SORRENTO DIARIES: PART 3

I'm having a lazy old rest day today. My legs ache and I'm not inclined to leave the blissful silence of my flat.

I ran a bath, found some classical music and sank into the deep, hot water.

I closed my eyes. 

Then, as though timed deliberately to annoy me, Reading Festival started. Some miles away, carried on the wind like the sound of a loud car stereo, the crunching guitars and echoing feedback swept across the valley. It's been going ever since. Thud, thud, boop bop, crunch, woot, thud, thud. Someone shouts something indiscernible into a microphone, there's a roar like the sea and then off it goes again. I'm going away for this weekend next year.

Speaking of holidays, it's a good opportunity to catch up with 2013-me, who, last time was complaining about being on his own in Sorrento, despite a nice hotel with excellent views and jolly good wine. Did he cheer up? Did he stop whining? Did he get kidnapped by the mafia? What happened next?

--

September 7th, 2013

I'm feeling a little brighter today. It's 12:35 and the sun is bright and round over the terrace. There's a typical Italian haze over the horizon. The rich blue sea fades into the hot azzuro sky, where a row of distant cumulus clouds hang perfectly over the bay. Even Vesuvius is lost in the haze.

"Una limonata!" I said to the bronzed man in a white t-shirt behind the bar. The pool reflected in his cool-looking sunglasses.

"Lemonade," he replied, translating for no-one's benefit.

It's always struck me how hopeless it is to study a language when the whole world speaks English - except those places where nobody does, and the language of which we were never taught at school. It was all about French in those days. Every last one of us was instructed in the language of our old foes until we were sixteen. I got an A. It's been of no use to me.

I got an A in Italian as well. I had hoped that a hotel in Italy would be a great opportunity to try it out. It turns out that the lingua franca here though, is English. And even the staff prefer it.

Swimming looks quite boring. I can't swim. All people in this pool seem to do is wander in at the shallow end, swim to the deep end, rest their arms on the edge and then swim back. Old ladies it seems, whether German, French, British or from Venus, do the breast stroke without getting their hair wet. There was even a lady earlier who did lengths with a neatly coiffured bob and a pair of spectacles.

There are a few older people here. The men are bald and copper-coloured, the women neatly tanned. There are younger people too - flip-flop wearing, bronzed and beautiful with spiky hair and gym-toned figures. Everyone is here with someone, it seems.

Then there's me: sitting on a deck chair, observing and writing in an A5-size red notebook, wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a baseball cap, alone and odd. Ha! It matters not. If anyone asked me, I'd be grateful for the conversation, more than anything. Even if it had to be in English.

-

I thought I'd get the free shuttle bus down to Sorrento today. So, late afternoon, I did. A whole bunch of Germans were on their way to the airport. They chatted among themselves about, well, who knows what; I heard the words 'swimming pool' and 'weekend' so I guessed they were congratulating each other on what a lovely time they'd had.

They carried on as the bus scraped its way down the steep hill. Sorrento is built on the slopes of volcanic rock that plummet down to the sea. Further along the bay, the hotels tip at the edge of what looks like a hundred feet of sheer drop into the Mediterranean. Ours, the Gran Paradiso, is at the top of a steep incline with a single track road that twists and winds down in a very Italian way, all the way to the Via Corso Italia, which is about right. The departing Germans took a collective breath as the shuttle bus flew round the tight, narrow corners.

I got off where they got off and wandered into the little suburb of Sant Agnello. I should have stayed on the bus I think. After a pleasant stroll through the warm and shady streets, I headed back to the station where I believed the bus would pick up its passengers. I was in the wrong place. I had to walk back up that winding, olive-tree lined Italian hill to get back. Not that that wasn't an adventure. I suspect walking most places in Italy is a bit of an adventure - I remember this from last time.

I was thinking about last time quite a lot today. Perhaps it was the taste of lemon ice cream which rushed back to me outside a gelateria. That had been my favourite thing in Perugia; I was seventeen and studying Italian at the Universita Per Stranieri. I didn't eat a lot, but I did eat a lot of gelati limoni.

By the way, the food is spectacular here. That is one thing to be said for the Gran Paradiso; I've only ever had food this succulent and tasty at posh people's weddings. The portions are small and delicate but honestly, it is cooked to perfection. It certainly beats the canteen at the Universita in Perugia anyway. As I recall, they served pasta and watermelons.

I was different then - impossibly young and unaware of the world. I'd not been to uni, never lived in a stranger's house and had no experience of a foreign country. The only people I knew were two girls from my school who were staying on the other side of Perugia and were more interested in kissing Italian boys than going to lectures with me.

I was forced to immerse myself in the culture. I bought stamps, bus tickets, train tickets, burgers and postcards. I went to Florence and I found my way to Pisa somehow. I had a lot of confidence.

I'm twice as old now, and somehow only half as confident. I found myself wanting to stop people in the street today, just for a conversation. "Excuse me," I imagined myself saying in flowing Italian, "Could you tell me the way to Piazzo Tasso? By the way, do you have any thoughts on the European Union?"

I didn't though. I imagined Italians telling me to find the Piazzo Tasso myself, in magnificently structured vernacular English.