#sorrento peninsula

[jojoseames]

Italian Adventure travelogue paintings!

56: Sorrento Peninsula, the Amalfi Coast, and Li Galli, as seen from the tippy-top of Monte Tiberio, on the Isle of Capri.

57: Villa Jovis, Monte Tiberio, Capri.

58: The Blue Grotto on the coast of Capri. The color of the water was truly astonishing!

59: The mighty Mediterranean. In my head I was just chanting, "The wine dark sea! The wine dark sea…!" over and over. 🤣

And that's it! That's the last of my Italy travelogue pieces! I filled up this entire mini sketchbook, and also that's the end of the trip!

[ffborges]

Sorrento | 2025.01

[peninsulaisms]

i miss her (1960s sorrento) (i was born in the 2000s)

[morningtonpeninsulanews]

The Hastings Club shut down due to ignored repair requests, board member Kevin Miles said. He criticized the council for inaction and highlighted a systemic disregard for the Western Port area.

[postcards-and-postcrossing]

Sorrento Peninsula

Postcard from Canada The peninsula is named after its main town, Sorrento,  on the north (Gulf of Naples) coast. The Amalfi Coast is located on the southern side. The Lattari Mountains form the geographical backbone of the peninsula. The island of Capri lies off the western tip of the peninsula in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Multi-View Monday

[preraphaelitepaintings]

The Women of Sorrento Drawing in the Boats

Artist: John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (English, 1829-1908)

Date: 1870's

Medium: Oil on panel

Collection: De Morgan Collection, London, United Kingdom

Description

This picture was presumably based on a scene that Spencer Stanhope had witnessed during a trip to Sorrento, situated on the North side of the Sorrentine Peninsula on the Gulf of Naples. This was, of course, far from his home outside Florence, and he is most likely to have gone there either on holiday or in search of a warmer climate during the winter months. In fact, given his susceptibility to asthma, this may well have been a regular habit.

Sorrento is situated in an area of great beauty and is, as the guidebook says, ‘an enchanting place at all seasons’. In the nineteenth century it was a favourite winter residence for foreigners. Ibsen finished Peer Gynt here in 1867 and here, some ten years later, Wagner and Neitzsche had their famous quarrel.

[lordmartiya]

Fun fact: if one looks up the poems and a map, they can find every single location of The Odyssey. That's literally how Schliemann, an amateur, found Troy in an era everyone was convinced it never existed: he read the Homeric description, looked on a map which place on the Anatolian west coast resembled it, and dug on Hisarlık hill, finding not one but MULTIPLE settlements one over the other.

And we can do the same for almost every other location:

Troy: Truva archeological site, Hisarlık, modern day Turkey.

Ismara, ally of Troy, sacked by Odysseus while the army was away on one last attempt to save the city and was now marching back after finding out it had already fallen because he didn't feel like paying for the food: near modern day Maroneia-Sapes, in Greek Thrace, or possibly the same place as ancient Maroneia in the same place (Odysseus met the founder of Maroneia at Ismara, after all).

Land of the Lotus Eaters: Syrtes Gulf, between modern day Tunisia and Libya, or Djerba, an island in modern day Tunisia right off the Syrtes coast.

Land of the Cyclops: Sicilyan coast, near Mount Etna (another place where you could find a different group of Cyclops being inside the vulcan, working in Ephaestus' forge). Remember this gorgeous island and Italy in general, we'll be back more than once - the giant boot of the Italian peninsula literally bars his way home after the mishap with the winds. But Achememeis, one of Odysseus' men, was too slow to run back to the ships and was left for dead. But don't worry, other voyagers will find him and save him after he survives the stroke at the identity of his saviours.

Aeolia, the floating island of the Wind God Aeolus: Apparently it's in the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. Guess he decided to stop there at some point...

Laestrygonia, the land of the giants: Gallura, in modern day Sardinia, inhabited in historic times by a Nuragic people called the Lestriconi. And now you know how they made such short work of a fleet of veterans from the Trojan War, it was Sardinians (if you are Italian or from Corsica, you get it. If you are French not from Corsica, until relatively recently Sardinians and Corsi were the same people, you know how hard it was to fully conquer the Island of Beauty. If you aren't any of the above, just know that Rome took over Corsica and Sardinia in 238 BC and Nuragic pirates still raided Pisa in 10 AD. Or that Napoleon was born and raised in Corsica, and it was the Sardinians to give him his only defeat in direct battle until Leipzig).

