October 22-27: Sorrento, Italy by Mick

Sorrento, on the Amalfi coast, was sadly our last stop in Italy. With Mount Vesuvius looming high above, and sailboats cruising out on the bay, the setting is truly amazing.

We departed from Sicily on a train that took us all the way to Napoli Centrale (Naples Central Station). But you may ask, “How is this possible? There is water between Sicily and the mainland!!” The explanation is simple: we took a train ferry. It’s basically like a car ferry, but instead of cars, the ferry carries the train. The trains roll right on and voila, off we go! We left the train after we started moving and went above decks. With the wind blowing in our faces and a beautiful background, my mom and dad took an annoying number of pictures.

As we approached the mainland, we headed back down to the train and continued our journey. When we finally reached Napoli Centrale we were exhausted. The seven-hour train trip had worn us out and we were eager to get to our Airbnb. It turned out that we had to spend another hour on a metro train to get to our town: Sorrento.

When we finally reached the Sorrento station, it was late afternoon. Our place was amazing. It was a little pink house overlooking a small harbor full of fishing boats, ironically called Marina Grande.

We relaxed for the rest of the day (which wasn’t much) and went out for dinner at one of the restaurants on the harbor. I had a Margherita pizza (which was no surprise). When we got home, I promptly went to bed to prepare for another day of relaxing.

Overnight, the weather got angry and decided to throw bolts of electricity at us. Luckily, I slept through the worst of it. I woke up super-late to the smell of tea and coffee, the wind still blowing at the windows. I put my pull-out bed back into its sofa state and pretty much spent the whole day relaxing and reading my book. We did walk around town to acquaint ourselves with our surroundings. There were tons of shops selling everything from limoncello to mo-ped mugs. They also had this funny kind of cheese called scamorza at the store that hangs from a string called. At a small park, not far from our house, we got a spectacular view of Mount Vesuvius and the Naples coastline.

The next morning, my dad got me up at about nine to go to what I consider the coolest place in Italy: Pompeii. My mom was a little bit under the weather and she had already gone to Pompeii with my gramma in the past, so it was just me and my pop. We headed out on the Circumvesuvia train (the same train we rode in on from Naples) that looked like it was 30 years old and used as a canvas for graffiti artists. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the Pompeii station and get tickets. We were in awe when we saw the size of the city in ruin.

It’s huge. The whole ruin covers 170 acres, which is the size of a small modern-day town! There was everything from small shops to mansions.

Some of the bigger houses had roofs that sloped inward so rain could be collected in a small pond on the floor of the house. Everything was beautifully preserved (considering it had been buried for two thousand years). The cobblestone streets had original cart marks and the water fountains had divots where countless Pompeiians had rubbed their hands every time they collected water.

We walked to the Pompeii amphitheater where we saw a Pink Floyd exhibition. Pink Floyd did a recording in the middle of the amphitheater in 1972 for a documentary called “Live at Pompeii.” Last year, David Gilmour, one of the band members, actually did two live concerts in the amphitheater. In September of this year, he released a screening of the live concert, also called “Live at Pompeii.” My parents are really into Pink Floyd, so they thought this was pretty cool.

We walked back from the mini-Colosseum towards the exit and on the way I found a piece of rubble with a small engraving that looked really old and maybe carved by an ancient Pompeiian!

We completed our walk-around and exited the ancient city to get gelato and wait for the dumpster-on-train-tracks. While we were waiting, a butterfly was flying around and it landed on my wrist!! This was probably due to the ice cream on my hands, but I was excited anyways. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the bucket-o-bolts arrived and we took off for home. We had a delicious home-cooked meal of fried potatoes and onions, meatballs, and salad.

The next day, we got up late (as usual) and took a bus ride to Positano, a town on the Amalfi Coast. The views were amazing, looking out to the sea and high above to the mountains.

When we reached Positano, we walked off the bus and down to the beach. We also took a path to a more secluded beach, but decided to come back because it was a little too secluded.

We sat down to an extremely tasty lunch of pizza and calzone and strolled down to the beach. We sat around for a bit and looked out at the sea, but I decided not to go swimming because there were no public showers.

Before we headed back to catch the bus, we got a much-needed gelato (that I surprisingly almost forgot about. Phew!!) and walked up to the bus pick-up site. We read while we waited on some steps for the bus. The bus finally arrived and we got the best seats in the house, which were in the very front/left so we could see the ocean and where we were going. We reached home sweet home and relaxed for the rest of the day.

The last day of our stay in Sorrento, we did pretty much nothing, with the exception of going for a swim in Marina Grande, walking down to the larger harbor and then getting gelato.

We got up early on travel day (as usual) and took the express bus to the airport. From the bus, we got a good look at the loony Italian drivers, including mo-ped riders, who are even crazier. We got breakfast, checked in, and waited for our flight. We boarded, took off, and headed for Munich: Germany.

See you next time, Mick