Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the other of their shoulders, gazing adoringly up at their faces. They didn't seem to mind at all.
We travelled out of the slums of Naples and through the slums of the suburbs and onwards into a
slummy strip of countryside between Vesuvius and the sea, stopping every few hundred feet at some
suburban station where 100 people would get off and 120 would get on. Even Pompeii and Herculaneum,
or Ercolano as they call it nowadays, looked shabby, all washing lines and piles of crumbled concrete, and I
could see no sign of the ruins from the train. But a few miles further on we climbed higher up a mountainside
and into a succession of tunnels. The air was suddenly cool and the villages - sometimes no more than a
few houses and a church in a gap between tunnels - were stunningly pretty with long views down to the blue
sea.
I fell in love with Sorrento in an instant. Perhaps it was the time of day, the weather, the sense of relief at
being out of Naples, but it seemed perfect: a compact town tumbling down from the station to the Bay of
Naples. At its heart was a small, busy square called the Piazza Tasso, lined with outdoor caf￩s. Leading off
the square at one end was a network of echoing alleyways, cool and shadowy and richly aromatic, full of
shopkeepers gossiping in doorways and children playing and the general tumult of Italian life. For the rest,
the town appeared to consist of a dozen or so wandering streets lined with agreeable shops and
restaurants and small, pleasant, old-fashioned hotels hidden away behind heavy foliage. It was lovely,
perfect. I wanted to live here, starting now.
I got a room in the Hotel Eden, a medium-sized 1950s establishment on a side street, expensive but
spotless, with a glimpse of sea above the rooftops and through the trees, and paced the room manically for
five minutes, congratulating myself on my good fortune, before abruptly switching off the lights and returning
to the streets. I had a look around, explored the maze of alleyways off the Piazza Tasso and gazed
admiringly in the neat and well-stocked shop windows along the Corso Italia, then repaired to an outdoor
seat at Tonino's Snack Bar on the square, where I ordered a Coke and watched the passing scene,
radiating contentment.
The town was full of middle-aged English tourists having an off-season holiday (i.e. one they could
afford). Wisps of conversation floated to me across the tables and from couples passing on the sidewalk. It
was always the same. The wife would be in noise-making mode, that incessant, pointless, mildly fretful
chatter that overtakes Englishwomen in mid-life. 'I was going to get tights today and I forgot. I asked you to
remind me, Gerald. These ones have a ladder in them from here to Amalfi. I suppose I
can
get tights here. I
haven't a clue what size to ask for. I knew I should have packed an extra pair ...' Gerald was never listening
to any of this, of course, because he was secretly ogling a braless beauty leaning languorously against a
lamppost and trading quips with some local yobbos on Vespas, and appeared to be aware of his wife only
as a mild, chronic irritant on the fringe of his existence. Everywhere I went in Sorrento I kept seeing these
English couples, the wife looking critically at everything, as if she was working undercover for the Ministry of
Sanitation, the husband dragging along behind her, worn and defeated.
I had dinner at a restaurant just off the square. It was packed, but super-friendly and efficient and the
food was generous and superb - ravioli in cream, a heap of scallopine alla Sorrentino, a large but simple
salad and an over-ample bowl of home-made ice-cream that had tears of pleasure welling in my eye
sockets.
Afterwards, as I sat bloated with a coffee and a cigarette, resting my stomach on the tabletop, an
interesting thing happened. A party of eight people came in, looking rich and self-important and distinctly
shady, the women in furs, the men in cashmere coats and sunglasses, and within a minute a brouhaha had
erupted, sufficiently noisy to make the restaurant fall silent as everyone, customers and waiters alike, looked
over.
Apparently the new arrivals had a reservation, but their table wasn't ready - there wasn't an empty table
in the place - and they were engaged in various degrees in making a stink about it. The manager, wringing
his hands, soaked up the abuse and had all his waiters dashing around like scene shifters, with chairs and
tablecloths and vases of flowers, trying to assemble a makeshift table for eight in an already crowded room.
The only person not actively involved in this was the head of the party, a man who looked uncannily like
Adolfo Celli and stood aloof, a ﾣ500 coat draped over his shoulders. He said nothing except to make a
couple of whispered observations into the ear of a pock-faced henchman, which I assumed involved
