Sorrento, Italy

Yesterday’s travels brought today’s serenity…

Enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. You know it’s going to be good when they have a self-serve mimosa bar. The breakfast lounge is located on the top floor of the hotel with beautiful views over the bay. With Mount Vesuvius in the distance, I felt compelled to pile things up on my plate. Subliminal messaging going on.

This was definitely not the standard quickie breakfast that most of the hotels have had. This buffet had eggs and bacon, quiche, cereals, breads, meats, cheese, pastries, cakes, juice, champagne, teas and coffees. Everything seemed to be baked or made fresh this morning. So that was the delightful scent we were getting. Anyways, breakfast was good.

Tomorrow morning we have to meet our tour group near city center, so we walked over to make sure we knew where we were going. It gave us a chance to see many of the sites around town, plus pass by lots of shops and restaurants. The early morning walk should only take us about fifteen minutes, so that’ll allow me to sleep in for a few minutes longer.

As we were walking around, everywhere you could see the sea was mobbed. Selfie-sticks are everywhere and squeezing in between those people to take pictures can be a real challenge. One must definitely be prepared to move in when there is an opening.

We passed by a lemon grove that we plan to go back to Sunday. In the meantime, we shall do our best to sample as many different limoncello’s as possible. Strictly for comparison sake!

There were a few drops of rain that fell, so we ducked into a couple different little passageways. Lots of shops and vendors selling everything a tourist could want – and then some!

As soon as the clouds passed by, the sun returned and the day was beautiful. It’s not really hot here like it is in Miami, Mexico or Buffalo. Our temperatures have been in the low 70’s with low humidity. Perfect for walking around.

With the sun shining, we decided to walk over to the Marina Grande area. This area is considered separate from Sorrento, but is located right next to the old town. There is a portal that is called the Old Greek Portal that leads down to the marina area.

Through the portal, you find this wonderful seaside village. Little shops, restaurants, boat docks and a small beach encircle the cove. Really nice and pretty rustic.

We decided to have a late lunch there instead of waiting for a big dinner later in the evening. One of the best restaurants in Sorrento (I know, I said it was outside) is located here – Ristorante Bagni Il Delfino. They have an extended dining area that goes right out on to their pier. They have a wonderful menu, lots of fresh fish choices and some great house specialties. Add to that, an extensive wine list and you had two happy tourists.

I try not to be overly touristy by taking food pictures, but I had to today. We both started with a caprese salad that was very good and then Sue had a fresh grilled branzini fish, while I had their special gnocchi with shrimp and fresh tomatoes. We also had a bottle of Rose’ wine that was made with Aglianico grapes. Needless to say, we both really enjoyed our meals very much. Molto buono!!

The waiter was like a surgeon deboning Sue’s fish. We applauded and he was a little embarrassed but also pleased that we acknowledged his precision. Fun! We were both pleasantly full, so we skipped dessert and headed back to the hotel.

We made sure we were good for tomorrow’s excursion around the coast of Amalfi and Saturday’s excursion to Pompeii before relaxing a bit.

For a nightcap, we went up to the lounge and had a drink while watching the sun set over the bay. To add to the romance, there was a wedding going on at the hotel next to ours and we could hear the band playing as we enjoyed our drinks. I didn’t hear any accordion solos, but the sax guy was pretty darn good.

Back to the room, updated the blog and we’ll be hitting the pillows early so we can get up in the morning. Another great day!