The Coast of Italy — my Happy Place!

It’s been a while since I went on a legit vacation. The last was in December 2021, when I went to Kenya for my friend’s birthday. So I was way overdue, and for that reason, I was more liberal with what I’d typically spend on a trip. Don’t get me wrong - when I travel, I’m not super frugal…but I’m also not hemorrhaging cash either, LOL. Considering the last couple of years we had, however, everyone in this group deserved some luxury. Anyway, I was invited to go on this trip with friends after they found a good deal on Emirates for a direct flight from New York to Milan. It was around my birthday when I got the invite, so I quickly made a decision to treat myself and book the flight. Come to find out, I had enough travel points on one of my travel cards (I have the Platinum American Express and Chase Sapphire Preferred - let me know if you need a referral) to book the flight with points!

Upgrades to Business Class for 30,000 points

There were a total of seven of us. We met up at JFK and chilled in the Air India Lounge before our flights…it is not a good lounge, LOL…but it’s better than waiting out at the gate. Oh, did I mention that the day of the trip, I was able to upgrade my Emirates flight to Business Class for 30,000 points/miles?? I went into my Chase Ultimate Rewards account and transferred them points over to my Emirates account so fast! If you’d ever flown business class with Emirates, you know it’s TOP TIER! Since it was a red eye flight, it was the perfect way to spend the 8 hours. A bunch of champagne, some great food, and all the lemon bundt cake I could eat before I went to sleep for the majority of the flight!

So let’s get to the fun! I will say, I didn’t have to plan any of this trip! Christina, Darrell and Adreanna did the majority of the planning, booking, and organizing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group to rely on for fun. We land in Milan, spent a day there, staying at the NH Collection Milano CityLife - beautiful hotel! To burn some time, and get the celebrations going, we went up to the rooftop pool to have drinks, refreshments, and cool off in the pool until our dinner reservations. Dinner was at Just Cavalli Milano, one of Roberto Cavalli’s restaurants. The vibe was dope, and after we ate and drank we headed upstairs to the club for a couple more drinks and to dance.

The next day, we boarded a quick Easy Jet flight to Naples, and had a driver pick us up to drive us to our villa in Sorrento. On the way, we stopped for some pizza and wine and the drive was beautiful!

So our villa. The sh*t was dope! Villa Miragalli! It’s a four-bedroom home on top of a hill about 15 minutes outside of Sorrento. It has its own pool, jacuzzi, 3.5 bathrooms, and unobstructed views of the Mediterranean Sea and Amalfi Coast. The host, Bruno…he’s super responsive, very helpful and everyone in Sorrento knows him. There was even a time we were too tired to go out and get dinner so we asked him to order out for us because we were afraid of the language barrier. The only downside to this place is that it’s so remote that you have to work with Bruno to get cabs to pick you up and drop you off. There’s no ride share apps, and there was no other way to hail cabs.

So I won’t do a day-by-day-breakdown from this point on. I’ll just tell you the highlights of what we did and some of my random thoughts. Okay? Okay.

There’s a lot of places to eat in Sorrento, but our favorite was Il Leone Rosso! We ate there three times over the course of our trip. Great food, lots of choices, very cheap wine and spirits, and you can tell the place is very popular! It’s also right next to Gelateria David Sorrento, which is also very popular and the perfect place to get dessert! Highly recommend the salted caramel cookie gelato.

We rented a small yacht and went on a four hour private excursion across the Mediterranean to Capri. A lot of fun, a lot of sun, and the water felt great!

We went to Positano one of the days and took a five minute boat over to Arienzo Beach Club to spend one of the days. You can buy a package that includes lounge chairs, a meal and drinks. There are a few different packages to choose from. The view was awesome here, but it wasn’t my favorite experience. The sun was baking us, the food was probably the collective group’s least favorite, and you would probably enjoy walking around on the beach more if you brought water shoes. Instead of sand, the beach is made up of black pebbles. So, aesthetically it’s beautiful, but practically, it is painful to walk on. After the beach, a good portion of the group went to get necklaces made in town, but I stayed in the beach area to chill out…I was still hot and was tired of walking up and down the steep hills of Positano. I picked up some of the city’s famous lemon sorbet, and sat to enjoy the sun slowly setting.

The majority of the group had some shopping we wanted to get done, so one of the days, we headed to the Sorrento Port and caught a ferry over to Capri where the luxury stores were located. We didn’t stay over there all day…just for a couple hours to get in, out and back to our villa to enjoy time at the pool, and some R&R. We did have our “just throw it in the bag” moments while shopping though. Like…SHOPPED!

To round out or trip, we flew back to Milan to spend a couple nights. Well…I did. Four members of the group took a day trip to Venice to see the city and complete their bucket list item of riding in a gondola. And two members went to Rome to site see and spend the night at the Soho House. I had previously visited both cities a couple times, so I decided to stay in Milan to enjoy some alone time, and “write.” I put “write” in quotations because that trip was back in September 2022, and I am just now finishing this blog post in January 2023. So clearly I didn’t write anything LOL. But it felt great to walk and ride aimlessly through the city. I also got some more shopping done.

It goes without saying that Italy is one of my favorite countries to visit! There’s so much to see and the food does not disappoint! Although I typically prefer not to repeat trips I’ve taken abroad, Italy is one of the places I will go whenever I have the time or opportunity.

Where else should I visit next time I’m in the mood to visit Italy? Anything you recommend me seeing or doing?