14th May Sorento
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
18
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Sorento,
Italy
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
We decided it was time for a holiday from our holiday. We took the day off. While I sat on the verandah and caught up (only so far) with this journal, Ches took the afternoon bus to town for some window shopping. More like reconnoitring. She identified the shoes and the shoe shop for a later trip. She also returned with a bottle of "Anglianico Pomperano"; an excellent red. We also had a morning run up to Sant Agata, the little village at the top of our mountain-about 10 hairpin bends or so. Bought some tomatoes, fennel, radishes, fresh peas, cucumber, ham, bread and smoked mozzarella, "Cacio Donce" (interesting in that unbeknown to us, at the core of each little ball, were stuffed olives and the occasional chilli.). We enjoyed eating most of this for lunch and dinner out on the verandah, which looked down on the northern end of Sorrento, four hundred feet below.
Ches also bought me some tomato seeds. I think she couldn't handle the thought of me extracting seeds from our tomatoes and drying them on the verandah. Before dinner, we sat on the terrace at the front of the hotel, and had a cooling ale and G & T. It was the last day of a week long festival that they hold every 10 or 14 years (we couldn't get the story straight). Lucky us. We missed the parade, where they come and bless all the hotels, but we got the on going fireworks display Saturday evening and all day Sunday. While on the terrace, we had the grand stand seats for the finale. Italians are more into "bang" than beautiful fireworks. Infact, they aren't fireworks, they are explosives. For fifteen minutes in this little exhibition, they threw up enough explosives into the air, to make the place resemble a war zone. The goats next door took off up the hillside, the birds vanished, and shreds of paper from the explosives drifted up the mountain to us. The explosions were such that you could feel the shock wave hit your chest. Amazing.
