Ciao!
With such a long travel day yesterday — nearly fifteen hours from our apartment to our hotel room — we began today by sleeping in. Granted, when we woke up it was still 4:30am on the East Coast, but it still felt great in Italy. Once we were ready to face the day, we opened the doors and were greeted by a gorgeous Sorrento day: sunny, and in the upper 70s. The temperature is measured in Celsius here, but I’m not sure whether 24 Celsius is warm or cold, so I need to translate first. As it turns out, I also need to translate that from Connecticut to Alabama, as 75 Fahrenheit is warm to some, but cold to others 🙂 Around noon, we strolled down to the center of Sorrento, which is about a fifteen minute walk from the Bristol Hotel. The sidewalks are narrow and the scooters zip quickly along windy roads, but we have made the trek safely a few times thus far. While Sorrento is a major tourist hub, we are still surprised to hear more English than Italian spoken along the main street.
At this point, we were both hungry, so we stopped for lunch at Nonna Luisa, a small restaurant near one of the plazas in the older section of Sorrento. While it definitely catered to tourists and I suspect that we’ll enjoy better Margherita pizza elsewhere, lunch definitely hit the spot and fueled us for the rest of the day. On our way back through town, we passed quite a few restaurants and shops, including a limoncello store that I had remembered from my previous trip. Thus far, we have only enjoyed a single serving of the local liquor — after dinner at Bar Fauno — but I expect that we may pick up a bottle or two later in the trip. Returning to the hotel, we grabbed our books and a comfortable spot on the patio, just below the hotel pool. While True Grit and Mockingjay may not be traditional Italian literature, Ann Taylor and I both enjoyed an afternoon reading and relaxing in the sun. We still cannot get over the amazing views from the hotel, and it is hard to believe that we could have picked a better spot to honeymoon.
After making our way back to the room, we were welcomed with two chocolate desserts in the shape of small hearts. These complemented the bottle of champagne that greeted us yesterday afternoon. We love being honeymooners! A quick change of clothes later, we were on our way back to the heart of Sorrento for the evening. Our first stop was to the Vodafone store, where I picked up an Italian SIM card for my iPhone 4S. Quite frankly, it has been a miracle that I have been able to make it this long with only the hotel wi-fi — I don’t go “off the grid” well, haha. After getting a bit lost on the streets of Sorrento, we then made it to our dinner spot: Ristorante S.Antonino. We had a great seat on the second level, overlooking Via S.Maria delle Grazie, and dinner was just as good as yesterday. Ann Taylor enjoyed homemade linguini with shrimp, and I had grilled sea bass with broccoli rabe. Alright, so the broccoli rabe was not my favorite side dish ever, but with all of the gelato and pasta we have eaten, I thought that it would be good to add a vegetable.
Speaking of gelato, after dinner we made our way over to Gelateria David, which was rated by TripAdvisor as the top spot for gelato in Sorrento. The wisdom of the crowd was correct, as Ann Taylor and I enjoyed chocolate chip, and chocolate gelato, respectively. Actually, Ann Taylor enjoyed her gelato so much that we stopped for more on the way back to the hotel. After a fabulous, relaxing day in Sorrento, we will be getting an early start tomorrow as we head to Capri for a day on the island. We are both looking forward to another day of more relaxing, more adventures and, of course, more gelato 🙂
Take care,
– Dan