Eea, Circe's island: Circeo promontory in Italy, that possibly used to be an island in the Bronze Age. Alternatively the nearby island of Ponza.

Land of the Cymmerians: Phlegraean Fields near Naples, Italy.

Entrance to the Underworld: Lake Avernus (lit. HADES LAKE) in the Phlegraean Fields. Presumably it was the closest entrance, considering the Acheron is an actual river in Greece...

Nest of the Syrens, western flock (the Argonauts faced another flock in the Black Sea): shoals near Sorrento, just south of the Phlegraean Fields.

Scylla and Charybdis: The Strait of Messina with its monstrous tidal waves. To be precise, Scylla is the Calabrian part of the strait, traditionally right under the town of Scilla (named after the nymph turned monster), while Charybdis is on the Sicilian coast an arrow shot away from Scylla, right where you can STILL find a small whirpool. And with this, Odysseus got past Italy, and, most importantly, avoided the fleet of TROJAN REFUGEES currently sailing toward the sacred land of Enotria, also in Italy - they had instructions from a prophet, and after spooking Ithaca to reach their prophet in nearby Epyrus took the long way around Sicily, stopping once in Sicily to pick up Achememeis (told you he got a stroke at who saved him), then at Carthage, and finally at Lake Avernus. Never knowing that Odysseus killing the Syrens left their passage safe.

Trinacria, where the cattle of Helios grazed: it's literally another name of Sicily. To be precise they're in the north east coastal plains, just north of the Land of the Cyclops.

Ogygia, Calypso's island: remember when I said that ALMOST every place could be identified? Well this is the reason, we only know Ogygia was a paradisiac yet isolated place somewhere in the Western Mediterranean, so far away from Olympus that Hermes complained - and the paradisiac part can be thrown away as Calypso was a goddess and free to modify her home as she pleased. Ancient traditions claim it's Gozo, an island near Malta, while others claim it's Perejil, a small rocky islet in the middle of the Straits of Gibraltar contended by Morocco and Spain (my money is on Prerejil, if only because how far it is).

Scheria, the many-named island of the Phaeacians that rescued Odysseus from Poseidon's last storm and ferried him to Ithaca on a magic ship: Corfu AKA Korkyra, modern day Greece.

Ithaca: Ithaca, Greece.

If you are a fan of the myths or a Winion, now you know where everything happened.

[aexplore360]

Amalfi Coast, Italy

Stretching 30  long hauls along the southern side of the Sorrento Peninsula, the Amalfi Coast is prized for its  graphic  bank that features shimmering  kudos,  scraggy  escarpments, bomb tree  auditoriums ,  varicolored  estates and  snotty resorts.   

[beingpeople]

I will be leaving Italy’s Sorrento Peninsula now.

It is a place of majestic views.

[parthenopehasnograve]

Mount Vesuvius and Sorrento Peninsula, Naples. (by Emilio Aucelli)

[wtfuckevenknows]

Hi B 💗 I’d like to know what some of your fave things you did or ate or drank whilst you were down here in Aus please 👀 Also if you have a book recommendation too!

Listen, y’all need to cool it with the food asks because they always put me in an existential crisis and in this case YOU’RE MAKING ME WANT TO GET ON A FUCKING PLANE TO MELBOURNE AND I DONT EVEN LIKE MELBOURNE!!!! (But I’d get to visit you and @celeritas2997 so that’s a plus ❤️😘)

(Just kidding, but also not)

We’re starting with food and drink because obviously.

Melbourne has Lord of the fries and Lune Croissantarie and Yo-Chi and Green Cup.

I had the most amazing Lobster Ravioli (that I obviously don’t eat anymore) while living in Melbourne and I tried so many different types of fish I had never even heard of before.

Baked in Portsea has the bestest yummiest pastries and what not if you’re ever in the Mornington Peninsula. The things I’d give for their Hummus & Feta sandwich (in a very German multi seed bread roll). Also got this amazing Birthday cake!!!!

Sydney had yummy yummy Everything Bagel with Garlic Cream Cheese from Brooklyn Bros Bagel and the Peanut Butter Bar & Fishbowl.

There’s Cadbury Mini Eggs in Aus, and Chiobani and obviously TimTams although I find them too sweet these days. Had my first spider (not that good) and a very yummy spider (raspberry lemonade with vanilla ice cream). Schweppes Agrum!!!!!! I fell in love with these veggie things from Coles and whatever that thing on the right actually is (that I also wouldn’t eat anymore).

