Shopping (Sorrento log 2)

The breakfast room of the hotel is in the basement. We took the lift to this floor; the door opened on the 'wrong' side and suddenly we found ourselves in what appeared to be a cave, with a path hewn out of the cliff. This short passage led to the breakfast room, where we had a standard breakfast.

We left the hotel fairly early and went back into town. The plan for the morning was to get the mobile phones working (one of them was having problems) and to check out the shops whilst buying as little as possible. When we got into town, we agreed on a rendezvous and time, then split up. As per the previous evening, it took some time to be served in the mobile phone shop as the proprietors seem to enjoy talking at length to their customers. After getting the phone fixed (it seemed to be connecting to the wrong network), I went to the rendezvous, found my wife, gave her the phone and showed her how to call me ... only to discover that once again, it wasn't working. I went back to the mobile shop, waited in the queue again, then had the phone fixed again. This time the proprietor showed me what to do should the problem occur again.

In the mean time, my wife had cast her eye on hand crafted jewelry boxes, some with musical accompaniment and some without. After purchasing what she wanted, I took her back via a street which she hadn't seen before which contained a few shops selling the sort of clothes that she likes. We agreed to the same 'rules' as in Dubrovnik: wandering around town in the morning, having lunch, resting for a few hours, then going back into town at around 5pm when the sun has gone down.

We had a lovely lunch at a different fish restaurant at the marina - this one is owned by a fishermans' collective. The fish was grilled as opposed to fried and there was more of it. For me, this is as close to paradise as it can get, eating a freshly caught fish with the background of the bay of Naples (as we were eating, fishermen brought in another bucket of fish).

After resting, we had tea in the hotel then walked back up to the town where my wife tried on several dresses and shirts. When we finished with the clothes, we bought some Sorrento souvenirs (lemon soap, lemon oil, lemon chocolate) then headed for the ice cream parlour where I had eaten the previous afternoon. I hadn't intended to eat, but my wife was hungry so she had what the Italians call a salad (I would call it cheese and tomatoes) while I had a tuna sandwich, followed by their delicious mint ice cream. 

We walked back to the hotel by a different route - it's like we walked two sides of a rectangle to get to the clothes shop, another side to get to the gelateria and the final side back to the hotel. I think this way is shorter but I'm probably in a minority.

All in all, we had a lovely day. Tomorrow - Pompeii!