04/08/14: Rome, Sorrento & beyond

I've realised in the last week that family holidays are a lot like the Christmas to me. The anticipatory excitement in the weeks beforehand, the stress of getting packed & organised just before you're due to fly, the initial joy & warmth of seeing everyone & the eventual decline into throat-wringing by the end of it all. These comparisons aren't only in terms of relationships either as eating & drinking habits often lapse into uncharacteristically hedonistic indulgence justified by wanting to mark the sense of occasion. So too are the feelings that follow on return home akin to the New Year: regret at having to return to everyday life which seems more mundane than ever, sentimentally looking back at how great it was really & resolutions anew to renounce white bread & a bottle of wine with most meals. All of these things are what make these occasions what they are & we wouldn't change them for the world - that was certainly the case when I set off for a week in Italy a fortnight or so ago, two days in Rome followed by a handful in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast with my small sister in tow.

-Protestant Cemetery-

The two of us were excited to return to Rome as we had such a good time in the city when we visited last, as a family (plus my older brother & his now-wife!), two years ago as part of a trip that saw us wind up on the French Riviera in Nice. That particular occasion was packed full of all of the best sights - The Colosseum, the Spanish Steps, Keats' House, The Parthenon, St. Peter's Basilica, The Vatican, The Forum, almost all of the churches, The Trevi Fountain, to name a few - so we decided to clear our itinerary this time around & just explore the city in varying weathers of either blazing heat or muggy rain. We made our pilgrimages to the almighty Baths of Agrippa & the unassuming isle of calm of the Protestant Cemetery that both Keats & Shelley now call home but before we knew it, it was time to gather up our suitcases once more & hit the road towards Sorrento. 

-The two of us in one of Rome's many picturesque squares-

The Amalfi Coast is a part of the world that I had not yet been fortunate enough to visit so, after a long & stressful family drive as family drives often are, I was excited to see the swooping coastline that I was so familiar with from the latest series of 'The Trip'. Truth be known, our own trip was loosely based around that that Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon did over those six glorious episodes & we duly paid homage to the two comedy greats in our plans for the five days we had in the region. With renewed energy, our first day further south was spent, after another drive, at the excavation site of the ancient city of Pompeii - the destruction of which I studied for years in Latin (#coolkid #iwasreallygoodatitaswell) - which was astonishing both in terms of scale (it's huge!) & how much had been preserved by layers of ash that had coated the city. Sofia & I managed to find some peace amidst the inevitable hoards of tourists, ducking into immaculately tiled baths & retreating into the shade of towering pillars. After a lunch of spaghetti & olives just down from the site we resolved to scale Vesuvius, taking an ex-military bus with killer suspension as far up the volcano as we could before mounting the summit, me ever-practically dressed in, errr, Birkenstocks. The crater loomed ahead of us as we disappeared into cloud & walked the perimeter, looking down on the staggering view of the coast that laid below us. 

-Pompeii, it's mosaics & chipped toenails, sorry!-

The next morning was spent recuperating from a busy day in the heat, Sofia & I taking some time out by

ourselves to secure two seats on the decking that comprised the beach, jutting out from the cliff face on which our hotel hovered. I read (the very little time I had to do so during the week, sob!) my novel, Antal Szerb's 'Journey by Moonlight', a beautiful & captivating book that took in both Rome & the Protestant Cemetery in its pages, & then went for a dip in the surprisingly cold sea with Sofia who laughed uproariously as I tried to convince myself to duck my shoulders under. Lunch was a lighter affair of Salad Caprese before a stunning, weaving drive right along the mountain road, dodging madmen on Vespas & even madder men on bicycles through Amalfi itself to Ravello. Though we had come only to wander around & meet our dinner reservation, my Dad had also come to seek out Villa Cimbrone & its 'Terrace of Infinity' that offers famous views out to sea from its railings. Little did I know that it would be so beautiful & so romantic, bought by a Lord Grimthorpe in mourning for his departed wife, these grounds & gardens became the centre of much artistic activity during the 20th Century, including frequent visits from Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield & D. H. Lawrence. I only lamented that we had so little time to look around, pausing only briefly at the rose gardens but taking a deep breath at the vista from the balcony that is like nothing else on earth, I am sure.

-Sunset from the Terrace of Infinity-

While enamoured by all of the tin can, original Fiat 500s that were parked on every precarious corner, our last full day on the coast was spent on a different mode of transport but not one that made me feel any less sick, hooray. It was the Sorrento-Capri ferry that we hopped on at eleven o'clock on that Wednesday but thankfully the journey was quick & it wasn't long before we were on a significantly calmer vessel making our way to lunch at Da Luigi, wind in my hair threatening to blow my polka dot dress up around my ears...! 

I must admit that, despite the pleasure of the indulgence, I found vegetarian eating a little joyless during my time in Italy, the natives having not moved on from replacing meat with cheese. I love cheese but I felt in need of lentils, big time. This lunch was different. Maybe it was the sunny skies just starting to give way to faint rain, a glass of good wine, feeling at peace surrounded by the cliffs & the waves, but I had pasta with the lightest, creamiest courgette sauce that was amongst the most delectable of dishes that I've ever enjoyed. Unfortunately I wasn't given due warning of our steep upward climb into the town not to order a slice of traditional Caprisian chocolate almond cake so it was with numerous stopping & hunching over that we clambered up into the town & back down to the marina again in time for lemonade & the ferry back over to Sorrento.

Even looking back on these photographs now it all seems something of a dream, only potentially improved by having Andrew with me to share it all with, soppy date as I am, sigh. I was still very sad to leave via Rome airport the next day, a phone full of New Yorker fiction podcasts to guide me home at gone midnight.
As luck would have it, I only had to endure four days at work this week ahead of going again tomorrow for another seven days, this time in the potentially-not-so-sunny seaside town of Fowey in Cornwall. I'm going to have all the scones! Oh & take my laptop with me so I can fill you in on my adventures.

Have you been holidaying lately too?
Speak soon - O.

-The marina in Capri-