I did lots of awesome things in Oz with the limited time I had thanks to Corona but I swam with Dolphins in the ocean in Sorrento, I fell in love with my library in Sydney, I went to the amazing Cinderella exhibit at the Grounds of Alexandria, I biked down a mountain in Tassie with 50km/h, I took the ferry in Sydney a million times as one does, I’ve been on a 40 million dollar yacht (still the most surreal day of my life to this day 🥴)

AS FOR A BOOK REC:

Have you read A Good Girls Guide to Murder? The first one is the best one of the series (as it so often is but I do like the others too) and I hear they’re being made into a tv series I think?

[umichenginabroad]

Week 1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (+ a Ferry)

Ciao!

In the past week, I have used Italian trains, buses, taxis, a shuttle van, planes, and taken a ferry ride, so this blog post will be dedicated to transportation. 

To begin, I was supposed to fly from Chicago to Dublin, then Dublin to Naples, where CIS Abroad (the company hosting the program) provided transport shuttles to either the dorms or shared apartment accommodations in Sorrento. The initial long-haul flight wasn’t too bad, I read for the majority of the flight and was fed some half-decent food. 

Unfortunately, due to delays on the tarmac in Chicago, I missed my connecting flight in Dublin and had to figure out another way to Naples. I luckily discovered someone else also in my program in my same flight and we navigated Europe together. Since the next flight out to Naples wasn’t until the following evening, we decided to go instead to Rome and then brave the Italian train system to navigate to Naples. 

(Me and a fellow study abroad student taking a shuttle to our new terminal in Dublin)

To preface, figuring out the train system seemed to be one of the biggest learning curves people that I have talked to have encountered in the past, and as such it was something I was nervous about coming to Italy. Trains (and ferries, as it turns out) are frequently late and don’t align with posted schedules, tickets have to not only be bought but also validated at the station, and the platform numbers commonly change right before arrival. We were supposed to be briefed on how to handle it during our orientation the first day, however we were thrown straight in the deep end! We used one of the most common websites for booking high-speed trains, ItaliaRail, and managed to book a train from the Rome airport to the main Roman train station (surprisingly far from the airport), then one from Rome to Naples for a total cost of around 65 euros.

(Red passenger train with volcano in background)

Since the first train was a regional/local train, there were no assigned seats and thus we had to validate our tickets just before boarding through, however for the high speed cross-country train to Naples, since we had an assigned seat, we did not have to validate (something that stressed us out as you can face fines if you don’t properly validate tickets). Thankfully, everyone we talked to was very nice and helped us figure it out. 

Once in Naples, we shared a taxi to the airport with two other travelers we met along the way (5 euros each) and waited until a few others from the program landed and got the last transfer shuttle to Sorrento. Finally, after over 36 hours of traveling (almost 16 more than intended) we arrive with a leg up on the local transport compared to our peers.

Just earlier today, I took a bus with two other friends from Sorrento to Positano, another town along the Almalfi coast, for 10 euros. Getting the ticket was very easy, as the ticket booth at the bus station was clearly marked. The bus was about 30 minutes late, but that is to be expected for Italian buses. After around 45 minutes and many many curvy and windy roads, we got off at Positano and explored the town. On the way back, we bought ferry tickets for 19 euros (cheaper with cash than online) and waited in a long line to board. As with the bus, the ferry was quite late, but actually took less time to get back to Sorrento. I think the ferry is my new favorite form of transportation as I loved sitting on the top deck and watching the coastline go by. 

(view of Sorrentine peninsula from top deck of ferry)

Overall, I am quite proud of myself for figuring out how to get around on the fly, but I definitely took away some important lessons. First, be patient, both with yourself and the transportation. Everyone gets lost/confused sometimes and navigating a new country is daunting. Be willing to ask for help if you don’t know what to do! It’s better than facing fines or unknowingly breaking any transit laws. Additionally, some places only take cash, make sure to always carry some cash! Lastly, if you can, TAKE DRAMAMINE, especially for the buses. I am not one to get car/motion sick, but the switch backs and coastal curves are no joke and all three of us were very close to turning green by the time we got off the bus. 

This post is getting long, but I wanted to share some details of Italian public transportation as that was one of my biggest questions going into this program. 

See you next week!

