SORRENTO, 26 June 2003 — Late afternoon in the music room of the Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento. The sound of leather soles on the hotel’s marble floors occasionally breaks the heavy silence. All afternoons must be like this here, I think as I gaze out across the terrace. Beyond, the bay of Naples and the city are framed by the marble busts on the balustrade, balancing precariously in the light breeze.
Regal, it most certainly is. Which, presumably, is what over the past century or so has attracted the great, the good and Ronald Reagan to this little corner of Sorrento. The sepia pictures in the lobby attest to this, recording the visits, among others, of Gustav of Sweden, Fernando of Bulgaria, and our own Princess Margaret.
Enrico Caruso is also included in the photo call, the camera capturing the legendary tenor’s visit of 1921, shortly before his death. As royalty goes, he’s up there with the best from a local point of view, and certainly held in higher esteem than the Savoys, the remnants of the Italian royal family banished after the second world war. Vittorio Emmanuelle, his wife and son had flown in to Naples on the same morning as our arrival, only to receive a less than friendly welcome from certain elements of the local population.
We’d left the noisy protests and heavy police presence far behind and headed out of town and along the coast road that links the pockets of humanity dotted along the Costa Amalfitana.
So here I am in Sorrento. In the music room of the Excelsior Vittoria. While I sit all smugness itself, she busies herself leafing through the leather-bound visitors’ books that have found a home on the antique table opposite. I’m just wrestling with the shell of another pistachio nut when a sharp cackle breaks my concentration. “Listen to this,” she cries. “’Wonderful hotel, great views. Pity Vesuvius didn’t erupt.”’ Of course, I’m not one for naming names, but suffice to say, Mr and Mrs X of Rhode Island, we know who you are. As holiday reflections go, this is more Rumsfeld than Rough Guide, an apocalyptic vision that became all too real for the poor souls of Pompeii and Herculaneum some 2,000 years before. As a constant reminder of the ensuing carnage, the brooding presence of the volcano puts any latter-day shows of machismo firmly in the shade. But this seems worlds away from the tranquility that currently reigns.
The onset of evening sees us make our way out of the hotel and down the path flanked by orange and lemon trees and into the bustle of Piazza Tasso. The statue of Sant’ Antonio Abate, encircled only hours before by a succession of tourist buses, stands contemplating the square that is now ringed by restaurants servicing the northern Europeans that are drawn to Sorrento in their thousands at this time of year. We head south into the old town, in search of a quiet meal. The area is a maze of shops offering both fresh and ceramic lemons of all shapes and sizes, attesting to the region’s abundance of citrus fruit.
There are always the hundreds of varieties of tea towels, invariably adorned with lemons, invariably destined to inhabit the bottom drawer of whoever back home is unlucky enough to receive one in lieu of a postcard.
We investigate a succession of restaurants, their menus stuffed full of Italian clichés that reflect more of their author’s views of how the British see Italian cuisine rather than the indisputable grace and simplicity of the indigenous dishes. Forty-five minutes later we’re back in Piazza Tasso, looking up at Sant’ Antonio for inspiration. He looks at us, we look at him, but after several minutes we come to the altogether less miraculous conclusion that we should just head off in the opposite direction. We turn left at the Excelsior and down Via Correale where, 100 meters later, we come across the Osteria Gatto Nero, the Black Cat. No mandolin players here, or rows of low-hung bottle fiascos waiting to thud into the head of those not quick enough to evade their pendulum swing from the ceiling. No, aside from the contemporary fixtures and fittings, the Black Cat possesses that one element that in this country usually guarantees a good meal — it’s full of Italians.
Of course, there is a handful of foreign interlopers, myself and my partner to name but two. We open, respectively, with a plate of tubettoni, mussels and fagioli beans, the fresh yellow rounds of pasta giving way to a milky centre of ricotta. Very nice, too. Veal is the choice of both of us for the main course: mine, thinly beaten slices, her’s a cotoletta milanese whose crisp batter and succulent center would put many chefs up north to shame. There is still room to spare, thanks to our recent hike, so the cheese is summoned; the selection includes pecorino sardo, strong, salty brigante, and pale yellow auricchio.
The next morning as blinds reveal bright sunshine and a few white tops upon which the ferry to Capri is bobbing up and down in the harbor below our terrace. It’s already 10.30am, so settling for a coffee and pastry from the morning buffet, it is time to make our way to the car park, past the lines of Audi and Mercedes coupes, and Alfa Romeos, and, taking one last glance to ensure nobody is watching, fire up the Nissan Micra.
The coast road south out of Sorrento leads on to some of the other glittering cast of the Costa Amalfitana: Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. The swell of the waves visible from my partner’s position in the passenger seat reflects the delicate state of our stomachs as the tiny hatchback negotiates the seemingly never-ending succession of bends that slow our progress. By half an hour after midday, we’re still several kilometers from Positano, but the dome of Santa Maria dell’ Assunta and the town’s pastel-colored houses, framed by the mountains and rising steeply away from the sea, are visible in the distance. Then, around 1pm, we’re descending the narrow streets and in to the welcoming embrace of one of the numerous parking consortiums that do brisk business finding a temporary home for your four wheels.
We head on foot down yet more narrow streets, past yet more limoncello and tea-towel emporia from which emanates the essence of citrus-scented candles. Finally, we’re standing on the beach. Time for lunch, we both agree, and turn 180 degrees and in to the welcoming embrace of Le Tre Sorelle. The restaurant, complete with a huge black-and-white photograph of the three sisters in question, all smiles as they feed the pigeons in post-war Milan, does the job of supplying pizza to road-weary tourists extremely well.
Back on the beach, we gaze out in to the Tyrrhenian, then look right and up to the coast road on which we arrived, and left towards Positano’s bigger cousin, Amalfi. It looks invitingly close, but then so did Positano three hours earlier. We settle on a snooze before heading back towards Sorrento. If we time it right, we should be back in the music room of the Excelsior for an evening glass of pinot grigio.
