Sorrento/San Agnello

San Agnello is the second to last stop on the Circumvesuviana from Naples to Sorrento. It's a quiet, peaceful little town about five minutes by train, or a leisurely 25 minute walk from Sorrento.

We were very excited to have found the place we were staying. They are little cottages with kitchens set in lemon and orange groves (some trees had lemons and oranges on the same tree! see below). Seemed like the perfect place to relax.

You know what else thought the same thing? About 300 birds in the morning! One bird clearly believed in the "early to bed, early to rise" motto. Probably the same one that came up with "the early bird gets the worm" motivational speech. I wonder if he has ever heard the saying "tastes like chicken", because at 5 a.m. the only thing we had to throw at him was a frying pan. After a few mornings though, we started to change our tune, just like our mockingbird friend did every 15 seconds. We started to learn his random song list. We started asking each other "Have you heard this one?" followed by us whistling the tune and laughing hysterically. We started getting LSS, which is Last Song Syndrome, when you just can't get that last song you heard out of your head. We started whistling the tunes in the afternoon, the evening, and were getting excited with the thought of waking up to some new catchy tunes!

We had three favorites: one was just a nice melody, something that Bono from U2 could throw some lyrics over and have another hit. One was the classic play ground taunting call "NA na NA na NA na!". You have to whistle it. Go on, we'll wait. That was fun, wasn't it? It was absolutely hilarious when he threw that one out. The craziest one was a combination of a cat's growl and screech. The bird sounded like a mountain lion, can't imagine a regular cat's reaction when that one was thrown back in it's face!

Our first day we walk into Sorrento. The first thing that we bumped into was a street market outside our resort that had everything you could ever need. What a nice change from a mall and a supermarket.

Once we arrived into Sorrento, you could feel the energy of this little port town in the air. The streets are lined with shops selling all kinds of treasures and edibles, where locals and tourists alike go about their days.

One of the things that the Sorrento peninsula is known for are the huge lemons grown here - some are the size of a football. They are used in many recipes, as decorations, and for the Limoncello liqueur that the region is famous for.

One store that we stopped in had many interesting art pieces including cameos carved from seashells that this area of Italy is known for. The young guy behind the counter was very passionate about being from this part of the country, and very proud to be Italian (we'll let you know when we find someone who is not, I guess that would be easier than repeating it for every Italian we met!). He asked where we were from, and what made us visit the area. Steve told him that he was Italian, and we had a friend for life.

We told him that we had looked up our last name "Giobbi" through Ellisisland.org and found a few Giobbis from Norcia, which is northeast of Rome. Needless to say, he was very excited to have a knowledge of the area, and tried to explain to us that the area is famous for a certain type of meat sandwich, and the special way it is prepared. Now that we were all drooling, he jumped on the internet and started looking up phone numbers for anybody in Norcia with the last name Giobbi. Once he found one, he started dialing!

The conversation that followed was beyond entertaining to listen to, even if we could only understand a few words. The Giobbi family that he spoke with knew of no previous relatives that immigrated to the United States. They did know of one other Giobbi family in the area, but all they knew of them was that they were very old people and did not have a phone. Although we did not discover long lost relatives, it was great to have found the surname was still in the Old Country and sparked an interest to do more research. Who knows, we just might trace the family tree back and find a connection. And they may live in a castle, with a spare room for us on our next visit!

Next, we wandered down to the port where we could take the ferries to the Amalfi Coast and the Island of Capri later in the week.

A few other interesting items from visits to Sorrento:

Small world - while waiting for a pizza, the guy in the shop asked where we were from. He told us the guy making pizza had lived in the U.S. for a few years, but knew no English. He asked the pizza maker where, and he said, ...."Portland, Maine" with a very heavy accent. Steve is originally from Portland, Maine! He worked in a pizza place called "Pizzeria Italia". Even though we could not communicate through words, we knew we had another new friend since the pizza he made us would not even fit in the box! He had to cut a third of it and fold it over calzone style. He was all smiles as Becky knocked on the window and yelled "Grazie! Arrivederci!"

We made dinner in our cottage, which was a nice break from eating out every meal. Another one of the things this area is famous for are the San Marzano tomatoes, which are very sweet and make a great pomadoro sauce. They claim that everything that is grown in the very fertile soil around Mount Vesuvius is extremely different than anything you have had before, and they are right. In keeping with trying local favorites, we tried the carbonated red wine that was very good, and at about $2 a bottle very dangerous.

Not far from where we stayed was a sunset lookout point, one of the most dramatic you could ever imagine. Directly north, looking across the bay of Naples, are the sparkling lights from the the city of Naples (Napoli as the Italians call it). To the east, the ever present volcano Mount Vesuvius reminds all to live every day to the fullest. To the south is basically you, holding your glass of wine, and a small mountain range dotted with homes and a few 500 year old churches. To the west, the Sorrento Peninsula reaches out enclosing the bay of Naples. At the tip, you can see the Island of Capri jetting out of the Mediterranean sea as the sun sets behind it. If ever was a time for "you just have to see it, words can not describe it", this is it.

One one of the cliffs beside this point, there is an old mansion that has fallen into disrepair - it could be the most beautiful home you have ever seen. We asked a local what the story is with it. He told us that the rumor is that a powerful member of the Russian mafia had purchased it for millions of dollars and would begin renovations this summer on it.