Books, Arts & Manners: The South

If you go south of Rome, you are bound to see Pompeii and Capri. Also, unfortunately, Sorrento—a tourist trap with all the charm of the Jersey shore, and only two redeeming features—a commanding view of the Bay of Naples (invisible from the main drag), and a train station from which one can get to all the local sights in an hour or less.

Industrialized Naples squirts out a great deal of smoke, and the weather can be naturally hazy; so that, if it is not exactly true that, as Will Rogers said, San Francisco Bay makes the Bay of Naples look like the Chicago drainage canal, there come nights and days when the twinkling, distant lights are hidden and the long, low bulk of Vesuvius is lost. Beyond Sorrento, however, on the way to Salerno, the wind works harder and the air seems fresher. Halfway down this stretch of coast, near the summit of the ridge that plunges almost straight to the sea, sits Ravello, one of the prettiest spots on earth.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

Featured Tags

If you go south of Rome, you are bound to see Pompeii and Capri. Also, unfortunately, Sorrento—a tourist trap with all the charm of the Jersey shore, and only two redeeming features—a commanding view of the Bay of Naples (invisible from the main drag), and a train station from which one can get to all the local sights in an hour or less.

Industrialized Naples squirts out a great deal of smoke, and the weather can be naturally hazy; so that, if it is not exactly true that, as Will Rogers said, San Francisco Bay makes the Bay of Naples look like the Chicago drainage canal, there come nights and days when the twinkling, distant lights are hidden and the long, low bulk of Vesuvius is lost. Beyond Sorrento, however, on the way to Salerno, the wind works harder and the air seems fresher. Halfway down this stretch of coast, near the summit of the ridge that plunges almost straight to the sea, sits Ravello, one of the prettiest spots on earth.