Mary-Ann was last seen in Sorrento when she was a young teenager, visiting on a summer holiday with her parents. She wonders if it will have changed much.
Little did we know that when we arrived on spec at this coastal site, that we’d be parked high up staring across the Bay of Naples at Mount Vesuvius. This huge and complex terraced site is carved into the cliff side. It’s also awash with olive trees. We’re pitched between two. On the terrace below, a netted grove hosts a flying circus of pipistrelles. A gang of silent assasins out for the kill.
There’s also a pool and we’re in luck. It’s not yet closed for this evening or the season (like many of the others). I’m desperate to swim off the day’s drive. Just before making a dash for it I pick up two olives that have dropped down. I hand them to Mary-Ann. “It’ll be interesting to see what ‘fresh’ ones taste like, won’t it?”. Then I’m off. On my return Mary-Ann hands me one. “Was yours really nice?” I ask. She doesn’t reply. I pop it straight in and chew down on it. I hadn’t been privy to the TV programme she saw a few weeks ago. Showing how olives get “processed” and made fit for consumption. I was all trust. How foolish. It’s unlike the now beaming Mary-Ann to prank. She got me. Good and proper. The taste is hard to describe. It’s like biting into a really bitter chilli. Its juicy hot flavour quickly ingrains itself into the roof of your mouth. Water, fruit juice and milk eventually do the trick. I owe her one!
Following morning we shuttle down into town. It’s heaving. Unfamiliar sites unable to spark a memory for Mary-Ann. This lot wasn’t here last time.
We take in a brilliant black and white photo exhibition by Raffaele Celentano and stumble across the fascinating tiny Music Box Museum. Mary-Ann can’t resist doing a turn . . . or two!