Thursday, October 14th

We woke up Thursday and had another British breakfast at the hotel. We then headed to a local market so Christina could get a taste of the local produce and start planning the meals for Sorrento. She was not disappointed by the selection, though we ended up only buying a pomegranate since we did not want to carry much with us on the train.

Our next stop was the Vittorio Emanuele Monument, which is a huge building in the center of the city that was built to celebrate the first king of Italy. It is quite a gaudy building, and has all kinds of derogatory nicknames like the wedding cake and the typewriter. The best part is that there is an observation deck at the top of the building that provides panoramic views of the city. We took lots of pictures and then headed back to the hotel to pack.

The first leg of the trip to Sorrento was on the Eruostar Italia train. We splurged for 1st class tickets, which afforded us wide seats and free champagne. The trip from Rome to Naples covered the same distance as Seattle to Portland, but the 220 mph bullet train got us there in just over an hour. I kept thinking of how nice it would be to have such a system in the US. Can you image getting from Seattle to Portland in an hour?! Once in Naples, we transferred to the Circumvesuviana line to Sorrento. If the Eurostar was a Hilton, the Circumvesuviana would be the back alley of a Motel 6. It was quite a shock to go from the 1st class accommodations to what was essentially a beat-up graffiti-painted subway train from the mid-90’s. The 1-hour ride from Naples to Sorrento seemed to last forever, at least until we were able to find seats and a shred of comfort. The only alternative was to pay outrageous fees for a taxi or bus, or wait for a ferry to cross the Bay of Naples. We eventually made it to Sorrento, which is an absolutely beautiful town on the Mediterranean, nestled on a peninsula between Mount Vesuvious and the island of Capri.

Our next challenge was to get to the villa that we had rented for the week. Our plan was to take a taxi, but the driver wanted to charge 20 Euros for the 3 km drive, a price that seemed absurd even for a tourist area. It turns out that the taxis here are not regulated, so the drivers are able to gouge the tourist as much as they want. We ended up taking the public bus, which took significantly longer but only cost us 5 Euros. We arrived outside the Hilton Grand Palace and met the owner of the villa, Senior Pepe. He drove us up the hill to Casa Donna Titina. Located right next to Pepe’s house, the villa has 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, and breathtaking views of the Bay of Naples. We hardly had time to unload our bags before Pepe invited us over to his house for Limoncella. Pepe’s English is certainly better than our Italian, but we still found it difficult to carry on a conversation for very long. We enjoyed the view and I sampled the home-made limoncella which is a delicacy of Sorrento. I would describe it as lemon flavored NyQuil, but that doesn’t capture the fact that it is actually quite good. We are planning to ship a few bottled back to the US so we can share it with friends and family.

The villa was advertised as having an internet connection, and it turned out that the connection was from Pepe’s house and the only place that we could pick it up was at a table in the driveway. I was able to get a connection and spent a little time reading through e-mail and making sure that I wasn’t missing any logistics from work related to my move to Italy.

Pepe offered to drive us to the grocery store to pick up some food, so we obliged and piled into his tiny car. It turns out that it’s a good thing he has such a small car, because the streets in Sorrento aren’t much wider than a motor scooter with a wide load. After a wild drive through the canyon-like streets, we arrived at the grocery store and picked up enough for dinner and breakfast. Pepe drove us back to the villa and Christina made a wonderful dinner of noodles with tomato sauce and beef. We read our books and faded off to sleep.