Rome to Sorrento

Time for a whirlwind 3 days in the Sorrento area. I say that because while three days sounds like a lot, there's a lot to do here.

The train to Naples was effortless, pretty through the mountains, and the definition of travel civility (complete with wine with our on-train picnic). The Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento, on the other hand, was a 90 minute stop and go cattle car ride, packed elbow to elbow for a lot of it with high school kids -- mostly boys -- roughhousing. Me and my backpack/suitcase full of "stuff" stood for over half of it.

Our apartment here is a lovely little studio in the dead centre of town.

The view out the window 

Yours truly in our space. At least one half of it.

Sorrento's a spacious place with broad quiet streets.

Maybe not this one 

Or this one. Yes, it's a road. 

Not this one either, really 

Or this one. 

Certainly not this one 

At last! Room for busses!

There's ready access to the ocean.

Just jump off the 300' cliff 

Other places to jump 

Lots of soft sand to land in

It has an okay kinda harbour, if you like that sort of place.

An OK beach. Not Maui, but OK

They could have installed an escalator, but no 

Too many boats 

Wo would want to stay here? 

The main harbour's over thataway

There's fishing boats, of course, and fishermen (or is it "fishers" in this politically correct time?), and their "stuff" they use to fish.

"Stuff" on a cart 

Boats, I think 

Italians park their boats like they park their cars 

Fisher dude on crab trap cleaning duty 

Fisher dudes on net repair duty 

The pointy end of boats 

"Wow! I found a quarter!" 

Boat dude on boat working duty

Being a place where they catch and clean fish, there's one or two cats running around.

Nearly nap time 

Bath time 

Mountain goat time 

Where there are cats there are kittens 

Mom taking them away 

You may be a person of interest 

So might be this plant 

A face most anyone could love. Shame they grow up.

Sorrento is more than just OK views, a OK harbour and cats. This area is known for it's oranges, lemons and limoncello (a liqueur I just love). In fact, smack dab in the middle of town is an orange and lemon grove, and they pick them to make lemoncello, arancello and marmalade. They have grafted trees that have both lemons and oranges growing in them.

Your choice 

The side of the grove

As you can see, we mostly lost the sun today, and it rained a bit on our way out for pizza.

Ah, pizza. Not the crap called "pizza" that y'all get in North America (or anywhere else for that matter). No, we are 30 miles from the home of pizza, and they know how to actually make it here. And sell it for €6. Along with a bottle of wine for €8. Awesome stuff.

Tomorrow: the forecast is for rain, but we're going to brave Herculaneum and Pompeii. Heck, if they could survive a volcanic eruption, we can stand a little rain.

They did survive it, didn't they?