Our hotel in Sorrento was the Domus Porto Salvo located on the sea in the municipality of Sant'Agnello di Sorrento, around a 15-20 minute easy walk from Sorrento proper overlooking the Bay of Naples.
http://maps.yourgmap.com/v/e_is_Sant_sAngelo_di_Sorrento.html
It's location put us within easy striking distance of Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii and the Amalfi coast.
Domus Porto Salvo is an old abbey of the Capuchin Friars, an offshoot of the Franciscans, dating back to the sixteenth century. The order was founded in 1525 and the abbey was built in 1587 in honor of the Madonna di Porto Salvo and was expanded in 1723. It was fairly recently renovated with some of the original details having been preserved and restored including the existing flooring and antique arches.
Legend has it that the cappuccino is named after the Capuchin friars because it is the color of their Habit and it resembles a Capuchin friar's characteristic tonsure, where the milky center represents the shaved top of the head, and the darker edge the ring of (brown) hair around it.
Before going to the hotel, we stopped in Naples, checked our bags at the station's left luggage and took the underground metropolitana subway to Piazza Cavour a block down from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale which houses most of the artifacts taken out of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Our first impression of Naples is that of a dirty, hectic city. One tourist that we ran in to later commented that difference between Rome and Naples is that in Rome the drivers are not trying to hit you.
The museum was fantastic, but a little overwhelming on the shear wealth of the collection. We popped into the Gabinetto Segreto (secret room) that houses some of the erotic images and artifacts that were found in Pompeii. At one time deemed too spicy for the ladies, they have been until recently under lock and key. Unfortunately the one sculpture I came to see was on loan to another musuem. It is an elegantly executed marble of Pan "seducing" a goat.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Naples/LectureOne/pangoat.jpgIt seems we hit the museum at just the right time because apparently some of the collection was closed off when others went to it later in the week. Bev had been a sick with a cold and the Museum was a bit of a trial for her.
We missed lunch (because shops close midday) so we were also tired and famished by the time we got to our hotel. Fortunately there is a wonderful restaurant (Il Capanno) just around the corner that another guest recommended and we ended up there almost every evening (expect the day they were closed).
The Sorrento area was a pleasant change from the cities we have been in up to now. A more laid back, resort feel existed and our hotel was great for being well within our budget (it is surrounded by much more expensive looking places), but right down near the cliffs overlooking the ocean.
The next day we went to Pompeii. I was overwhelmed by the size and quality of the ruins here. We spent the entire day exploring the site and looking into buildings (unfortunately there were very few buildings we could actually enter). We bought an audio guide and followed it from location to location, trying to avoid the tour groups. Once three or four groups converged on the same location (the baths) and chaos ensued. We got through the well preserved lupanar (brothel) by slipping between groups.
http://touritaly.org/pompeii/brothel.htmBy the end of the day we were very weary and we didn't really appreciate the Ampitheatre and Theatre (which are the largest ruins on the site) maybe as much as we should of. Heading back to the hotel we showered and headed out to a small bar that overlooks the bay. The cruise ships and lights from the city made a lovely back drop to our evening.
The following day we went into Sorrento in the morning and then hopped the train to Herculaneum. Originally it was a sort of seaside resort town but with the eruption the coastline shifted and now it is surrounded by the suburbs of Naples.
Herculaneum is unique in that the mantle of rock that encased the town preserved not only the sort of things that can be found in sites all over the world, such as stone and pottery, but organic material as well: wood, cloth, rope and papyrus.
At Pompeii you have the feeling of a bare skeleton, impressive in its scale but with too little information about the day-to-day life. But in Herculaneum you walk round a corner and come upon a little tavern with a wooden wine rack, storage loft and back office with sliding doors still visible.
The buildings are generally superior as much of the original wooden timbers has survived in a charred condition giving a much better idea of what a Roman town may have looked like. Where in Pompeii the second floors of many buildings have collapsed you can still see the floors above here giving you much more of an impression of a real town. In particular I was very impressed with the condition of the baths.
Herculaneum was originally discovered in the early 18th Century at a depth of 50 – 60 feet below the modern surface. Initially a series of ‘robber’ shafts and tunnels were dug to strip the site of any saleable valuables.
