Faces & Places

The train is a rickety metal contraption, perhaps from the 1970s. On it is an assortment of characters: tourists with cameras slung prominently around their necks; sun-browned locals on their daily commute into the next town; dusty workers lugging carts piled high with bags of produce.

I am on the Circumvesuviana, a railway that links Naples, Italy to its neighbors via a track that curves around the base of Mount Vesuvius. There are many ways to get from Naples to Sorrento - buses, taxis, ferries, and hydrofoils - but how can one resist a ride on a train with such an evocative name? Even the list of stations along the route is alluring: the line pulls out from Naples’ Porta Nolana station, rattling past dusty hillside towns with charming names like Portici Bellavista and Torre del Greco, depositing tourists at the archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, until it terminates in the clifftop coastal resort of Sorrento.

Italian is an emotional, expressive language, affirmed by the cacophony that fills the carriage. A man and his little boy sit across me. The father looks like someone out of a retro Italian crime film: heavy gold jewelry, sepia-tinted aviator shades, and shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, showcasing a bounty of chest hair. He was borderline funny and menacing, if not for the affectionate tummy-rubs he gave his son, who seemed to be suffering from a stomachache. He seemed a good father, and that was enough.

The train halts at Pompeii. For a moment, there is utter chaos as a horde of tourists gets on and makes a mad dash for seats. A boy, no older than five, also boards, busking for coins with his miniature accordion. He can barely belt out a tune, and repeats the same three strums of an unfinished melody as he makes his way through the train, but he is so adorable he earns a few coins anyway.

Then it’s a quartet of buskers that hop on at the next stop, playing a jazzed-up version of the Lambada. A group of gay teenagers whoop in delight and start dancing in the aisle, gyrating against the train’s railings and handlebars. Their laughter is contagious, and pretty soon everyone in the carriage is smiling and bopping their head to the beat of the drums.

Then suddenly, the blur of laundry-festooned buildings give way to the view of Mount Vesuvius, and the sparkling blue of the sea.

We have reached Sorrento.