The last few days in Sorrento and Rome

I am home now, and it's much more difficult to get into the writing mode with so many things to do, catch up on, clean, unpack... But I vowed to write this blog, and now I vow to finish it! I may not do so in this post, but will post more, and more pics, until done... a quick wrap up to our trip--the day after Capri we stayed in Sorrento, walking around the city, doing a little shopping, and of course eating our share of pasta! It was a rainy day--the first day in Sorrento when the sun shined was only the first of two days in my entire month when the sun shined... but no complaints--we got around just fine, spent an hour or so when the rain was sideways and the shops were closed for the afternoon in the internet bar, having a glass of wine and catching up on email and news. We had dinner in a nice trattoria, and dinner did not dissapoint--the gnocchi of the area is Gnocchi a la Sorrentina, and the gnocchi is baked in oval ramekins, drenched in a creamy tomato sauce, and covered with mozzarrella and then baked--the ultimate Italian comfort food! Trudy wanted to bring home some limoncello and two limoncello glasses (did I mention that she is throughly hooked on the stuff???) so we went into a shop entirely devoted to limoncello, and the gal there started bringing us samples of limoncello, lemon chocolate, candied lemon... anything we saw and asked for, she would bring us a sample. Trudy got her cute little glasses and a bottle or two of limoncello... I saw bottles of little, popover-shaped pound cakes preserved in limoncello, had a sample, and bought a pint-sized jar to bring home. I will share with mom when we have dinner together next--and may have to figure out how to duplicate that recipe. The outside crust of the bread keeps the poundcakes intact, but they are throughly infused with limoncello... After my 2003 trip to Italy I wrote a short story about limoncello, and included the recipe, and I promise to find it and post it to this blog--it's a silly little ode to limoncello, but it is such an intoxicatingly delicious elixir (there I go again!!) that once you love it, you gotta have it, and making it is delicious and economical...
Ok, here is the rundown of the last days... after our last day in Sorrento, in our wonderful apartment "Casa Sorrentina," we had a "set the alarm day" and took the Circumvesuviana at around 10:00 to Naples. Once again, riding through the really depressing outskirts of Naples, with non-stop ugly apartment buildings and trash... I know that there is more to the area than what you see along the tracks, but this goes on for an hour and is truly depressing.
In Naples we found the passenger assistance office, and filed our form and tickets for the Florence to Naples train that was cancelled a few days earlier. If a train is cancelled, or is delayed for a certain time (??) then they refund 1/2 of the ticket price. We figured that for a 122 Euro trip for both tickets, it was worth filling out a form and turning it in. Of course, it's one of those "check is in the mail and you'll receive it in the US in one month" type of deals... one month seems to be the standard answer for anything having to do with US delivery! In dollars that's about $160, so we'll see... Then we found our 11:24 train to Roma--it took 2 hours, and had no delays. We bought salami sandwiches on delicous rolls, and two beers from a man walking down the aisle with a couple of buckets of food and drink, and settled in nicely, enjoyed the beautiful scenery, went along the coast a bit, then though mountain pastures with gorgeous views of the mountains and sparsely spaced towns, farms, lots of water in fields, irrigation ditches, and rivers from all the rain, livestock, and green everywhere. As we neared Rome things got more densely populated, but still really beautiful until we hit the inner city and the rail yards.
In Rome we got out the map and hoofed it through narrow, crowded streets, over cobbled sidewalks and streets, across intersections until we reached P. Barberini. From there we found our street and our hotel at 42, Via della Purificazione, and walked up hill a couple blocks to the hotel. It was a wonderful place, and the hotel desk staff were out of this world--they tolerated my Italian, but were all proficient in English and were just super helpful and so nice. The room was small but very nice, and had windows and shutters that opened to a back courtyard, and to other quiet residences. I had the opportunity to open and close the shutters and windows, something that I love to do, and have only experienced in Italy... sounds silly, but I just love to wake up in the morning in a dark room, and open the windows, pulling them into the room, then open the shutters outward, attaching them to the outside wall (in a number of ingenious ways--depending on the shutters) and look out to a beautiful Italian view, whether it's city, or country--if it's in Italy, it's great to wake to! Rome was the only time we left the window open a sliver at night--the weather for our 3 days was mild compared to any city since Rappallo, with some rain, some sun, but mostly cloudy skies, but never got horribly cold.
It's time to get in the shower and get to work... yesterday was my first day back. It was really great to be back, but I need to lead a rebellion about the horrible working conditions in the US... workday starts at 8:00 instead of 9:00 or 9:30, no bar on the way to work to get a delicious cappuccino and a coronetto, no breaks to run out for a lovely espresso, no 3 hour break for lunch and a nap... sheesh--we live like barbarians here!!!
more later--ciao tutti!