Sorrento Cathedral, Museum of Inlaid Wood

This morning, I visited only the Sorrento Cathedral and the Museum of Inlaid Wood, making for a somewhat quiet time relative to my normal tourist frenzy.

In fact, the whole day is going to be a do-little day. By that, I don’t mean to suggest I’m assuming the life of Dr. Doolittle. I don’t talk to animals. Or, rather, I do, but they don’t talk back. I consider this reassuring and comforting. Too many humans do talk back. Furthermore, I don’t want to have to deal with the implications of believing that animals literally speak to me.

In addition, I don’t believe Dr. Doolittle is truly a doctor. He’s supposed to be a physician, but has anyone ever seen his medical degree!? If he shows you one, I highly recommend that you spend some time verifying its authenticity, particularly if he proposes treating you for a serious medical condition.

But, never mind that. It’s not germane. Where was I?

(*looks around the park he’s sitting in; sees orange and lemon trees laden with fruit*)

Oh, yeah. Sorrento. I’m spending the day in town, but I’m running out of sights recommended by my guidebook. So, as I was getting at before I digressed to a discussion of that alleged doctor, I didn’t do much this morning. I expect to do less this afternoon.

(I started typing this on my iPhone before lunch while sitting on a shaded bench in a nice little park on a perfect day. I’ll type up a bit more at lunch, but I probably won’t finish it until after this afternoon’s activities, or lack thereof as the case may be. So before I publish this, I’ll likely know if the afternoon was even less active and sight-filled than this morning. But, don’t worry. I’ll keep that a secret here so as not to give away a spoiler for the afternoon’s post.)

Not the Museo Correale di Terranova

There was one sight I wanted to see—one that my guidebook recommended even more highly than the ones I did see—Museo Correale di Terranova. It was to be my first stop of the day.

The museum sounded like a quirky, possibly interesting museum with, according to my guidebook, collections of clocks, archaeological objects, 19th-century Neapolitan arts & crafts, and ceramics. And its collections are not just local, but from various places of the world.

My guidebook told me it was open today at the time I went. A sign on the gate in front of the building told me otherwise. It simply said, “CLOSED.” Actually, that’s not true. It said, “CHIUSO.” But I knew that’s Italian for closed.

But that was it. Just closed. There was no explanation as to why or for how long. Just chiuso.

Curious, I went to the museum’s website. The English version of the website told me

Okay. That’s helpful. Eliminate that museum from the list for this trip. This is my last day in Sorrento.

If you look back on my previous posts solely during this trip alone, you’ll find a few examples of cases where I could have saved some time and aggravation if I had done only a smidgen more research. This is another one. In this case, looking at the website instead of just my guidebook would have saved me the walk to the museum.

And if you go back and read every single entry in this journal, you’ll find more similar examples. (I strongly recommend that you do read every entry. That will put you in an exceptionally select group.)

So, from now on in my travels, I’ll go that extra centimetre and do that little bit more groundwork every single time, right? Yeah, right. Some people never learn. If you’re in that never-learn group, hi! I hope to see you at our next meeting.

On the bright side, the Museo Correale di Terranova is a little piece away from central Sorrento. So I got to walk through a generally uninteresting part of town that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

After my failure at the museum, it was time to move on to my next planned sight, the Sorrento Cathedral, and have a chat with God about why he puts these obstacles in my way. Does he hate me? Is it because I’m an atheist?

The Sorrento Cathedral

Much to my surprise, the Sorrento Cathedral was open. I popped in.

The cathedral was first built in the 11th century, but rebuilt in the 15th century. And it’s had a few renovations since then. For example, the facade, which I consider mundane, was added in the early 20th century. I guess they were hoping that a refresh out front would increase the curb appeal and raise the resale value.

The cathedral is in a small complex of a few buildings, one of which is a cute, three-tiered bell tower. It’s pictured near the top of this post.

Just inside the entrance of the Sorrento Cathedral, to the left as you walk in, in what in another cathedral would be a side chapel, behind glass is a display I didn’t expect. Small human and angel figures are arranged in an elaborate ancient urban diorama.

Had I not been to the San Martino Monastery and Museum in Naples earlier in this trip, I wouldn’t have known what to make of it. Not a clue. But there I learned that the figures are crib figures and the diorama is a nativity scene. although it takes in a much wider sweep of Bethlehem than just the mama, papa, baby, and three allegedly wise men that you might see around Christmas in North America.

The nativity scene at the Sorrento Cathedral is not nearly as large and elaborate as the largest and most elaborate one at the San Martino Museum, but the Sorrento Cathedral gives it a good run for its money.

Apart from the nativity scene, the interior of the Sorrento Cathedral is ornately decorated, but not overdone. There’s a lot of marble. Simple crystal chandeliers hang from the arches between the columns in the cathedral. The ceiling sports a few paintings.

And up front, a somewhat gruesome crucifix sits behind and off to the left of the altar. Bright red blood is painted generously flowing from one of Jesus’ wounds.

The Sorrento Cathedral is nice enough, but what makes it is the over-the-top nativity scene.

Museum of Inlaid Wood

Until I came to Sorrento, I had no idea that the area was famous for inlaid woodwork and has been busy making marquetry since the 18th century. Heck, before today, I’d never even heard the word “marquetry.”

For the benefit of people who are as ignorant as I am, marquetry is furniture intricately decorated with inlaid coloured wood and other materials. So, there you are. Now we’re both a little less ignorant.

The Museum of Inlaid Wood is in a musty old 18th-century building. (It’s surprising how few musty new 18th-century buildings there are.)

The exhibits span four small floors. The floors above ground level contain inlaid wood pieces mostly from the 19th century. But there are also some maps, drawings, paintings and ceramics that give some of the local history of that period.

Lunch

With that, interspersed with some wandering and park-bench sitting, it was time for lunch.

I went to a restaurant with a slew of outdoor tables facing the large public square. It was a little too loud and busy for quiet reflection, but it did make for some good people-watching and an opportunity to type more of these words on my phone.

I had a prosciutto, mushroom, tomato, and cheese pizza that was quite good. I also had a nice glass of wine and an espresso.

Unlike yesterday in Capri, the waiter didn’t bring me a free limoncello after lunch today. Instead, he brought me a different free digestivo that I’d never had before. One sip made it abundantly clear that it was cherry-based. I asked the waiter what it was. Cherrycello. Not only had I never had that, I’d never even heard of it. It was quite good.

(When the waiter told me the name, I guessed it was spelled “cherricello.” However, when I searched the web for “cherricello” it returned entries only for “cherrycello.” So, cherrycello it is.)

Despite the ambience being about as distant as one can get from relaxing, I still managed to spend more than an hour and a half over lunch.

That didn’t leave a lot of time in the afternoon, which was fine because I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do with that time. Come back later and find out.