A November short break to Sorrento

My husband and I recently went on a short break to Sorrento in Italy. We chose Sorrento because it would be pretty warm and it was a nice escape from the general misery of November.

The temperature ranged between about 15 degrees and 18 degrees, which for me was mainly hoodie weather. I wore a light coat in the evenings and got down to my Tshirt briefly when the sun was shining and I was walking. The Italians were wearing winter coats, scarves and woolly hats. We had one rainy day. The temperature overnight remained remarkably stable at 15 or 16 degrees. It got dark very slightly later than the UK and light slightly earlier.

Having an empty nest has taken the shine off life for me. I must admit, I was partly nervous about going away. My daughter still isn’t completely settled at uni and I wasn’t sure about being so far away from her, even though it was only for five nights. Plus, we have nobody to look after Hetty, so she had to go to the kennels. It is a really lovely kennels, but I would still rather she didn’t have to go.

But I’m pleased to say that I stopped worrying once I was away! A big advantage of an empty nest and no longer being tied to school holidays for going away is the price of the holidays. Holidays, as we all know, are much cheaper outside the school holidays. Add that to the fact that there was only two of us rather than four or five and it really was very good value indeed!

We flew from Heathrow to Naples and booked through BA Holidays, which we do for nearly all our European breaks. BA Holidays are probably better value than you would imagine. It means you get to stay in a 4 star hotel for far less than the advertised rate, plus you get a luggage allowance included with your flight, so there are no hidden costs. It cost us just £800 for the two of us for flights and five nights. The only thing we didn’t have included was a transfer from the airport. Even the scheduled arrival time was too late for public transport, and we ended up arriving two hours later than scheduled. So we booked our own transfer (a spacious executive taxi) through Booking.com. It was £70, so not cheap, but fast, easy and reliable. The journey from the airport to our hotel in Sorrento was about an hour.

There are a lot of hotels in Sorrento. We stayed at the Grand Hotel Aminta, which is high on a hill above the town. We’d booked a cheaper, garden view room, but they upgraded us to a sea view room as the hotel was extremely quiet. I think the quality of the room was the same, but the view was better. The view from the hotel restaurant and the terrace outside is STUNNING.

 

The hotel provides a free hourly shuttle bus to the town for guests. We caught it a few times, but mainly we walked. The receptionist told us there was a ‘path’ opposite. It is a long and steep path, which includes some steps. It is two-thirds of a mile down the path to the very edge of the town, with 400ft of elevation over that short distance. The ‘path’ is also used by mopeds and even some small cars. My knowledge of the Italian language is non-existent, but I have French A Level and common sense. I think a sign at the bottom of the path was saying it is only open to vehicles from 24th November – the exact date we went to Sorrento – so it may be that it is usually very safe to use the path.

Needless to say, walking back up it is hard, but we did it every time! It is definitely not suitable for people with mobility problems or young children – either in buggies or walking themselves. It would be really tough in the heat of the summer too. We looked for the shuttle bus for the return once, but couldn’t quite work out where it went from.

Sorrento was very quiet in November. The only tourists seemed to be Americans. Some of the businesses, including some hotels, had closed for the winter, but at the others, we got particularly good service as they had so few customers. (Interestingly, someone I talk to on social media told me that Padstow in Cornwall, my absolute favourite holiday destination, was still buzzing in November!)

I was suprised to see trees still laden with oranges in November. And Sorrento has the best Christmas lights! My photos in no way do them any justice. There was also a wonderful Neptune in lights, which I suspect was a more permanent thing.

Eating out in Sorrento

When in Rome, do as the Romans do… It is almost impossible to find anything other than Italian food in Sorrento, which is fine if you can eat the entirety of a menu. It’s all pasta, pizza and seafood.  I’m vegetarian and my choices were very restricted. It was literally just pasta with tomato sauce or margherita pizza. For vegans, it would be even harder as they wouldn’t even be able to have the pizza!

But the service in all the restaurants and coffee shops we went to was excellent.

On our third day, we found Sorrento’s only Thai restaurant, The Orange Tree, which is on the outskirts of town in the opposite direction to our hotel. It was such a nice change from all that tomato. And on our last day we hit the jackpot. Frankie’s Pizza Bar serves Italian food, but is run by a British family and therefore has a much bigger range of vegetarian and vegan foods. Best of all, we discovered Ikura Japanese restaurant, which is very cool and has a huge range of dishes to choose from, including an all you can eat option with tiny portions of amazing food to try.

We popped to McDonald’s for lunch when we visited Pompeii (I will write about Pompeii separately) and they had no vegetarian/ vegan options. So I just ate a portion of fries and an ice cream. In the UK, the Veggie Deluxe was first introduced in McDonald’s in the mid-90s.

This was my third trip to Italy – after a disastrous visit to Lake Garda in 2010 and a short break in Rome in 2016. I probably won’t go to Italy again, just because the food is so bad for vegetarians (and it’s even worse for vegans).

Running in Sorrento

Of course we went running in Sorrento, like we go running on every holiday. It was a bit challenging! Not only did we have to contend with the hill to and from the hotel, but we also had to deal with pavements which were very narrow or non-existent and drivers and moped riders who go fast and don’t generally prioritise pedestrians. Usually when we run abroad, we try to find a park for at least some of the run, but there were no parks to run in in Sorrento. But we managed to squeeze out a four mile route, so that was a win.

Five nights in Sorrento was plenty out of season. Possibly, it was actually too much. Four nights would probably be ideal. All of the things recommended to do in Sorrento aren’t actually in Sorrento and many of them involve travelling for an hour or more – Pompeii, Vesuvius, a boat to Capri, a trip to the Amalfi coast etc etc.

But it was a lovely, relaxing pre-Christmas break for us.