Ciao from Italy!
Nearly two months after our wedding, we have finally made it to Sorrento! This is the first day of a two-week trip that we have been planning for quite some time. Our journey began at JFK, where we checked-in and enjoyed a quick break at the Delta Sky Club before eating dinner at Chili’s. Needless to say, we set the bar low on cuisine before two weeks of pasta and wine. Our flight was delayed for nearly an hour due to a maintenance issue, but we made up time in the air and landed at Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport shortly before 11am local time. While I have been to Europe several times, I have never before flown into Rome, and Ann Taylor was making her first trip to Italy. We expected a long wait at passport control, but the agent did not even bother to open our passport. Less than fifteen minutes after disembarking the plane, we were in a car, headed to Sorrento.
For a bit of history, my last trip to Western Italy was in 2007, over the week before I moved to New York. During that trip, we spent a day in Naples and the Amalfi Coast, and my family fell in love with the area. Sorrento was one of the top spots on my list for a honeymoon, and I was so excited when Ann Taylor agreed. Our driver was incredibly nice, and actually a good friend of our Sorrento tour guide during our 2007 trip. We made excellent time, and only stopped once to refuel (food, not gasoline), near Naples. The service station was so much nicer than we are used to in the United States, and I thoroughly enjoyed my chicken sandwich. We checked into the Hotel Bristol around 3:15pm, and we actually appreciated the ten-minute walk up to our private villa. The weather is absolutely gorgeous here, and we liked the opportunity to stretch our legs after an eight-hour flight and three-hour drive.
The Hotel Bristol is situated on the opposite side of the Amalfi Coast, overlooking the Bay of Naples. The views are unbelievable, and we will be enjoying them from a private suite complete with its own yard and patio. Ann Taylor and I really could not be more blessed to spend a week in such a lovely setting. The pictures will not do the hotel justice, but we will try to get some posted to Facebook soon. Knowing that it was our honeymoon, the hotel staff had even left a bottle of sparkling wine in our room. I suspect, though, that we will wait until the jet lag subsides to enjoy the wine. After a quick nap, we traveled down to the center of Sorrento, which is about a fifteen minute walk from the hotel. The sidewalks are narrow, but the shops are inviting, and I suspect that it won’t be long before we have a bottle of limoncello in our room. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Fauno Bar, in the heart of Sorrento. Ann Taylor ordered the lasagna, and I had the tagliatelle and lobster special. We each had a half-bottle of wine, and the bill came with complementary shots of crema di limoncello. Everything was so good!
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for gelato and appreciated the evening scene at the Sorrento marketplace. While Manhattan and Brooklyn are vibrant at night, Italy has an entirely different kind of energy. Sadly, we didn’t have quite as much energy tonight, and meandered back to the hotel to call it a night early. Tomorrow, our itinerary calls for a relaxing day of sleeping in, enjoying Sorrento, and, perhaps, spending a few hours by the pool. We are both so glad to be here, and enjoying a break from wireframing, admission counseling and wedding planning. If all goes well, we will be regularly posting to this blog, so please stay tuned for more updates from Sorrento and Rome. We miss our friends and family back home, but our honeymoon is already off to an amazing start! Buona notte!
Take care,
– Dan