Trekking the Globe, Day 2 (Sorrento, Italy): Christin and I started our day early with mild confusion in the B&B Eco. I awoke, needing to use the bathroom, and the room was dark. So in my mind its 4am and I should use the toilet and go back to bed, but I could hear the streets of Pompeii loud with movement and chatter. At first, I thought Italians must really love to party late (which in many respects is true), but then I remembered a nifty feature of our room. You see, the windows in Pompeii not only have curtains or blinds to cover them but these collapsible shutters, much like the garage door of a car repair shop. Not only do they help minimize the noise from the outside world, but they black out the room. They are honestly quite fantastic and I want a set installed in my apartment, but as I sleepily shambled towards the window and slowly, carefully, lifted the shutters, bright Italian sunlight poured into the room. I checked my iPad, the only clock I have at my disposal on this trip, and discovered that it was nearly eight in the morning. Christin was still asleep at this point, and, not be a total jerk, I left the shutters cracked so that the slivers of morning light would eventually rouse her. It took 10 minutes. With that we began our first full day in Europe. Amazingly, we suffered little from jet lag (as in not at all). We had both managed to fall asleep at a decent hour and felt pretty awake and normal at eight-in-the-morning. So, go us. We shimmied into decent clothes and made our way downstairs to the Passion Cafe where we get a complimentary breakfast because of the B&B were in. The coupon we had to present to the cafe said we get one free croissant and one free cappuccino each, so we both expected breakfast to be pretty meager. We were wrong. Our host at the cafe, Dimitri--a tall, dark, and handsome man with perfect five-o-clock shadow at nine-in-the-morning--greeted us and gave us our spread of morning food magic. We got to choose from a variety of pastries both savory and sweet, could request a range of hot and cold drinks, and it all came with four biscuits, jam, honey, Nutella, a bottle of sparkling water, and three pieces of ripe fruit to share. We got a pizza bread thingy and a custard filled croissant. Christin ordered a delicious cappuccino and I asked for an iced coffee, which I quickly discovered is very different in Italy. Rather than coffee over ice, Italian iced coffee is like slightly cooled, coffe-flavored foam. Im not a fan of it, but everything else was perfect morning fare and delicious. It was, however, light in the protein department so after we finished our breakfast we ventured to the grocery shops on our street and bought some cherries (2euros for two giant handfuls of them!) and a package of tiny little fish soaked in olive oil, garlic, and parsley. We enjoyed the fish on our balcony, stowed the cherries away for later, and finally left our comfortably homey and welcoming street in Pompeii for the train station. Anticipating that wed be way more jet lagged, Christin and I decided to go to the beach in Sorrento on our first day because what better way to kick off a vacation than going to the beach. On the way to the station Christin found a hat she liked and unwittingly managed to haggle the price of it down to 10 euros instead of 25. This was her first haggling experience and she performed like a naive, natural champ (which is probably why it worked so well). Her red and white cloth hat is featured in the pictures from our day. Cute, no? We hopped onto a train to Sorrento along with a bunch of other people all clad in breezy beach wear. After passing lemon tree farms in the middle of cities, a beautiful bridge, and countless whooshing tunnels through mountains, we arrived in Sorrento. I understand now why Carey told me to go here. Its a gorgeous seaside city with beautiful architecture and more restaurants and shops than you can shake a stick at. We made our way down the Main Street and its various tributaries until we found the path that would lead us to the water. The city itself is on the edge of a cliff so its quite a long walk down cobbled roads and steps to get to the ocean, but it was amazingly scenic and probably did wonders for our calf muscles. There were a lot of docks and shops next to the water, but we eventually found the beach. Again, Sorrento is on a cliff and, as most movies have taught us, cliffs often plunge straight into the water without any sand. So the sandy beach I was expecting to find existed only in little pockets next to boat docks. In my pictures I am standing at the waters edge on one end of the beach and the other end is visible. Still, people were enjoying laying out on the sand, swimming in the water; and, one of the perks of having a small sandy beach area is that its pretty easy to clean. We saw men on the beach raking through the sand to collect the discarded trash of visitors. Their beach cleanup takes about five minutes, tops. Sufficiently hungry from our hike to the waterfront, Christin and I stair mastered our way back up to the city proper and found a restaurant for lunch. We ordered the fish special of the day with roasted vegetables. The fish was cooked by caking it in spices and sea salt, wrapping it in aluminum foil, and baking it in the oven. They then brought it out to our table to let us see the unveiling of the fish from its salty casket and plated the meat for us. It was good, not necessarily filling, but satisfying and different. Curious to try as many eateries as possible, we decided to find our dessert while exploring the rest of Sorrento. And there was a lot to explore. We found pastas in every color of the rainbow, tasted gelato in the flavors of fig & walnut and vanilla & ginger, bought postcards of Pompeiian penises (long story), and admired so many interesting trinkets that Im really glad I left no room for souvenirs in my bag. However, one of the highlights of our day was succumbing to Sarah Thompson. Almost every shop and restaurant weve encountered in Italy has had a person standing outside of it, encouraging you to come in and buy something. I dont remember what I was looking at, but this girl from the cafe next to us (Insolito) with a great smile--the kind you can see in their eyes--starts talking to us and invites us in for the cafes happy hour. Only, her English is way too good. To cut a long and awesome interaction short, she was also from the U.S., but working in Sorrento over the summer. She wooed us into the cafe and we decided to have another round of cappuccinos there. When it came to food she and her coworkers kindly went off the standard menu and made us a pseudo-caprese salad with salami instead of basil, which was honestly exactly what Christin and I wanted/needed. They also gave us ice cold water for free, so kudos to them. But, the conversation was the best part. She told us all about her experiences in Italy and gave us great recommendations for Capri and Rome. It was an awesome experience and the kind of meeting Christin and I hope to get more of during the rest of our journey. After finishing our meal and cooling off from or constant walking we left Insolito and stumbled into Fattoria Terranova where the shopkeeper, a Romanian implant into Italy, gave us free samples of her limoncello and a bunch of other wonderfully flavored liquors along with a rather endearing rant about her personal dislike for Naples and how it gives the rest of Italy a bad name. After discussing her parenting style and how childhood these days is not like when WE were children, we decided that the best bottled stuff in her shop was by far the apple liquor--not too sweet, but super smooth--and by the time we left the shop (with a bottle of Apple liquor in hand) Christin and I were both just a little less than sober. We walked off our mild buzz and eventually, after a little more sightseeing, made our way back to the train station to return to Pompeii. During our train journey we met other Americans who recommended we visit the island of Capri, had a very peculiar and broken conversation with an old Italian woman who asked if we were Chinese and periodically spat sunflower seeds onto the train floor, and enjoyed some accordion music from a traveling pair of musicians. We ended our night in Pompeii, again playing card games on our balcony, observing the Italian night life happening on the street below us, savoring the sweet cherries we had bought earlier that day, and reflecting on how our mutual disinterest in going to clubs or bars while in Europe made us both feel old. Note #1: Most of the young men in Italy are pretty handsome and many have a perpetual five-o-clock shadow look. They also almost all have the same haircut. Similar to what Macklemore sports with closely shaved sides and a long, styled mop on top. To some degree they look like clones of one another. Especially when they travel in groups. Attractive clones, but clones nonetheless.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:27:35 +0000
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