Florence / Sorrento

10 September 2007 – Monday (Lunedi) – Day 9 – Florence to Sorrento

Today took us on another long bus ride, to Sorrento, with breathtaking views of Umbria and Tuscany, the Tiber River Valley, Orvieto and Orte, the Gulf of Naples, Mt. Vesuvius ….

Mount Vesuvius. At its base it's well populated … a very fertile region producing some of the best tomatoes . . . . It appears to be two peaks now since the last eruption blew off the peak.

Traveling through the countryside we passed the Apian Way, the oldest known road, lined with umbrella trees. The bus ride from Naples to here was a true test of our driver’s (Ricardo’s) skills. Naples was very crowded, and there is a large area in the center of the city that is being excavated, where passages and caves have been found, so that added to the turmoil and congestion.

We finally settled into one our most palatial hotels yet. Sorrento is on the peninsula of the Gulf of Naples. On the way we passed a bikini beach, which our guide Antonella explained was now out of fashion. The joke she made was now calling it a “tri-kini” beach (hat, sunglasses and sandals).

Our tour guide, Antonella, told us of the saying, “Visit Naples and die,” meaning that the city is the most beautiful you could ever see. But now, because of the traffic, the meaning is quite different. Now closer to Sorrento, with high cliffs on the left and the Tyrrhenian Sea on the right, this is one of the most beautiful areas we’ve seen. (But we hadn’t gotten to Capri yet.)

OK, I haven’t had the time to investigate this yet. In the movie classic, “An Affair to Remember” with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, did his grandmother live in Sorrento?

We just arrived at our hotel, the Grand La Pace. Beautiful … marble floors, satin brocade walls, 4 poster bed with canopy and drapes all around, a separate sitting room, all stone bathroom, and on and on. This even beats our room at the Hilton in Venice.