Sorrento has many layers to its history. It was the home of Italic people, and then, during the golden age of ancient Greece, young Greek men were sent out to find their fortunes away from the populated Grecian islands. They ended up along the Amalfi coast and began families with the Italic people, and the Greek culture took hold. They brought grapes and olives. Eventually the Greeks were replaced by the Romans. Roman ruins are the next layer, and the Amalfi coast was used by Romans as a holiday location to get away from the heat of the city. Some things never change.
We learned all of this on a leisurely walking tour with our guide, Libby. The city has a walkway on top of the old medieval wall. We looked down on lemon groves. The trees are protected with netting, traditionally held up with poles made from chestnut wood grown just for this purpose. Modern day farms need to use iron instead, because the wood has grown expensive.
Villa Florentine is an old estate that was owned by a family who made a fortune selling lace trimmed handkerchiefs to tourists in the 19th century. They donated the estate and land to the city and it is used for children’s programs that teach about traditional agriculture and the city history.
In the cathedral, we saw another amazing pastori. Apparently there are ninety symbolic references in a full pastori– from bread and wine, to months of the year, to even prostitution. In the corner is a present day (for the time the pastori was made) shepherd, who sleeps and dreams the whole enterprise.
After our walk we bused outside the city to a family lemon farm where they prepared a delicious and leisurely lunch for us. We. had grilled vegetables, some cold cuts, mozzarella and ricotta. That was antipasti. Then we had homemade ravioli, and lemon cake for dessert. We also had a nice lesson in how to make lemoncello:
It doesn’t seem too hard, but finding the sweet Italian lemons will be tricky.
The lemon trees here are very generous and yield three crops a year, our host explained.
We took a siesta when we got back to town, and emerged to walk the streets, shop a bit, and finally eat dinner at Restaurante Fuoro. Of course the food was wonderful. We had a stuffed artichoke to start, two types of pasta and shared a dessert. One pasta was enthusiastically recommended by a couple at a nearby table; it was a lemon cream with shrimp blend, and really very good.
The moonrises have been show stoppers these past two evenings.
