Many years ago, when I was a very young child, my mother gave me vitamins from a brown glass bottle, kept on the door of the fridge. That sounds a touch ominous, like the start to a Flowers In the Attic style tale, but it wasn’t. I got my spoonful of orange vitamins and then my cod liver oil tablet before sitting down to whatever cereal was on offer.
The liquid vitamins came in a bottle with a label featuring two children playing. The girl was wearing a yellow sweater and the boy a pumpkin-coloured shirt, if memory serves me correctly. They were jumping on a seesaw of sorts made from a spoon balanced over half an orange. I remember the taste of the potion well, although they were eventually replaced by Flintstones Chewables. I was reminded of these vitamins on a recent trip to Italy, when I had my first Aperol Spritz on a hot day spent walking around the ruins of Pompeii.
We’d arrived in Naples the day before, after getting up at three thirty in the morning to catch a 6:20 flight. We were flying business class, me tagging along on my friend’s pass. It was only my fifth time flying business class, and already I was jaded. The lounge’s breakfast buffet did not have eggs. The champagne on the flight was warm. Oh, the troubles I have seen.
My friend was snoozing by the window when a woman across the aisle stood up and opened the overhead bin. This always fascinates me, as I have flown a lot, on very long flights to places are far flung as Thailand, Australia, Nepal and New Zealand. Not once have I ever opened a bin to rummage around, yet this was the second time this woman had stood up, trying and failing to find something. As I watched, eyes gritty with tiredness yet wide awake with the excitement of soon seeing the Amalfi Coast, she hoisted her skirts around her hips, then stepped onto the armrest of the seat where a man was sat, ignoring her even as the hem of her skirt fell on his arm. I was captivated by the dynamic. If it was her husband, why was he ignoring her? If he was someone randomly seated next to her, wouldn’t he object to her standing on his armrest? As my thoughts swirled I poked my sleeping friend so he could see what I was seeing. I have flown a lot but he flies endlessly, for work and for pleasure. Let’s just say he came to quickly as the flight attendant rushed down the aisle, asking the woman to please get down, as what she was doing was very dangerous.
‘Whatever you need, madam, I will get for you,’ he said. ‘Please get down.’ She completely ignored him and carried on digging around in the bin until she pulled out a book and stepped down, her skirt catching on the arm rest as the man in the seat it was attached to continued to ignore her, and the flight attendant pulled himself together. I don’t know what would have happened to him if she fell, but he was taking it very seriously.
We landed in Naples then walked from the aircraft to a bus where we stood a while longer before boarding, while a man who had five gin and tonics (he was sat near me, and I counted) made jokes about needing tickets and tried to get a sing song going. Eventually the bus took us to what amounted to a holding pen where we stood endlessly in the baking heat while trying to figure out exactly what was happening. Slowly we made our way into a very grey arrivals area. I watched, clutching my UK passport and cursing Brexit, as everyone with an EU passport sailed by me.
We found the shuttle, made our way into the city and found our hotel, which let us check in early, which was fabulous. We dumped our bags, my friend found a map on his phone to navigate, and we set off.
Naples… I don’t really know what to say. Search the Internet and you will hear it described as raw, pulsing with life, and authentic. For me this translated to covered in graffiti with garbage littering the streets. Having been to Rome in April I was shocked by the difference in the two cities. As we walked along I kept my opinion to myself – heaven forbid anyone say anything negative these days – until my friend said, ‘I’m not digging the graffiti everywhere’ – to which I quickly agreed.
After buying tickets to see the Sansevero chapel housing the Veiled Christ, a masterpiece in marble that defies description no matter how long you stare at it, we sat at an outdoor café – really just a few metal tables lining the street – and drank ice cold Peroni and shared a slice of Neapolitan pizza. Eventually we moved along, walking through a city enthralled with Diego Maradona and stopping for dinner at what looked like a cute outdoor restaurant. I had the worst grilled courgette and aubergine (zucchini and eggplant) ever while my friend had mediocre risotto and we watched a group of young lads on what may have been their first holiday abroad without supervision knock back pints, inhale pizza, and laugh. We walked some more, and I ended up buying a postcard sized painting from an elderly man sitting outside his shop, smoking a cigarette and staring into the distance. He wrapped it in newspaper, and I smiled as I wondered how I was going to get it into my suitcase – then we returned to our nicely air-conditioned hotel room and made plans.
