A Night in the Sorrento Women's Correctional Facility

View from the hotel lobby

Immediately upon finishing the tour of Pompeii, Madame Owner's group loaded up the bus and headed for the Amalfi Coast and the lovely little town of Sorrento. MO would rate the drive from Naples to Sorrento as the most beautiful scenery she's ever seen. Rocky cliffs meet the Mediterranean Sea and picturesque little towns climb hillsides in the twilight. It was magical. If there was anyplace she could have stayed for a month that would have been it.

Now the drive to the tiny coastal town, while lovely is fraught with tight squeezes for a large motor coach and the driver, Gulio, must have had nerves of steel.  After the hair raising drive up Vesuvius, and the winding coastal road to Sorrento, the real test of his abilities came upon entering the little town and trying to maneuver the massive vehicle through the antiquated streets in an effort to get his passengers as close to the hotel, which sat at the bottom of a cliff, as possible. Of course what would happen on the narrowest of streets when the goal of parking and unloading his passengers was just within reach? Of course he would meet another driver of an equally over sized transport. They stopped...inched forward, backed up, as if dancing. Gulio was determined to lead. After several tense moments (and opening his window so as to share some fiery words with the other driver) the buses scraped past each other. Cheers and applause erupted! As the other bus eased past the driver and passengers on it looked dejected. They'd lost the motor coach showdown and they were taking it pretty hard.

 The bus was parked and I was unloaded, then began the long trek down a hill, through a tunnel, and into the hotel. Our little band of travelers was impressed. The hotel looked like something from a James Bond movie. It was literally dug into the side of a cliff. The room assignments were handed out and MO's room was to have four women in it. FOUR. WOMEN. Did you get that? Mo her daughter and one other woman from their local group entered the room and looked around. Massive bathroom! Good thing. A room of equal size with a bed system MO was sure she'd seen once in a prison movie...not so good.

There was a knock at the door. The mystery fourth roomie arrived and it was a student from another group. They opened the door and introduced themselves (it was still early in the trip). When the young woman said her name MO remembered that they'd seen the same name in some graffiti inside the tunnel they walked through.

The bus is at the top, you can see why he couldn't navigate this section.

"I saw your name inside the tunnel. We'll be taking you up there later on to take your picture in front of it." MO said.

The new arrival got a worried look on her face, "I'll be right back."

View from their balcony.

The women opened the door leading outside and stepped onto a tiny balcony at the same time the young men in the room next door, (and their professor who was apparently going room to room to see who had the best set up)were doing the same thing. There was some giddy discussion of the interesting hotel and view. The women invited them to come over later for a party in the bathroom since it was the size of a small dance hall. Well, that's an offer you don't hear every day.

There was a knock at the door. They opened it to find one of the female professors standing there with a bottle of wine. "Hi, I'm your new room mate, my student thought she'd rather be with her classmates so I'm taking her place."

MO scared that poor girl off, at least that's the story I got from her suitcase the next day in the cargo hold.

After some small talk and bed selection, they headed to dinner. MO ended up between the new room mate, and her own group leader,  both professors of art history. She leaned forward and then back so they could talk around her. She offered to move, but they wouldn't hear of it, then one of them asked a question that MO could tell was going to get a lengthy passionate answer. Without a word MO and her group leader picked up their plates and switched places. The rest of the table erupted in laughter but the teachers were far too engrossed in their lively discussion to notice.

Now four women and one bathroom is nothing too amusing. Four women and four towels is just downright sad, especially when there is no bathmat to be found. Clearly the appropriate number of towels for this room would have been at least a dozen! The good doctor brought a bottle of wine with her when she showed up--did I mention that?

They needed it.

What they did not need was an early morning wake up call. Travel plans had been changed however and due to trouble in Egypt the ferry to take them from Italy to Greece was now one leaving from Ancona instead of Brindisi, which meant a  very long bus ride, north across the Appenines and a ferry crossing that would take twice as long. So after a lovely breakfast overlooking the sea it was time to trek back up the hill through the tunnel (where MO did indeed take a picture of that student) and onto the bus. To read MO's account of that trip and the story behind this picture click here.

At some point between sharing a communal towel that someone had gone to get at the desk, and looking at that steel framed bed system MO named their room The Sorrento Women's Correctional Facility. While she joked about the cramped accommodations, the hotel and the setting were so lovely she would gladly have stayed forever... with or without clean towels.

And that hotel room for just two people would have been quite comfortable!