In the 20th Century, archaeological excavations fully uncovered a just a small section of the town.
http://www.romanherculaneum.com/There is one closed off area where you can get a tantalizing view of what remains underground with a vast hallway stretching off into the darkness.
Recent archaeological work at the site has discovered potentially one of the greatest treasure houses of contemporary Roman knowledge. The Villa of the Papyri was initially thought to contain 1800 unreadable charred scrolls, fused into solid lumps when it was originally excavated in the 18th Century. It was found that using various techniques some of the scrolls could be eased open and at least part of their contents read.
By the time we got through the site we had missed the entrance time into another smaller site, Villa Poppaea at Opolontis. It is thought that Nero’s second wife, Sabina Poppaea, lived there before she married him and was supposedly kicked to death for her pains. The evidence for this is slightly sketchy, however. This small site has a profusion of excellently preserved Roman wall-paintings. There’s also a peaceful cloistered area and the whole place retains the comfortable feel of a wealthy out-of-town villa.
The next day caught a bus from Sorrento that took us along the Amalfi Coast to Positanio which we saw in the movie "Under a Tuscan Sun". The bus runs along a winding road that hugs the cliff face along the coast overlooking shear drops into the water below. After a half hour or so of switchbacks you start to feel a little seasick. Again we got off at the wrong stop which put us at the top of Positanio and we had to find a way down to the beach. After wandering for awhile down steep stairs we eventually arrived at the beach. The day was a bit overcast but we managed to get lunch and handmade sandals before we went to make our way back up the hill. Wimping out we decided to take the local bus that runs up the hill to our other bus stop, which was much closer than we thought (and we had spent all that time before getting down there). Oh well, at least we got to see a side of Positanio that others didn't.
Our last day in Sorrento was raining, we had planned a maintance day so that was ok by us. We found we had to go into Sorrento in order to find a self service laundry and Bev got a chance to do a little shopping while I watched the clothes and helped the tourists with operating the machines. In the morning, we checked out only to find that the local transit service was on strike and the train to Naples wasn't running.
Since we had already booked tickets for a train from Naples to Rome, we had to get there on time so we got a cab that took us to the port in Sorrento and from there we took a ferry into Naples. The cab ride from the port in Naples to the train station was interesting since we got to see some more of Naples. As we neared the Station one street was filled with people who seemed to be living on the street, a completely sort of "un-western" sight that makes our downtown "problems" seem trivial in comparison. Our cab driver told us not to look, so we looked anyways.
We also appreciated the trip to Rome after our hectic morning since we had booked first class tickets and we could really stretch out and snooze.
I can’t say we did much in Rome. John came down with some awful cold on our last day and we missed the Vatican Museum because we didn’t feel up to the hassle of trying to get in (click on the photo to see the lineup). As it turns out, the Vatican Museum is unveiling today an ancient necropolis they’ve recently finished excavating. It sounds spectacular. At least we have something extra to look forward to next time.
Then it was off towards the Uffizi and the Loggia that houses Bev's favourite sculpture "The Rape of the Sabine Women". Lastly, we wandered down to the Ponte Vecchio and had a look at the Arno. Mark Twain characterized the Arno as "... a plausible river if they would pump some water into it." This slow moving green ditch was used in ages past to swallow countless suicides, murder victims, and executed felons.
On my way back, I was flagged down by someone sitting on a ledge of a building at a busy street corner. It was Bev waiting for a traffic accident. She was disappointed. It appears that despite the seeming chaos on the roads, things flow pretty well, the only near miss of the day was when Bev was walking up a very narrow sidewalk and her sling was clipped by the mirror of a passing car (I was more scared by the buses when they went past). We went inside the Duomo (this is where Lorenzo di Medici was almost assassinated by the Pazzi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazzi) and down to a dig site underneath the church where the crypts are and got to see several layers (4, I think) of churches that existed previously on the site.
The hotel we booked was the Hotel Residenza San Maurizio just off of the Campo San Maurizio, of course, and fairly near the more famous and expensive Gritti.
