The Key Can Be Finding a Good Package Tour
By Vera Vida
For the Patriot Ledger
A Vacation in Italy - even in the romantic town of Sorrento,
built into cliffs high above the azure Tyrrhenian Sea - needn't
be expensive. In fact, it can be downright affordable with the
right package trip. Ours included flights between Boston and
Naples on Alitalia Airlines, seven nights' stay at a four-star
hotel within easy strolling distance of the centuries-old city
center, guided sightseeing in Italy and all our meals, which were
memorably delicious, especially if you like first-class pasta.
The cost was $1,179.00 per person.
The price included everything except wine, tips and - on the last
day of the trip - an optional night out at a Tarantella folkloric
show in the Fauno Notte Club in Sorrento. There we were treated
to typical, exuberant Neopolitan dances and such lovely ballads
as "Come Back To Sorrento." I would return anytime.
There were 39 people, with a wide range of ages and travel
experience on our tour, which was organized by Durgan Travel
Service of Stoneham. The group included five family members who
were vacationing together for the first time: Ronald and
Annemarie Bonfiglioli of Braintree; Annemarie's brother and
sister-in-law, Arthur and Patricia Cipollone of Randolph, and her
other brother Carl Cipollone of Sparta, N.J.
Patricia Cipollone, a Boston real estate attorney, and her
husband, a union carpenter, had vacationed often in Europe before
- "mostly on bikes," the young lawyer said - but this
was the Bonfigliolis' first trip to Europe.
As we traveled by motorcoach with the glistening Bay of Naples
spread out below us and lemon, orange and olive trees all around
us, Ron Bonfiglioli looked around and said: "I'm glad we
made this trip." Then, writing some figures on a piece of
paper, he said, "It would have cost us at least 50 percent
more if we had traveled on our own. And this is so much more
convenient."
He estimated we would have spent about $500 per couple for food
alone ($70 a day), at least $700 for a room for the week, and
about $400 for the day trips we took to other places in Italy.
"And I haven't added the airfare yet," said
Bonfiglioli, a lieutenant in the Braintree Fire Department. He
also didn't include the cost of traveling from the airport in
Naples to Sorrento and back.
His wife loved the ancient, red-roofed houses that clung to the
steep promontory separating the Bay of Naples from the Gulf of
Salerno. Everywhere there were colorful flowers, even though it
was November.
"We're seeing so much here that goes back centuries,"
Annemarie Bonfiglioli said. "The Italians seem to have a
deep respect for the old, whether it's old buildings or old
people. It's such a different culture here, a different attitude.
I now have more understanding of my Italian-born relatives."
From our base in Sorrento, we made day-trips to Naples, Rome,
Pompeii, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. Our large room at the
Michelangelo had a private balcony overlooking the sea. The hotel
was a five-minute walk to Sorrento's main shopping area and a 15-minute
walk to picturesque, narrow alleyways lined with delightful shops
- a part of town, the real Sorrento, that was discovered by Pat
Cipollone. Anything but a sedentary attorney, she's not only a
long-distance bicyclist but also a serious walker.
In the labyrinth of alleys are old buildings with flower-filled
balconies and shops and crafts studios on the ground floor. Here
you can find beautiful inlaid wood items, music boxes, wood
pictures, furniture - for which Sorrento's artisans are famous.
My husband and I bought a small table, its top inlaid with
various woods to create a floral design, for $40. The round top
and legs came apart so the table could easily be toted on the
plane.
Fine-leather Italian handbags were priced at $35 to $60. Delicate
porcelains, exquisite linens and jewelry - especially cameos -
were other finds there. Liquori di limoni, a Sorrentine lemon-based
liqueur, was a local specialty, and you could taste before buying.
But our favorite purchase was a battery-operated cheese grinder,
for about $35, which we had wanted but couldn't find in the
United States. Now we can have pasta with freshly, electrically
ground parmesan in Cohasset.
The food at the hotel, and at several restaurants we visited as
part of the package, was very good indeed. We always had a
European buffet breakfast, and, for both lunch and dinner, an
excellent pasta course followed by a main dish of veal, fish,
beef or chicken, and then dessert.
"You'd think the pasta course would be quite enough, "
Annemarie Bonfiglioti said. She particularly liked "the
fresh Italian bread - and the waiters with the Italian charm."
