Yes I know Ulysses came here as
described by Homer and heard the Sirens chanting, it was a great
Greek colony 2500 years ago and was a wealthy Roman resort town until
Vesuvius exploded in 79 AD. There is great wine and wonderful lemon
and olive orchards everywhere. All this is very nice and fine but no trace of it remains, even the Sirens are gone.
We visited Sorrento today, one of the resort towns on the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Full of the luxury hotels belonging to another era when going on vacation meant staying in
pampered accommodations and spending your day reading or walking or
having conversations with friends. This is not a modern resort for
families or for anyone looking for excitement. There is NO sandy
beach, it is all rocky crags, no modern hotels, it is all about seclusion in expensive
resorts, having a quiet relaxing vacation, getting SPA treatments and
eating beautiful slow food and tasting great wines, wearing nice
expensive designer Italian clothes, all very nice and all very slow pace. You can get a fast jet boat to
Capri for much of the same, just it is more expensive and more
exclusive, a lot more.
Sorrento is what going on vacation was
like 100 years ago in 1900, it has not changed much. Sure there are
lots of budget tourists but they are kept in one narrow area of town
and have no access to the more exclusive parts of this resort, guards are posted at the entrance of archways you must past to enter and discourage people wanting to have a look around. Being
Southern Italy there is a lot of poverty but again Sorrento like a
lot of the Amalfi coast is good at hiding this fact as long as you do
not look too closely. Lots of very good restaurants and faded
grandeur. But frankly after spending a day in Sorrento, I do not see
what attraction lies here. Unfortunately all the cruise ships stop
here, there is no Port so you must disembark on tenders if the
weather permits. Tourist come to gawk at the beautiful people who generally ignore you.
Someone asked why are we here? Why
would anyone come here? Good question. You come here because if
offers the moneyed crowd a place which supplies a life style they
recognize. The rest can just move along. This is not to say that the
city is not beautiful, simply I have seen more interesting places.
Tomorrow we go to Trapani in Sicily,
now that is more interesting and has more features for the public at
large.
