Our trains to Sorrento were quite uneventful, with the exception of the Naples to Sorrento leg, which reminded me too much of our train ride to Lagos, Portugal a couple of months back.
The light rail system made about 30 stops or so, while the heat was suppressed only when the train was moving, allowing the wind to push through the opened windows.
We decided to stay in San Agnello, which is actually the town right next to Sorrento. It was about a 20 minute walk from San Agnello to Sorrento – very doable, less busy and more affordable.
We took the time to explore some of streets and saw alot of lemon products being sold. This was no surprise considering the number of lemon groves we saw in the area. We also had a pretty good view of the sea and shoreline from a couple of lookout spots that we came upon. But to be honest, we mainly came to Sorrento to recharge, get our groove back and use the time to figure out what our next plan of action was. Dan had tried several HelpX opportunities and sent out emails to the hosts to volunteer for picking olives, but unfortunately none got back to us, so we were left wondering what to do with our remaining time in Italy.
On one of our days, we decided to take the ferry over to the island of Capri, which in my mind was like Eze, but with upscale shops. As we approached the shoreline, I didn’t realize that the island was so big! Or at least bigger than in my memory.
After disembarking, we noticed the long line-up (and price) of the furnicular, and so opted for the stairs. We certainly got our exercise for the day!
We were pretty tired by the time we got to the top, which didn’t surprise me, since we hadn’t yet eaten and it was pretty warm. We found a nice spot that faced out to the sea, called “Gemma’s Restaurant”, which turned out to be another hit (for me anyways). I had ordered a simple spaghetti dish, made “Gemma’s Style” and it was fantastic. The sauce was tasty and had a lot of the tangy tomato taste that I love.
Once our bellies were full, we strolled through the cobblestone streets and window shopped past Chanel, Gucci, Louie Vuitton and stopped at a very familiar spot. We were actually first lured by the smell of the fresh waffle cones, but as we approached the shop, I recognized it as one of the many gelato places that my Dad had gone to 7 years ago, when we had travelled to Capri with him, Mom & Camille. In fact, I remembered that he had snuck over to that particular spot while the three of us girls stepped into a store across the way. Anyways, this time around I ordered a fragola (strawberry) gelato and it was the perfect dessert. We wandered for a bit more before catching the afternoon ferry back to Sorrento.
I had remembered this place as being beautiful, and it still was in its own right, but after visiting Cinque Terre, I would have to say that I found Cinque Terre more charming.
At any rate, we came here to recharge, get our groove back, and plan our next steps – and that we were very successful in doing. So now, we’ve decided to head back north to Verona for a few days before moving on to Venice.
I fell in love with Italian gelato that nothing compares or match it anywhere else! There is one that comes close here in Calgary but still a few notches below…
I still have to go to Cinque Terre so I reserve judgement… it’s just that Capri is more identified with the jets setters… and had been backdrop to a number of movies.