CUADERNO DE VIAJE - SORRENTO {TRAVEL NOTEBOOK - SORRENTO}

No me había dado cuenta de todo lo que habíamos hecho en Napoles hasta que no he disfrutado del post del viaje, siempre digo que el pre y el durante están bien, pero que el post me encanta porque asimilo mucho mas todo lo que he visto. Ahora os voy a contar por qué es una buena idea quedarse en Sorrento cuando uno quiere visitar la costa Amalfitana.

1. I hadn´t realised all the things we did in Naples until I was enjoying the post journey, well I think that the pre and the during are great but the post is when I really assimilate all the things I´ve visited and seen. Now I´m going to tell you why is it a great idea to stay in Sorrento when you´re planning to visit the Amalfi coast.

Así llegamos a Sorrento siguiendo el consejo de unos buenos amigos. Nuestra idea era dormir en Amalfi, pero la verdad es que después de cambiar de idea por ello y ahora que hemos visto esas carreteras nos hemos dado cuenta que lo mejor es quedarse en Sorrento y visitar la costa en barco, bien taxi-barco que va y viene o en barco con varias personas, donde pasas varias horas, te paran en lugares estratégicos para nadar, comes y además visitas los puntos importantes de esta costa. Aquí hemos venido básicamente a descansar, que yo llevo un año haciendo y deshaciendo cajas y ya vale.

1. And so we arrived in Sorrento following the advice of some good friends. Our idea first was to sleep in Amalfi, but the truth is that after changing our minds and driving along these roads, we realised that the best thing to do is stay in Sorrento and visit the coast by boat. There are taxi-boats that come and go to any point or just a boat you hire for several hours, they stop you in strategic places where you can swim, you have lunch there and visit the most important areas of this gorgeous coast. We went to the Amalfi coast basically to rest, I have been packing and unpacking boxes for a year now and it´s enough.

1. Sorrento is a stunning coastal city. It is not the most popular city along the coast, well specially having Positano quite close and after watching the film "Under tuscan sun", but let´s say there are plenty of things to do in Sorrento that will blow you away.

1. If I had to find a word to describe Sorrento, I would have to say "cheerful" besides words that come to my mind like alive and beautiful. Besides its wonderful views. Sorrento is a town of plunging cliffs that cut through the heart of the historical core.

1. Piazza Tasso in the centre is the main square of the city. Most likely, one passes several times through that large open space full of restaurants, cafés with terraces and many pastel-coloured buildings. Always full of energy.

1. I didn´t think I would like Sorrento as much as I did, but I fell in love. It is such an underrated coastal city that offers so much. The beautiful beaches, stunning views, old streets and of course, delicious food.

1. Our base camp for a week was Sorrento and from there, we visited the coast in different days and with different routes, but I´m not going to talk about that now, I´ll leave it for another post, I want to focus now in Sorrento, which is located in the septentrional coast of the Sorrentine Peninsula, which is a very important location because it has views of Naples and Vesuvius.

1. Sorrento derives its name from the Sirens, the mythical creatures who enchanted and seduced sailors with their beautiful voices but ultimately led them to their untimely deaths.
2. Sorrento´s prosperity started in the imperial period, when Capreae was the Augusto´s and Tiberio´s favorite residence. The most important temples of Sorrento were those of Athena and of the Sirens, the latter the only one in the Greek world in historic times. Sorrento was famous for its wine, its fish and its red Campanian vases.

1. Sorrento is full of pedestrian-only alleys and walkways with something new around every corner. The cobblestone streets and colorful buildings are as pretty as a postcard and you can easily get lost in them, actually that´s what I did and you can see that in the main streets are full of art galleries, boutiques, souvenir shops, restaurants and more.

1. Another subject, beaches in Sorrento, ok this is an important matter to mention. If you imagine your beach day in Sorrento, walking a wonderful sandy beach, you may be disapointed. First of all, to go to the beach in Sorrento you need to take a lift, yes, a lift but remember, that when you want to come back in the afternoon probably at a rush hour you may have to queue to take back again.

1. Beaches in Sorrento are small and quite crowded, loaded really!. Well, in my mind I wasn´t going to go to the beach at all so that wasn´t a problem.

1. One day at night, we went to the Opera, well it wasn´t the full opera but different arias from different operas known worldwide, Opera e Lirica presents famous italian opera arias from Tosca, La Traviata and L´Elisir d´amore and the ost beautiful Neapolitan songs, like "O´sole mio", "Torna a Sorrento" and many others also known. A small concert inspired by the "Three Tenors" concert by Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras in the Caracalla Baths in Rome in 1990. For us it was a pleasure to be that night in the gardens of the Museo de Correale de Terranova in the heart of Sorrento.

1. As I had mentioned before, Sorrento is packed with all kinds of shops that are just waiting to be explored. I couldn´t leave the post without mentioning that when you start looking in shops you will be surprised at how many different lemon-scented, flavored and themed items are for sale. In the shops you can find lemon anything: candles, candies, beverages, limoncello, table clothes, ceramic lemons and the list goes on and on.