The following day we rose early and hopped the train to Pompeii. Now, I cannot say enough good things about Italian trains. The ticket system is easy to use, and the fare is cheap. Dirt cheap. Two fares for two adults for a 38-minute trip cost just over six euros. The trains arrived on time and left on time and maybe I just got lucky, but passengers were quiet and respectful. No loud phone conversations or obnoxious music. Nicely done, Naples!
Pompeii was magical, in the way seeing a place on your bucket list is magical. The sun was shining but there was some early September morning cool which I love. I basked in it as I saw first-hand the city destroyed in 79 AD, a place I studied when I was at the University of Ottawa, several lifetimes ago. After four hours of walking over old bricks, we found the restaurant and had an Aperol Spritz, me for the first time. I took a sip and immediately thought it tasted familiar. Another sip and I knew what it was, saying to my friend, ‘it tastes like the orange vitamins I had as a kid’ which brings us back to the start of this tale, in case you were wondering where I was going.
Walking back to our hotel in Naples that night, we decided to visit Sorrento the next day. And I am so glad we did. From the moment we stepped from the train (less than 20 euros, return, for two adults for a 78-minute journey) I knew I was going to like the place. The air smelled fresh. The streets were pristine. Palm trees, cool looking restaurants and sleek shops were everywhere. Sorrento felt like a pleasant dream, the kind that makes you want to pull the covers tight, squeeze your eyes shut and just revel in.
After an iced coffee we made our way to a park with a view of the beaches below. As I gazed into the clear water dotted with people swimming and floating around, I got the feeling I was in one of those glamourous old films where a woman wearing a crisp white dress, cinched at her waist and wearing impossibly large sunglasses, a silk scarf holding her hair in place, hurries through the streets, scanning the crowd while being chased by someone like Cary Grant. Sorrento felt like something from another time, and I was loving it. And who wouldn’t want to be chased by Cary Grant?
We had lemon ices as we walked through the cave-like path that led to the water and the beaches. Watched some swimmers and some sunbathers before heading back to the city centre. I tried on a pair of shoes and talked myself out of buying them, wanting to be fiscally responsible. We wandered the clean, meandering streets as I looked for a hotel where I might one day stay, when Sorrento was more than a day trip. Then we returned to the waterfront for a glass of Champagne. While my friend ate calamari I watched the fish swimming in the clear water and pondered writing something set in Sorrento – a simple romance, I thought, watching a handsome man in blue swim trunks walking into the sea.
As the afternoon drifted by, my friend ordered a second bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and the waiter told us he’d lived in England and Australia and Spain, and that each Monday he sits on the beach with a bottle of Moet and Chandon and some smoked salmon and avocado and watches the sea. I tucked this away for the romance novel that was already building in my mind.
As we sat on the train returning to Naples, I tried to find the vitamins I had as a kid on Google but had no luck. I could see the bottle so clearly in my mind, knew the taste, as I had preferred them to the Flintstones that replaced them. We gave up after a while, and I opened up Notes on my phone and scribbled a few lines for the romance novel building in my head. I showed them to my friend who said, ‘I like it!’
By now the train station felt familiar and comforting. I stopped at a shop and looked at a bag in the window that I liked, but talked myself out of buying it, too. We ate ice cream and as we headed back to our hotel and I thought about some of the things that had happened on my trip to a new part of Italy: I fell in love with Sorrento. I gazed on the Veiled Christ. I learned Aperol Spritz’s taste like vitamins my mother gave me in childhood. I pondered writing a romance novel. But I knew the story I would tell the most would be about a woman who stood on an armrest in business class while the flight attendant pleaded with her to get down and her husband ignored her. That, like the Italian coast, is not something you see every day. Especially in business class.
