I'm glad to say the drive to Sorrento was uneventful with light traffic, and we didn't get lost even once. We booked in to our B&B, Casa Astarita, which turned out to be a great choice. We are not beach people (obviously, or we wouldn't have gone to the coast in November), and we didn't come to Sorrento primarily for the scenery. Sure, we like nice views as much as anyone, but we'd rather have an economical hotel in a good walkable location, with a helpful and friendly staff, than pay premium prices for some snooty place with gorgeous vistas out to sea. How much time do you spend in your hotel anyway? -- and vistas are free in plenty of places.

Casa Astarita, which charged only 75 € off season was perfect for us. It was on the main street of Sorrento (photo at left), so we could walk anywhere. Our brightly-tiled room was reasonably large, if sparsely furnished. The people who ran the place could not have been nicer, although only one of them (Alfonso) spoke much English. One big plus was free Internet. There was a communal PC, but we hadn't realized till we got there that the free net access even extended to an Ethernet connection in the room. We had brought our laptop but no Ethernet cable. Alfonso told us where we could buy one, which we did for 5 euro, and it was great to be able to log on to the Web from our hotel room and fire off a few pictures to our friends and family back home.. Breakfasts were yogurt, breads and homemade jams (though I usually indulged my chocoholic tendences with Nutella), and coffee brewed to order on the stovetop espresso. There was a supply of free bottled water and fruit juice in the fridge and cookies on the sideboard, available all day, and even free homemade limoncello. And as you can see from the photo at right, the bed was very comfortable!!

We realized too late that it probably was a mistake to keep our car in Sorrento. We had thought we'd be doing more driving, but we found the train so much easier and more convenient that we only took the car out once -- the day we went to Paestum. There were plenty of car rental agencies right in the town, so we should have just dropped the car in Sorrento, then later booked a one-day rental for going to Paestum. This would have cost us about the same for one day as the 50 euro we paid for 5 days of parking our Lancia (not to mention, of course, paying its rental fee). Unfortunately, once you prepay Auto Europe, you don't get a refund for cutting your time short; I guess that's one reason their rates are comparatively low. But our advice to anyone staying in Sorrento for more than a day or two is not to bother with a car.

Even in the off season Sorrento was jam-packed with Americans, as well as Brits and Aussies. We heard more English on the streets and in the restaurants than Italian. I think tons of tour groups book in there for the cheap off-season rates; I can't imagine what it must be like in the high season. Although off-season travel has many advantages -- such as fewer people and lower prices -- the corresponding drawback in a place like Sorrento (or Capri) is that so many of the restaurants close down. It is easier to find good eating options in a city that doesn't depend almost entirely on tourism.

Our first night there was Monday, when lots of restaurants close anyway, so our choices were pretty limited. We ended up at a pizza place called Da Gigino, which the guidebook (I think it was Rick Steves, who doesn't have a great track record for food) said was a favorite of locals. We didn't see anyone there but tourists, and the pizza (we had the house special) was just fair. We did find some better places to eat later in the week.

After dinner, we walked down to the Marina Grande for a beautiful view of the glittering lights of Naples across velvety black water, with the shadow of Vesuvius hulking behind. (Photo at right showing Vesuvius was taken earlier in the day, from the Foreigner's Club deck.)