Marika Ruppart

Mechanical Engineering

Engineering in Sorrento, Italy 

[thepercy6andtheradicalsabbatical]

Father’s Day Pianillo to Pompei

We awoke the next day and Matt and Becca attempted a quick local trail run but the trail quickly became overgrown and fizzled out. We salvaged the run by turning it into a loop on some tiny local roads. Then we went home and cleaned/packed. Matt had not realized we would be trying to leave on Sunday when originally booking the lodging and agreed with the airbnb host that “Sunday is difficult” for local travel after researching it a little (somehow Matt keeps sticking us in small towns on Sundays when everything shuts down) and realizing several busses he was counting on don’t run on Sundays only. However, he had pieced together a plan that started with taking the bus to Amalfi and then looking at ferry/bus options from there. We headed to pizzeria nando a few minutes before scheduled arrival and noted that there was already a couple waiting with large suitcases for the bus (which we think was the last for the next 4 hours). It arrived only a few minutes late and we noted it was already standing room only but were able to squeeze on. The driver continued to pack people on for a few more stops then started blowing by stops shaking his finger at people waiting and giving the palms up “we’re full, what do you want me to do about it” gesture. We then made our way down the same hairpin turns we’d come up the day before, again with the honking before barreling around tight turns. The bus driver was surprisingly good at monitoring bus space and if a few people got off would then stop at a few stops until we were full again. The more people waiting, the more likely he was to blow by the stop. We made it to Amalfi with no traffic jams and were glad to get off the crowded bus. We set down the pile of bags by the benches in the shade and Matt walked off to explore ferry ticket options. Plan #1 was to try to get a ferry to Sorrento if available and not crazy expensive as it seemed like the train would be easier from there. Back up plan was to make it to Salerno on a ferry. Last resort plan was to try and make it to either place on a bus. A father’s day miracle occurred and they said that the ferry to Sorrento was actually leaving “right now” (which turned out to be about 50 min after its scheduled departure), so Matt grabbed tickets and ran back to tell everyone we were going now to the ferry. We ended up being the last ones on the ferry which was very empty and set out enjoying views of Positano and the distal tip of the peninsula before hooking around into Sorrento. We’d heard from several people that they really liked Sorrento so were fired up to see it and Matt requested they do some beach time there as his father’s day wish. Unfortunately, all of the beaches were private (other than a “public” beach that was for locals only) and every single one of them said they were completely full for the day…so we decided to bag it and train to our aribnb digs near Pompei. Thankfully the host let us check in early so we dropped stuff and then decided to walk to the beach, which was about a mile away (another fatherly request by Matt). We made it with only moderate kid whining and it turned out to be a very cool (if a bit dirty) beach. By Mediterranean beach standards this one was very long and wide and sandy. We had fun jumping in for a bit, then walked along the beach another mile or so to downtown Castellamarre where we had hoped to get some food to cook at home…however it seemed all grocery stores we could find on google were closed (Sundays!!!!). We happened upon a restaurant called “family” and tried to get a table, but they told us they were only doing take out pizza due to it being sunday so we opted for that and it turned out to be delicious and filling all for the low price of 11.50 euros total! We then walked back towards the train and planned to get gelato en route. We couldn’t find gelato, but did find a nice open grocery store so picked up some ice cream bars there as well as some other snacks for the following day. We then hopped on the train home and hit the hay.

Overall I think the naples/amalfi/pompei area was our least favorite part of italy with naples/pompei feeling pretty grungy and amalfi/sorrento being nice but super pricey and crowded. However note to those reading or our future selves that we thought Castellamarre di Stabia would've been an ideal base camp there as the beach was decent, pizza was tasty and we think you could take easy day trips to sorrento/amalfi/pompei.

[peninsulaisms]

I love surveys and censuses and statistics please answer my silly little poll God Bless

[scottsbifh]

Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata, Vico Equense, Italia. Vico Equense, on the Bay of Naples, is the first town on the Sorrentine Peninsula, geographically speaking, near Sorrento.

Italy 

[nkorealive]

Required beach activities on the Mornington Peninsula: From Surfing to Sunny

The Mornington peninsula is one of the most beautiful coastal escapes in Australia, offering everything, from a break of surfing on the adrenaline to serene places for sunbathing. Whether you are an excitement seeker or relaxing lover, this guide covers the best beach activities you can’t miss. 1. Swimming on the Beach Sorrento Ocean Sorrento Ocean Beach offers calm, turquoise waters that are…