For our second day in Italy, first whole day, we decided to explore our home base town of Sorrento.
The day started with a pretty great complimentary continental breakfast at our
hotel.
Breakfast is held on their 3rd floor indoor/outdoor patio overlooking the main street Corso Italia below. Just below is one of the main areas for parking scooters. There is very limited parking allowed on the street, so everyone would try to jam their scooter into a spot. We would see people moving others scooters over just to get theirs in. It was quite the sight.
Quick.....view from our hotel room balcony that overlooked Via San Cesareo. It was less of a street and more of a glorified alley. There were shops on both sides, but very little automotive traffic was allowed. It was mostly pedestrian. We would hear the trucks only pull in early in the morning for deliveries, and then the rest of the day it was a scooter here or there that could even fit in between the foot traffic.
We took off exploring shortly after breakfast, thru the Piazza Tasso where we had dinner the night before and headed toward Marina Piccola. The actual city, hotels and everything is up on a hill/cliff. So getting down to the seaside, ports or beach requires climbing up/down one of the cliff side stairs or you could take a winding road there. We opted to go down the stairs directly at the Piazza Tasso, down Via Luigi De Maio. Very beautiful views!
We made a friend on the way!
Walked around the Marina a bit checking out the various styles of boats from fishing boats to luxurious yachts and sailboats. And also checking out the amazing views of the Bay of Naples and Mt. Vesuvius across the bay.
Before we knew it, it was lunch time. We opted for a sea side restaurant on the pier. Florin had a carpaccio pizza and I had a great tomato pasta with fresh greens on top. Yummy!!!
After lunch we walked back up a different set of steps/stairs to the hotel. Changed into our bathing suits and walked back down to the beach for our first swim in the Thyrrhenian Sea (off shoot of the Mediterranean Sea). It was salty, but overall not bad. It helped keep you afloat making it easier to swim. I loved it!!
After a while swimming, the sun starting to give us shadows, we dried off, walked back up the stairs, took more pictures and headed to the hotel to shower and change for dinner.
As most nights, we had no specific plans for dinner other than to walk around, check out menus and randomly pick restaurants. On our first night we were walking down some random street and saw an entrance to a garden up a small set of stairs just beyond the street. It had a menu posted by the stairs, so we checked it out, went up and got a table. The restaurant is called "
The Garden" and has little intimate candlelit tables set up throughout this beautiful little garden, and stringed lights set up in areas for ambiance. There were also smaller tents/ cabana type settings for larger parties.
Florin ordered an assortment of local seafood grilled and I had a salmon gnocche. Sadly, this was my least favorite dish I had. I couldn't finish it. The salmon tasted liked it was canned (since it was broken up into small pieces, it probably was) and the sauce was just too rich. On the other hand, it was one of the best dishes Florin had ordered. I had a few bites and had to agree. For dessert we wanted tiramisu, but they were out, and opted for a Napolitean, similar to the night before, a pastry soaked in a syrup with fresh whipped cream and fruit. We split it and loved it.
And on our walk back to the hotel we ran across a church that was open for an art showing. Just a quick pic of the inside.
We usually ended the night by walking off our heavy dinner. The city would become alive at night with everyone out enjoying the warm weather and evening breezes off the sea. We joined in and pretended to be locals. This night we ran into a local vintage outdoor market. I saw this tea set and thought of my
sis Lyg. Had to take a pic!
It was an earlier night than normal, tired from the time change and knowing we would have a full day ahead of us the next morning.
