Hiking into the Hills above Sorrento

On New Years Day (buon anno!), we knew that most activities would be closed, so we decided to go hiking into the high tufa hills surrounding Sorrento.

Many of the grand old hotels are just outside Sorrento, at the top of this hillside shown in the photo at left.

Walking up this road led past many lovely sights, including little waterfalls and shrines scattered throughout the hills. There were also lovely views of palms, flowers, olive groves, lemon and orange groves, and the ever-present Vesuvius.

I was very surprised (ignorant) that there would be lemons and oranges in full fruit throughout the area. It seemed almost every house had fruit trees or olive trees in their yard. Many of the larger groves were covered in protective netting; according to Tom (who had heard about this), the netting is used to protect the fruit from salt in the wintertime.
The higher we went, the more spectacular the views became. We decided to shoot for St. Agata, which the road signs indicated was about 5K away. After walking about 5K, we saw another road sign that told us that St. Agata was only 5K more away. So we decided not to walk to St. Agata, but to go instead into the little hamlet of Priano.

The main feature of this wide spot in the road was a very pretty church (bell tower, above right), and directly across the street, one of the ubiquitous shrines that seemed to pop up wherever you looked closely.

The most amusing episode of our trip happened by this little church and shrine. A small group (four or five) barely-teenaged guys were hanging out, obviously bored and with nothing to do, so they decided to have a little fun with the tourists.

As we were walking back down the road, we heard the roar of their little scooter and their 3-wheeled motor cart. As they approached us, they started shouting and throwing fire crackers at us. I don't think they were trying to hurt us--they weren't aiming at our faces, just making a lot of noise. When we reached the junction where the little side road met the main road, I assumed that would be the end of the excitement.

Wrong! They followed us out onto the main road, with buses and speeding cars, to throw a few more fire crackers at us. At this point, it was beginning to get a little stale. Then, we heard them revving up for ONE MORE PASS. As we steeled ourselves (and plugged our ears) for another toss, we were surprised not by fire crackers, but by olive branches being tossed in front of us!

I ASSUME that olive brances have the same meaning in Italy they do here! I like to think so, at least. What a strange little encounter. Very different from the kids on the train who kept wanting to test their English on us. (By the way, the first time I went to Europe 20 years ago and mentioned Chicago, the response was invariably "Al Capone?" and pointed fingers; a few years ago it was "Michael Jordan!" This year, the local kids responded with "The Movie! Jazz!")

The rest of the walk down the mountain was uneventful, except for the lovely views. From bougainvillea in bloom, to the sunset views, the walk was breathless (in many ways!), especially when the light was just hitting the tip of Vesuvius.
As we neared Sorrento, twilight began to cast a lovely blue glow over the city. It was a wonderful way to spend New Years Day 2004.

Pompeii Afternoon