on Capri. [note: if you ever want to see a photo essay of Capri entryways, or even my gal pal's photo series of me in my Capri-worthy hat, let me know!] Then, once you get up to the top, the view is breathtaking.  Plus, there are Vesuvius sightings!  I always love looking at a volcano, I must say... 

The guards at Villa Jovis were very kind to open a restroom for us (dove il bagno?), then we spent another hour or so wandering around the ruins.  They’re really gorgeous.  There are many precipices, ruins that were maybe once cisterns, and beautiful statues.  There were only one or two other people there, so we had a wonderful afternoon, with Villa Jovis as our own personal ancient palace.  I took another hundred pictures or so of the Villa, plus a couple of videos, and then of our walk down.  It is really a large photo album! 

By the time we made it back down to the town center, most everything was closed for the lunchtime break.  We did find a tourist-y but pleasant restaurant for a moderately overpriced lunch.  It was fine and we enjoyed sitting for awhile.  I wanted to check out the Capri perfume, since I had read so much about it before we left, so we found a perfume store that was open.  The clerk got all of the scents out for me and we had a sampling of them all.  I absolutely loved the Luna Caprese scent and splurged to buy a bottle.  It was such a good purchase - I should've bought five or six bottles.  I can't find anything in the States that remotely compares.

We were too beat after our long day outdoors once we got back to Sorrento to head to the marina for seafood.  We instead did some shopping near the B&B (returning to the stores we perused the night before) and bought several souvenirs—I have to commend the owner and employees at Petagna, a beautiful shop that sold the boxes of inlaid wood.  They went above and beyond to help me find just the right gift for my father.  And may I say, my dad seemed to like the gift more than any gift I’ve given him in the past few years!  So thank you to the wonderful people at Petagna.  We also bought quite a bit of limoncello at the Correale establishment, which was very near Petagna.  The owners of that shop were also wonderful.  We would end up going back nearly every night to buy something else from them!  I have to say, I love to shop, but the shopping in Sorrento was one of the best parts of our trip—not only were shops charming and delightful, but all of the shopkeepers really went out of their way (not in a pushy manner) to make sure we found what we really wanted to buy and understood which things were unique to the Sorrento lifestyle.  It was really wonderful. 

After all that shopping, we went to the restaurant recommended by Adelida and another couple at Casa Astarita:  Gigino.  I have to say this was the most disappointing meal of the entire Italian trip.  For me, anyway.  The servers were much too busy watching the soccer on the television to be very helpful, and the food just wasn’t up to the very high standards we were already used to in Italy.  So even though this restaurant gets a thumbs up from nearly everyone else we talked to in Sorrento, we had a less-than-stellar experience there.  After the subpar dinner, we went to find some desserts somewhere else.  We ended up at a café just past Casa Astarita on the Corso Italia, and I had an amazing Sorrento specialty: delizia a’limone.  It would not be the last one of my trip—I made a vow, right then and there, to only have appetizers or half portions of pasta for the rest of the trip so that I could have room for this dessert!  That dessert was incredible!  I am a freak for lemon desserts and this one was the best.  I am SO craving one right now!!!  And why didn't I get a picture of it??  I guess I was too busy eating it. 

We ended this perfect day chatting with our new chums in the common room at Casa Astarita.  All I could think of was Joan Fontaine in Rebecca, where she says to Laurence Olivier (via my loose paraphrase), "I wish there were an invention where we could bottle memories, so later we could uncork the bottle and relive the memory all over again."  That's what Capri was for me.  Well, that's what this entire trip was for me, but our day on Capri was simply...magic.