Sorrento in the rain

Not quite such a nice day today.  We were going to take the ferry to Sorrento and the train back.  We walked down to the ferry port and bought the ticket – we were in plenty of time (we thought) to make our way to the departure gate and board.  But no.

The entire passenger port area was glossy, gleaming, huge and totally empty.  For about 20 minutes we wandered, and then rushed about from one end of the building to another, trying to find this ferry.  We only found one gate which was actually open, and this seemed to be for Capri.  The officials on the gate directed us back downstairs in a different direction which eventually brought us back in a huge circle to where we had started.    So there were shops, and coffee bars and loads of departure gates, but everything was entirely desolate and shut up.  We only saw one other passenger and he didn’t know where the ferry for Sorrento was either.  So in the end we gave up and decided to take the train.

So after a brief excursion to the wrong station we arrived at Sorrento on the Circumvesuviana line.  This is a super-scruffy, super-uncomfortable commuter train which nonetheless is rather endearing.  We went through Vico Equense where J and I spent a happy week a few years ago and arrived in Sorrento.  When J and I had been there in October it had been a bustling little tourist resort full of charming shops and restaurants.  We had walked down to a little old fishing village and eaten spaghetti con vongole and drunk limoncello on a terrace overlooking Capri.  Today in January nearly everything was closed.  We looked at the cathedral which was nice, pootled for a while and then went for some lunch.  About the only thing that was open was a very touristy restaurant – I had spaghetti con vongole for old times sake, and R had fish and chips (!).  It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great and it was expensive.  While we were having our lunch, it started to rain very very hard, and it continued in this theme for quite some time, so we gave up and went back to Napoli.

This was much better.  It stopped raining and we went to the Piazza del Plebiscite.  It was as big and impressive as St Peter’s Square in Rome, but entirely empty.

We went into the Basilica of San Francisco and this was pretty empty as well.  And then the Gallery Umberto, which was not empty at all, but definitely the grandest shopping centre I have ever seen, with some of the grandest prices too.

Then we found a little terrace with some really fantastic view over Vesuvius.

At the bottom of the hill I could quite clearly see the ferry we should have caught that morning.