A highlight of the week for her was the visit to the Basilica of
St. Peter's in Rome, where we gathered in Bernini's magnificent
St. Peter's Square to receive the Pope's blessing. Just as he
bestowed the blessing from a large open window overlooking the
square, a soft rain began to fall. "It started sprinkling as
he was finishing and it stopped immediately, as if it were coming
from heaven," Anne Marie Bonfiglioti said.
It wasn't my first visit to St. Peter's, but I learned a good
deal from our guide, Mauro Corsetti. The construction of the
Basilica was entrusted to Michelangelo in 1546, when he was 72,
sick and reluctant to accept the tremendous responsibility. When
he agreed, he refused any payment, saying he would do it for the
glory of God. He dedicated his last 18 years to the project.
Once again, I was enthralled by the Michelangelo's dome on the
Basilica, and later that day, chilled by the Colosseum, a symbol
not only of Rome's glory but also of man's brutality to men and
animals.
The Colosseum's opening in 80 A.D. was marked by 100 days of
festivities, during which about 200 gladiators and more than 9,000
wild animals - lions, tigers, leopards and elephants - were
killed. The emperors Domitian, Trajan, and Hadrian all loved
these spectacles; Hadrian even took part himself and slaughtered
a lion. Unlike the emperor, Christians were unarmed when they
faced the animals in the arena.
Pompeii, once a city on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, is a
testament to destruction wrought by nature. In 79 A.D., the
volcano exploded, covering the city with a giant cloud of
poisonous gases, ash and incandescent rocks that buried humans,
their homes and all their possessions.
Today, visitors can see the ruins of the Pompeiian forum,
temples, theaters, public baths, a brothel and many private homes.
The house of the Vetti, two wealthy brothers, had rich wall
decorations that miraculously survived. Exquisite miniatures show
cupids gathering grapes, making perfume and engaged in other
cupid pursuits. Inside the house, a modern-day artist was
painting similar cupids on canvas and shyly offering them for
sale to visitors.
Pompeii was one of the high points of the trip for Carl Cipollone.
His wife didn't travel with him to Italy because of their two
daughters. "Next time, she'll be with me. I love the culture
here and coming back to our roots," Cipollone said.
I had only one criticism of the tour: we spent too little time in
Naples, a culture-rich city worthy of more than a two-hour visit.
I was especially sorry that we didn't visit the National
Archaeological Museum, which has one of the world's most
important collections of classical antiquities, including
sculptures, paintings, frescoes and mosaics from Pompeii. It
would have been the ideal complement to our Pompeii trip.
It was fun to visit Capri and to explore the island with our
fellow tourists. Celebrated for its extraordinary beauty, the
small isle is essentially vertical, requiring very steep climbs
or drives. It contains the remains of Emperor Tiberius' imperial
villas. Tiberious lived in Capri 10 years. Who could have blamed
him?
"We did some hiking," said Art Cipollone, who with his
wife and his brother climbed from the center of the town of Capri
to one of the highest vantage points on the island. "What I
really like is the way the houses were built into the stone
mountain, each house with its own character. The real beauty of
the island is away from tourist areas."
The Amalfi Coast was probably the most stunning place we visited,
but for someone like me, who's terrified of heights, the drive
was scary. In many places, the road on which our motorcoach
traveled had a vertical drop on one side of 2,000 feet or more, a
sheer cliff with the sea far down below. But there were also
terraces of vineyards, olive groves and citrus trees. Elsewhere
along the famous coast, lush vegetation framed towns of rare
beauty: Amalfi, Furore, Scala and Ravello.
It is said that when Richard Wagner, the composer, visited
Ravello on muleback in 1882, he fell in love with the town and
its gardens at first sight. I felt that way about Amalfi,
especially after seeing its lovely, 13th-century cathedral and
later watching a man swim in Amalfi's pretty harbor - even though
it was mid-November.
"I love the Amalfi Coast," said Pat Cipollone during
lunch in the town of Scala overlooking majestic cliffs and the
Bay of Salerno far below. "I like being in the middle of
such vastness. I think it's more spectacular than Switzerland."
If you go...
November, when we traveled to Sorrento, is a fine time to visit the Campania Region, since most tourists are gone and the weather is still very good, with daytime temperatures typically in the 70’s.
In fact, the shoulder seasons of October-November and March-April are often recommended for Italy because of the good weather, un-crowded condition, and lower rates.