Dreaming of Travel: Sorrento, Italy

As much as I enjoy exploring the history and nature around me in these stay-at-home days, I can’t stop dreaming. And right now, I am dreaming of Sorrento, Italy.

Sorrento is my favorite vacation spot in the world. Whenever I need just a few days of utter relaxation, this is the place. This is the first summer I cannot make it to Sorrento in several years, so come with me as I dream about it.

Sorrento is a picturesque resort town on the Bay of Naples facing majestically steaming Mount Vesuvius, the active volcano across the bay. Sorrento can get very touristy in the summer, but for me the charms of this bustling town – the pastel buildings reflecting the bright sunlight; the dazzling sunsets over the bay; the warm, friendly people – make the crowds seem to disappear.

I created a daily routine in Sorrento that I would follow almost religiously. In the morning I would go to a café and grab the typical Italian breakfast of a pastry and foamy cappuccino. In the south of Italy, the pastries are brick-heavy and sugar-laden bundles of delight, often filled with thick cream, Nutella, or maybe a sweet pistachio paste.

After fortifying myself with sufficient caffeine and sugar, I would head through the busy main thoroughfare with its many shops and cafes to the quiet old town huddled around Marina Grande, which seemed stuck in a previous century. I would always go to the same beach club: the Bagni di Sant’Anna. The beach here is my favorite kind – no sand! It is basically a large deck built over the water with steps leading down into the cool, refreshing waters of the bay.

I’d bring a favorite book and spend the day lounging on a “lettino,” a reclining beach chair, sheltered under the shade of a yellow and white striped umbrella. Whenever it got too warm, a quick swim in the bay set everything right.

The “salvaguardia,” or lifeguards, are two young men, Alessandro and Antonino, who work there summer after summer. They really are not lifeguards as much as waiters, handymen, and to me, friends. I enjoyed catching up with them every summer, often over a glass of prosecco they brought me as a “welcome back” treat.

I loved people watching here. Of course some tourists always found this semi-secluded spot, but the same locals returned year after year, each of them baking endlessly in the scorching sun as Italians do. There was an older gentleman (darkly tanned, of course) who donned a different neon speedo every day. There was a man in his thirties who had a “fast forward button” tattoo on his upper arm. I always wondered if it would ever become “play” one of these years, but it never has. There was also an anorexic woman whom I kept fearing would not be there when I returned the next summer, but she always turned up without fail, as thin as ever.

Every evening just before the Bagni closed, I had a glass of crisp local Falanghina white wine or bubbly prosecco with a snack of peanuts and green olives at my lettino as the sun began to fade, turning the sky into a prism of pink and orange and Mount Vesuvius a magical deep blue. I’d have a chat with Alessandro. I’d try to make time stand still just a little longer, but I knew that after the sun set a pleasant, leisurely evening awaited.

I would go on an evening “passeggiata,” or stroll, as the locals do, and maybe pop in a shop or two or grab an aperitivo overlooking the sparkling bay before sitting down to a late, long dinner of fresh local seafood or of thick, spongy Neapolitan pizza, finished off with chilled limoncello, the local lemon digestif.

I loved these slow summer days. Even though they were just a few days a year, I’d look forward to them for months and then cherish them in my memories afterwards. Nowadays, these memories will have to last much longer until the next time. But there will be a next time.

Now it’s time for your travel dreams! If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?