Wednesday 4 June: Sorrento: sea, sky and sunshine

Yesterday’s afternoon and evening in Spaccanapoli, the center of Old Naples, did have one spell of absolute, utter serenity: Gary and I took a break from the fascinating parade of people to visit the tiled cloister at the church of Santa Chiara. This old medieval church is in the heart of Naples, but the cloister is an oasis of peace. In the mid-1700’s, the cloister was tiled with hand-painted tiles featuring scenes of daily life in the Bay of Naples area. There are farmers in the field, villagers dancing at a festival, hunters and dogs chasing deer and boar, and other gorgeous images. Gary took a picture of people playing bocce ball while a donkey watches from the barn window! Check it out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielcmack/2555162637/in/set-72157605468698645/. The church and cloister suffered serious fire damage in the mid-20th century, and is being beautifully restored. There is also a small museum with access to an ancient Roman bath house at a lower level of the site.

It’s a good thing we had that rest yesterday, because last night we got no sleep at all. The hotel is beautiful, clean and comfortable. It’s also a sauna. Our room was about 90 degrees all night long. We just couldn’t sleep, and woke very early and showered (twice!) just to cool off. We did have a good breakfast at the hotel, and then ordered a cab to take us to the train station for Sorrento. However, a local couple stole our cab from us, so we walked around the corner to the taxi stand at the Duomo (you cannot hail cabs from the street in Italy; it’s illegal for the drivers to stop). Our amiable taxi driver whizzed through the horrid traffic of Naples. They are never going to clean up this city until they do something about the traffic.

Gary and I got out of the cab at the train station for the Circumvesuviana, the local electric train that goes around the towns at the base of Vesuvius and out to the Sorrentine peninsula. We rode first through the sprawling suburbs that surround Naples. What a study in contradiction! Rows of high-rise low-income housing alternate with truck gardens of vegetables for the area and for export. The soil is incredibly fertile because of the trace elements brought up from deep within the earth when Vesuvius erupts. This is the only place you can grow tomatoes and legally call them “San Marzano” tomatoes, the best kind for Italian sauces. We even saw herds of water buffalo, the critters that supply the milk for true mozzarella di bufala cheese. The real thing is nothing like the “mozzarella” you buy in the dairy case.

We finally left the suburbs and came to the series of small towns built on the coast of the Sorrentine peninsula. At the tip of the peninsula is Sorrento. This was originally the Roman town of Surrentum, a resort town even then. In the 18th and 19th centuries it became a popular vacation spot for Europeans, especially the British, because of its sunshine and natural beauty. I had spent one memorable afternoon and evening in Sorrento when I was messing around at Pompeii in grad school, and for years have wanted to go back. The train ends at Sorrento, and the town is built on the cliffs overlooking the bay. We caught a cab driven by a bald guy with a while handlebar moustache who sang arias from Rossini the entire trip (Rossini was Neapolitan, and is a local favorite). The streets are narrow and switch back and forth in tight, hairpin turns as they wind down the cliffs to the sea. The traffic was the opposite of Naples: everyone must constantly back up, pull over, and give way to oncoming traffic, and everyone does it with a wave and a smile. The town is beautiful, and so different than the great cities of Italy. Instead of the majestic marble ruins and terra-cotta colored pallazzi of Rome, the dignified Renaissance facades of Florence, or the riot of styles in Venice, there are simple but elegant houses and hotels painted lemon yellow, bright pink, and pastel green, the colors of sherbet. Everything is cheerful, sunny, and bright. The landscape is filled with lemon and orange trees in fruit.

