Sorrento, Italia

Our second stop in Italy was Sorrento, near the Amalfi Coast. Sorrento is a beautiful resort town situated on a cliff above the sea. It is home to gorgeous hotels, shopping, nightlife, and of course unlimited restaurants. Here's what we did during our stay:

Day 1 // Sorrento

Once we were settled in our hotel after Chiara and Giuseppe left (and only after we were able to stop crying), we went down to the beach. In order to get there, you have to take a lift through the cliffs in a tiny little elevator. Not good for claustrophobia...

"Leonelli's" beach below our hotel on the cliff

At the beach, we ordered some seafood and swam in the Mediterranean (specifically Sorrento is on the Tyrrhenian Sea part of the Mediterranean). It feels like bath water - much nicer than Hawaii. The water is a perfect shade of aqua and you can see the bottom practically all the time. It's also incredibly salty - I could swim with my eyes open, and my contacts were just fine because the water was like my saline solution! 

After spending the day at the beach, we got ready for the evening and ate dinner/shopped around Sorrento. We had a great time, but were still incredibly sad about having left our family...

Day 2 // Capri

City of Capri

On day two in Sorrento, we explored Capri. Capri is a small island off the Amalfi Coast - and also is where many celebrities go to vacation. When we got there, it was clear why... it's gorgeous and full of high-end shopping for fashion and jewelry.

View of Capri from the hydrofoil

We rode the hydrofoil which is similar to a ferry, but a little smaller. It took us along the beautiful Amalfi Coast. As we approached the island, we saw the stunning sea town of Capri built into one of the mountains on the island.

Inside the Blue Grotto

We first took a tour to the Blue Grotto which is a little cave on the east side of the island. The rocks in this cave are in such a position that the sunlight bends in the water to create the bluest blue you could ever imagine...

However, in order to get into the Grotto, you have to take a little tiny row-boat and lay down because the entrance is about 5 feet wide by 3 feet tall. Once inside, each rowboat captain sings Italian songs and rows you around the Grotto. It was a wonderful experience, but I probably wouldn't do it a second time just because of how long it takes to actually get into the Grotto since there are so many people.

View overlooking Capri

When we arrived back in the main town of Capri, we ate lunch and started up to the top of the mountain via tram. That's where all of the high-end shops are and all of the residences. From the top, we had an absolutely gorgeous outlook of the island and the water.

We had a bit of trouble finding our return hydrofoil, but once we did, we got back to the hotel and repeated what we did the previous evening in Sorrento - just with different stores and different restaurants :)

Day 3 // Pompeii

Pompeii was the destination for our third day. We took the train from the Sorrento station (about 30 minutes). Pompeii attracts many tourists - the ruins are so crowded that sometimes it is difficult to walk (especially when you get stuck behind a large group tour).

Ruins in Pompeii

The ancient city was fascinating. Unfortunately, the entire time we were in Pompeii, it was dark and rainy. We got caught in a thunderstorm, pouring down rain, and took refuge under the old, ruin arches.

Ristorante 'O Parrucchiano

We received a map of Pompeii at the ticket booth, but quickly found that it did not correspond one bit with the signs on the ruins. We would walk around in circles trying to make the numbers line up and then realize we weren't even within a mile of where we should be. After a couple hours, we concluded we'd seen enough ruins in the rain.

The restaurant that we went to on our last night in Sorrento was the most beautiful restaurant I have ever seen/will ever see. We were walking down the main street of Sorrento looking for a place to eat, and we saw a restaurant that looked like any other. We were pretty hungry so we thought we'd try it. Well - walk up about three flights of stairs and the entire restaurant is an atrium with multiple gardens and strung white-lights overhead. The food was amazing too :)

Day 4 // Positano

We had originally planned to visit Positano after we saw Pompeii because we were to take a somewhat early train to Rome in the morning of Day 4. Well, the only available trains to Rome were at 6am and 5pm. So we chose 5pm.

Beach of Positano

This actually worked out perfectly because then we had the whole day to explore Positano. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a bus to Positano (only about 30 minutes away) because it was full. So we took a taxi. The taxi driver was very entertaining and had a lot to say about life and about the world. He told us about the differences between North and South Italy, how much influence the Mafia has, and what it was like to grow up in Naples, and then Los Angeles. My favorite quote: "I haven't traveled the world, but the world has traveled to my cab."

Once in Positano, we immediately bought a bus ticket for our return trip to Sorrento. We didn't want them to be sold out again...

Positano stairs - on the
way back up...

Positano is another little sea town built into the cliff, similar to Capri - and it is famous for its stairs that wind their way down from the top to the shore of the beach. My mom wanted to take the stairs all the way down, so we did. We ate lunch, we had gelato, took pictures on the shore. When it came time to get back for our bus, we took the stairs up. Little did we know that no one takes the stairs on the way up - they take the shuttle - and we found out why. They're absolutely brutal! It wasn't that there were too many of them (300), but that they were very tall steps.

Well, we missed our bus because it came early, so we had to take yet another taxi on our way home in order to make the 5pm bus to Rome (these taxi bills really start to add up, especially after you do the Euro-U.S. dollar conversion).

We arrived back in Sorrento, took the bus to Rome, and arrived at our hotel around 9:30pm - which is right next to the Pantheon!

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High of Sorrento: discovering the beauty that is the Cappuccino

Low of Sorrento: (1) the realization that it takes a very expensive machine to make a good one & (2) I'll never have Cappuccinos in the U.S. that are as delicious as those in Italy

See the next post for our adventures in Roma... :) Ciao!