Sorrento & Amalfi: 10-15 October 2019

Sorrento & Amalfi

From Naples we went to Amalfi with a stop for lunch in Sorrento.  From the dock in Sorrento, crane your neck upward to the top of a sheer cliff and you will see the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria. The vistas from its perch are dramatic; of Naples Bay and Vesuvius. The hotel has been host to the two tenors of the past century, Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti.  (Caruso’s room can be seen in this music video by the late, Lucio Dalla: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JqtSuL3H2xs ).   It is all old world elegance and luxury. The climate was perfect, also the food, and we are happy to be joined by two nieces for the Amalfi stay.

Back on the ferry to Amalfi. So there is no confusion: Amalfi has given its name to the Amalfi Coast and to a small seaside village called Amalfi. We are in the village of Amalfi. Our apartment has a view.  It should. There is a climb of 163 stairs to arrive to it.  The apartments beneath us are stacked one upon another as so many turtles in a pond. One afternoon we visited Ravello which is high on a hill. We took the bus up.  We walked down.  1,700 stairs.

Tonight. Just past sundown. We visit the cliffside terrace of the Convent Hotel. Facing east. The bay of Amalfi below with several jetties. The busy boat activity of the day has ebbed. The red, green, white, blue and yellow beach umbrellas have been lowered. The contour of the bay curves as a piano case does. Sinuous. The moon slowly rises in the distance over the hill. While we sit here it has progressed from barely seen to a semi circle to a fully visible orb. It casts golden light on the Tyrrhenian Sea. A marble plaque behind us is inscribed with a remembrance of Enrico Wadsworth Longfellow. Perhaps he wrote a masterpiece here. We have our own remembrance. 90 years ago Nana sat in this terrace.  More or less twenty years old. On a “grand tour” of Europe with her parents and brother. She wrote about it in her illustrated travel diary. We told our waiter her story.  He said his grandfather worked there at that time. He mused “what if he was her waiter.”