Gary had made us reservations at the Hotel Admiral, an old British resort that has been very nicely renovated and painted bright yellow. The hotel is right on the water, and is the last one at the end of the marina. We had a sea-side third floor room with a private terrace over the water. The walls were white, with a cove ceiling in sea blues and greens, turquoise tile floors, blond wood furnishings, and blue and yellow linens. The bathroom was huge by European standards, and best of all, had a full-size tub with fixed shower head higher than my head. I had my first comfortable shower in three months! The tile in the bathroom had squid and cuttlefish painted on it. The management even left us a complimentary bottle of champagne in a chilled ice bucket. The lobby was bright and airy, with a bar attended by a liveried bartender. It opened onto a deck with swimming pool, built about fifteen feet up right over the sea. The pool was filled with sea water. Gary and I immediately cleaned up and headed for the pool.

The vistas in Sorrento are astounding. The huge blue sky looked even bigger when immense, billowing clouds floated overhead. The water of the bay rippled in an endlessly changing pattern of sapphire and turquoise in the sunlight. Behind us rose the cliffs with beautiful resorts on top, the steep slopes dotted with citrus trees. To our right we could see the marina, ahead of us sail boats were moored, and across the bay, over thirty miles away, we could see the sprawl of Naples and its suburbs. But most impressive was the constant presence of Vesuvius. The volcano was directly across the bay from our window! It loomed over the bay, dominating the vast panorama laid before us. I spent the afternoon in a lounger by the pool in the activity I had been awaiting for months: doing absolutely nothing. I didn’t read, or listen to music, or talk. I just reclined and watch the sea, sky, clouds, and sunlight. The sky was huge, a deep but clear blue. Gigantic clouds would pile up on the mountains behind us, reaching higher and higher in tiers of white and gray, until it seemed like they would finally reach the sun. Behind these, even higher yet, were distant cloudy wisps like remote veils flung from space by some goddess or angel. Banks of clouds would move past each other in what seemed to be some intricate pattern that you could eventually decipher if only you watched long enough, and they cast their shadows across parts of the shining water and blue-green landscape across the bay. Cloud shadows chased each other across the slopes of Vesuvius. Through all this, the sun shone clear and bright. I couldn’t decide if it was choreography, or a contest, or a battle, but the interplay of the elements was endlessly fascinating, and I watched it for hours. And beyond everything was that vast sky, so deep and clear and compelling that I almost felt that I could fall into it forever if I would just let go of my chair. Two of the most beautiful places I have ever been are the hills of Tuscany and the fjords of Norway. Here on the peninsula it seemed like the two had been combined and moved to the tropics.

Later that afternoon Gary and I walked into town. Since Sorrento is on the top of the cliff and our hotel is on the water, that meant walking uphill for twenty minutes. There are actually steps in places up the cliffs, but I didn’t relish the idea of a stairway of 500 steps so we stuck to the road. The town is filled with hotels, shops, and eateries specializing in the incredible seafood of the bay. One of the main crafts of the region is ceramics, and we passed shops filled with majolica painted with Renaissance patterns, country scenes, roosters, and the famous lemons of Sorrento. I had gone hog wild already on glass in Venice, so I restrained myself from stocking up on platters and pitchers which would never make it home in one piece. I settled for some nice hand-painted majolica wine and oil bottle-stoppers. Going back to the hotel was easier, since it was down hill. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant right on the water. In front of the restaurant were two and a half swordfish, caught just an hour or two before. Check Flickr; Gary got a pic of one just before they cut my steak off it. I had an antipasto of raw marinated seafood like Italian sushi: swordfish, salmon, and tuna in herbed oil with raw octopus (by now you have figured out that I like octopus the way I like Bernini and Bach). Gary had a tasty veal pizzaiola, and my steak was a cross-section of the swordfish, grilled over an oak fire.

Gary and I watched the sunset from our private terrace three floors about the pool deck. The sky slowly turned darker and deeper blue, but the clouds glowed orange from the sun long after it disappeared. All around the bay we could see the lights of the towns in the distance, and Naples was a glow slouched along the remote shore. Signals on ships in the bay sparkled on the dark water. The cliffs behind us were fragrant and rustling with the scent of orange and lemon, and over all slept the immense, quiet volcano. Gary took some great pictures of evening over the bay; check them out on Flickr.