Sorrento Local-Style

Thanks to the Navy, I have some cousins who live in Naples, Italy. So months ago, we agreed to rendezvous at the port in Sorrento today for a day spent together, something that hasn’t happened in close to a decade. Well, the day spent together part. We’ve never been to Sorrento before, with or without Jennifer and Bruce.

What a blast it is to have local tour guides! We got to drive around in a small VW Bug and be a part of that crazy sport known as Italian Driving. We got to weave and dash and swerve and brake and pass and get passed and stay in the lines and ignore them altogether. Although driving like a maniac is not in Bruce’s nature, it was clear pretty quickly that driving like everyone else is key to survival here.

The bulk of our day was spent walking around Herculaneum aka Ercolano. It was the other town that got munched in AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted. While Pompeii got hit by stone and ash, Ercolano got hit by mudflows. The difference is important because the mud ended preserving a lot of Ercolano while the stone and ash ended up destroying much of Pompeii. Ercolano isn’t as well known, though, largely because it was a more working-class town instead of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous vibe in Pompeii. And it’s harder for tour buses to get to.

But wow, what a fascinating place to wander! You could much better see the town and the layout and imagine people living there than in the ruins of Pompeii. Structures were much more intact, including some roofs and wooden stairs. I also liked the fact that the preservation and excavation of Ercolano is still a work in progress, with scaffolding and bracing and archeological tools scattered about. It gave a sense of history “is” instead of history “was.”

We enjoyed a brief drive along the sunny Amalfi Coast, parked in a parking garage where people actually obeyed the painted lines, and had a great lunch with the best limoncello any of us had ever had.

We were sad to say good-bye, it being much too short a visit. It’s not clear how long Jennifer and Bruce will remain in Italy, but I am now pondering how much fun it would be to come back and tour around with them for a bit. With family who are friends, with foreigners who are locals, with sane people who know how to drive like lunatics.

Cousins!  With Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast in the background