Sometime In Sorrento

the long version

Blundering about Sorrento and its environs in search of culture, the author unwittingly resists his wife's never ending attempts to civilise him. From the heights of Vesuvius, to the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, along the beautiful Amalfi coast and, of course, not forgetting Sorrento itself, the author's propensity to get himself into cringe-making embarrassing situations reaches new heights and plunges even deeper depths as he embarks on the second week of his holiday to Italy, and takes up from where the first book, An Italian Journey, stopped. Ubiquitous Dutchmen, domineering drivers, pestilential teenage girls, a mafioso maitre d', not to mention a glamorous older woman - these are just some of the colourful characters whom the gods send to cross the author's path and severely try his patience, whilst his own bungling incompetencies result in a hilarious narrative as he attempts to extricate himself from yet another fine mess he has got himself into. With a fine eye for detail and his penchant for the offbeat and the peculiar, the writer describes not only the people and events, but also the places he visits. You may have visited Sorrento before, but you've never seen it quite like this!