Tortino Caprese con gelato alla vaniglia

Today was our last day in Italy, but luckily we weren’t getting picked up from our hotel for our evening flight until 5.45 p.m. so we made the most of the warm weather by swimming in the sea (of course!) one last time. The hotel and the town are so quiet now, even quieter than last week. We were the only people on the sea terrace this morning. I think that this is partly because it’s nearly the end of the season and partly because Sorrento has had fewer foreign visitors this summer than hoped for. People are still understandably nervous about travelling abroad with uncertainty about Covid, and all the paperwork and testing is off putting. James and I have felt like holiday pioneers this past fortnight!

Vesuvius decided to reappear out of the heat haze for our last day, and looked very beautiful across the gulf of Naples. 

We had a last swim in the pool in the afternoon and I nipped along to the centre of town to do a last wee bit of shopping. 

Everything went very smoothly on our journey to Naples airport. Our very friendly driver, Americo, told us all about Sorrentine naming traditions and his family and the different hotels in Sorrento. However when we got to the airport it was chaos in the Manchester check in queue. Despite the plane being less than half full, it took us over an hour to check in, because a number of people had turned up at the airport without the required certification. This made the queue really slow as flustered tourists started trying to log in to the government website. James and I on the other hand were paragons of virtue and had everything ready, thanks to James organising us to do our tests and fill out the online forms yesterday morning. By the time we got through security it was time to walk straight onto the plane!

This morning I got a message from Doreen’s son Charlie to tell me that she died peacefully at 7 a.m. I will miss her very much.