So this last week I’ve been holidaying in the gorgeous Italian area of Sorrento and it’s coastal areas of Positano and Capri.
I think the slogan that Vogue put on this bottle of San Pellegrino sums up what Italy is all about!
“Fine Food & Style”
If you like dressing up both day and night, then Italy is the right destination for you! There is no dressing down to be done, and very few people I saw made little effort, even if they were just heading to the beach for the day!
Packing for this trip was very easy – I simply needed a number of day dresses and then my usual evening outfits. What was really important, I felt, was to get my accessories right, so that I could easily mix and match without too much hesitation on if it would work.
Key was to have the right shoes, bags, belts and jewellery that all compliment each other, this means you can take far less stuff! Gone are the days when we all want to take EVERYTHING, who wants to carry it all and also pay to take it to only bring back, unworn!
Exploring Sorrento
The dress below you may recognise from previous posts, but there is a big difference! This dress started life as a maxi dress, and every time I wore it, I just didn’t really feel right in it. Thanks to my mum, she helped me shorten it just in time for my holiday, and it’s a much better fit now that it sits just above the knee. (Notice the bag here… I’ll be coming on to that in a bit!)
Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius
This was the only day I knew I had to be practical – and so I opted for my Nikes for the climb up Mount Vesuvius. This meant I had to go for shorts, which I feel can look really boyish and so to avoid that I opted for my new pretty red/pink floral top that I purchased this summer from a fab shop in St Albans called The Dressing Room.
The sun hat was cheap from H&M at £7.99, and you can now see a line straight down the front where I actually spent most of the day using it as a fan, especially on the train ride as there was no air!!
Nights out
That’s what’s lovely about holidays, the need to get all dressed up for the nights out. Italians love making an effort in the evenings, including the men! And with everyone in their finest you simply cannot go out “dressed down”.
This dress is an old one, but I love it!
Shoes of a day were gold havaianas flip flops and then for evening I wore these flat Guess sandals that I purchased a few weeks ago from TK Maxx. I did take heels, but the cobbled streets and the fact that Sorrento is on a steep hill really didn’t allow for them – I actually felt quite sorry for the girls trying to walk in theirs, I think I would have gone bare foot!!
Boat trips and Accessories
I didn’t get a full length picture of me in this dress, so here’s one from a few weeks ago that I took for Instagram. This is a t-shirt dress and the fit and style of this dress was simply perfect for my day trip to Capri. I had a two hour boat trip which also involved getting into a little boat for the Blue Grotto and then I knew we would be heading to the Designer shopping area of the island for a spot of lunch, so I wanted to make sure I was nicely dressed for that too.
My favourite purchase for this holiday has to be this gold bag that I used day and night, it went with everything. Easy to dress it up or down, light-weight and compact and yet held all my essential items.
I didn’t buy it. Although I was tempted! Fourth one along looks just like my Alfonso, and I missed him very much on this trip as the Italians love their dogs and they were everywhere!
