Off to Sorrento and back to the sea

Where the driving reaches new heights of lunacy and the moped is king .....

This morning the bells announced the start of another day.....it being a Sunday they gave it extra wellie and the whole room.... we weren’t far from the bell tower.... reverberated with the manic clanging. I’m not sure if there was meant to be a pattern or even a regular rhythm, if there was then someone in the bell ringing crew had had a heavy night and was definately out of kilter with his mates.

Unable to stand the tuneless ding donging any longer we repaired to breakfast..... yes we took the rucksack....... relieved the hotel of the ingredients for some lunch and then returned to the room...... (the bell ringers had gone to the pub by now).....and packed our bloody cases again!!!!! I am clearly not cut out for short stays..... and even Dear Richard is losing his patience with taking stuff out and putting it back.

I’ve given up attempting to keep things crease free, trying to get hold of an iron is like locating rocking horse poo, so now I am sporting a selection of clothes which wouldn’t look out of place on one of the beggars we saw in Rome....

Eventually we managed to squeeze everything into the bags.... I’m a trifle concerned at how full they are as we’ve both got at least two coats in the back of the car and Dear Richard is carrying a several pairs of my shoes in his rucksack already!!! We loaded up the Corsa, programmed Sally, and set off for Sorrento. I had volunteered to drive and Sally was predicting a journey of only about forty minutes, the sun was shining..... what could go wrong???? I‘ll tell you what could go wrong dear readers.... Sunday on the Amalfi coast is what could go wrong.... the Italian tradition of popping down to a restaurant for a family Sunday lunch caused a forty minute journey to become a marathon of almost two hours!!!! We had opted for the coast road.... big mistake.... it’s narrow and in places very steep with hairpin bends which were designed for horses and carts and tiny Fiat 500s not bloody great coaches and 4x4s!! The view...... and we had plenty of time to take it in......was stunning in places, but no view, no matter how amazing, could break the tedium of creeping along at a snails pace.I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I got into third gear....and that’s another thing.... being used to driving an automatic my leg was aching with using the clutch.... luckily I could still remember how to do a hill start , there were moments when failure would have meant a multiple pile up in reverse.... all the way back to Pompeii!!!

To alleviate the tedium we looked up how many people are killed in accidents on the Amalfi coast road...amazingly enough, the answer to that is not very many.... one witty chap wrote that “one was more likely to die of boredom than in an accident” .... now he tells us.....that said ,the number of times we held our breath as a car overtook not just us, but a whole line of traffic on a blind bend or in one case when we thought someone’s number was definately up , just before the entrance to a tunnel!!!!.... was staggering.... not only that but they had the whole family, from elderly Nona, to tiny baby and an assortment of children of ages in between on board to boot. And then there were the mopeds.... oh if only we had heeded the warning..... because they were clearly there just to warm us up for what was to come when we reached Sorrento.... but more of that later!! Finally.... finally.... when I thought that either the Corsa or its driver would overheat and expire on the road... we reached Sorrento.... remember the mopeds.... well, if we thought that there were a lot on the way here, that was small beans compared to what greeted us as we drove through the streets looking for our accommodation!!! They came at us from every side, ridden by young and old, singly or with the whole family clinging on for dear life, seemingly passing ones moped driving test is dependant on liberal use of the hooter and a total disregard for personal safety or the the rules of the road!!! By the time we found our accommodation we were both on the verge of a nervous breakdown.....

Of course we approached it with our now customary apprehension , but it looked ok and so we drove in through the ( bloody narrow.... what’s wrong with these people..... good job we only had a Corsa)..... gates and parked up under a tree. Monika.... our hostess for three nights, was most apologetic as she informed us that our room wasn’t ready. No problem, she gave us directions into town , so we set off to find a drink..... which I was seriously in need of after completing stage 1of the Amalfi Coast rally

( albeit in slow motion).

The walk into Sorrento wasn’t the prettiest, but there were some nice hotels along the way which obviously had views out to sea, we chose a very posh looking establishment, wandered in and found a seat overlooking the bay.

And there we sat , taking in the beautiful views and giving our frazzled nerves the chance to re-group. Mind you when we got the bill for two coffees both of us almost fell off our chairs and I was scrabbling in my bag for a Valium!!!!! I guess we should have expected it, the surroundings were lovely and the service was amazing..... but when all is said and done it’s a couple of coffees for f**ks sake!!!

So, somewhat poorer, we returned to the apparthotel (trust me this was neither an apartment or a hotel.....)( also grammatically I think that should be “an” hotel) whoever thought up this particular concept really needs to think again!!!! Finding Monika to be a helpful lady we asked for an iron....( see previous comment regarding rocking horses ) and lo and behold one was produced.... just the iron, no ironing board.... as the apartment contained one small table which held a range of tea and coffee related items, there was nowhere to complete the long overdue task of de-crumpling our clothes. So off I went to find Monika and ask for the other piece of the set, an ironing board ..... it arrived with a little huffing and puffing and then it took her about five minutes to erect it, during which time I think she may have been saying bad Italian words under her breath, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt as a couple of times she almost lost a finger in the mechanism!!!!!

Ironing board erected..... possibly a mistake as it took up half the room!!! , we set about trying to find a plug for the iron..... it seems that there are two types of plug in Italy and the iron would only fit in the one which was located by the door. So I squeezed myself into a space about 10 inches wide and did a bit of ironing..... which came rather hard after quite a while of doing nothing on the domestic front (except wash my knickers!!)

Dear Richard inspected the small patio outside and found that a great many of the bastard biters, their friend, relations and general hangers on were lying in wait for us there..... cue manic spraying and closing of all doors and windows.... big respect to the person who invented air conditioning.... we would have died there and then from overheating without it. !!

Finally, domestic chores complete and covered in as much insect repelling spray as our lungs could take, we took ourselves off to find ;

a) a proper drink

b) a supermarket , for essentials like breakfast and more drink for later

c) another proper drink

d) some dinner, washed down with more drink.

Of course we hadn’t factored in the fact that it was Sunday so a lot of the shops seemed to be closed, including the supermarket, but we found milk and bread which we decided would do as by this time all I could think about was a large, cold Aperolspritz. Once I had had a drink I felt much better and so we had a bit of a wander round the town, during which time we discovered that the big shops opened in the evening. There were hoards of people also wandering, most of them slowly and aimlessly along...... honestly what is it with people when they meander..... why can’t they do it in a straight line????? I felt a bit like one of the drivers overtaking on a blind bend, as many times, whilst trying to overtake, the person in front would sidestep just as I got level with them sending me careering into the road and giving Dear Richard a heart attack in case I was taken out by a passing moped!!!!

We decided to have dinner in our tiny room that night as on the way home we found a large supermarket open and purchased some food which required no cooking, along with several bottles of wine.... I have to confess I would have been happy with just the wine!!!! We ate it whilst watching ”Gladiator” which was a big mistake as I cried for most of the film.... well, we had recently been to the Colosseum and so I could relate to the awfulness of that particular scenario.....plus Russel Crowe was certainly at his best as Maximus whatsis name and also I really felt for him when his family were killed....and I might have been a bit tipsy..... which didn’t help matters......

Anyway I fell asleep to the sound of traffic once again..... I think I may have neglected to tell you that our “apparthotel “ was situated next to a very busy road.... and dreamt of Russel Crowe driving a moped through the streets of Sorrento, trying to escape from a swarm of bastard biters !!!!