Sepia Saturday 159: Greetings and kisses from the beautiful Sorrento

It seems that I have the travel bug, as this week's Sepia Saturday theme has me off to Europe again, where we pay a visit to the sunny Mediterranean with a German family on a warm morning during the summer of 1929.


This postcard photo shows two young girls with their mother, apparently about to take a plunge, although the presence of water splashed on the wooden boardwalk suggests that someone has already been swimming. After some deliberation I've decided that was more likely to be the other woman whose face we don't see, and who leans on the towel-festooned railing and gazes off at the view to the right. The would-be swimmers, whose perfectly groomed hair belies any prior frolicking in the water, have just emerged from one of the doors to the wooden changing rooms visible immediately to the left, presumably the one from which a tagged key still protrudes.


I've deciphered the text on the reverse of the postcard as follows:

Viele innige Grüße und Küsse dem lieber guten dunkel Siegfried aus dem schöner Sorrente wo wir auf sommer frische sind
Annta [?] DAISY JACQUY
Sorrente 24/VII 1929

My effort at a translation (with assistance from Google Translate) reads thus:

Many heartfelt greetings and kisses to the dear good dark Siegfried from the beautiful Sorrente where we are on summer break.

... although I'd be happy to consider both alternative interpretations of the text and corrections to my translation. The gist of it, I think, is clear.

It's a pity that it hasn't been sent through the post, as an address, stamp and postmark would no doubt have provided more information about the family.


0.5m resolution GeoEye satellite view of Sorrento, 2009
Image © and courtesy of GeoEye & Google Earth
The small town of Sorrento is a popular tourist destination on the southern shores of the Bay of Naples. The glimpses of water in the photograph struck me as looking more like a quiet freshwater lake than the Meditteranean so, not having had the pleasure of visiting Italy, I flew over to have a look courtesy of Google Earth, which I find invaluable for remote research from the Antipodes. The half metre-resolution of the GeoEye satellite imagery used by Google Earth (click on image above) is excellent for a two-dimensional overview.


Perspective view of Sorrento, looking south
Image © and courtesy of CNES/SPOT & Google Earth
Google Earth can also be used for a perspective three-dimensional view of the coastline, taken as if it were from a helicopter hovering out at sea. Google Earth uses GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software to drape the satellite image over a wireframe model of the topography (imagine laying a very floppy table cloth over a papier-mâché model), which can then be viewed from any user-defined point and angle.

Sunset across the Bay of Napoli from Sorrento in Naples For a more detailed examination, however, I take advantage of the many user-submitted photographs, visible on satellite view as hundreds of small picture icons, provided via Panoramio and 360 Cities. The 360° panoramic photographs are denoted in the Google Earth image by red photo icons, and the one shown above was taken from the cliff edge on the Sorrento waterfront. It was the first photo view I looked at and once you have familiarised yourself with the controls - clicking the "Full Screen" view will make it easier - pan the image down and to the left and zoom in to see what I discovered at the base of the cliff. Panning to the right, by the way, will give you a view of Mount Vesuvius in the distance across the Bay of Naples.

Changing huts at Marina San Francisco, Sorrento Image © Richard Hart & courtesy of 360 Cities

I was a little surprised to see that the wooden boardwalk and changing huts, or at least ones very much like those in the photo, are still there, albeit with a few more licks of paint.

Sorrento by the sea, Naples, Italy, c.1890-1900 Photocrom print no. 1829, by Detroit Publishing Company Image courtesy of Library of Congress

One of the earliest photographic views that I've been able to find of the Sorrento waterfont is this Photochrom print from the 1890s, which reveals a vista remarkably free of tourist paraphernalia. Presumably the well-heeled late Victorian visitors preferred not to venture too far from unber the shady awnings of the hotel balconies at the top of the cliff.

Hotel Tramontano e Casa del Tasso, Sorrento, c.1900-1905 Colourised postcard published by E. Ragozino, Galleria Umberto-Napoli

Roughly ten years later, judging by this postcard published in Naples, the first "bathing houses," rather more grand than the ones which we see today, had appeared.

Sorrento - Spiaggia e Hotel Tramontano, c.1915-1925 Colourised postcard by unidentified publisher

In the next decade or two, swimming in the sea and promenading along the shore show considerable gains in popularity, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of piers and bathing huts in this postcard, which although undated I'm guessing is from the late 1910s or early 1920s.

Hotel Tramontano - Sorrento, dated 26 Feb 1929 Colourised postcard (painting) by unidentified publisher

The nationalistic fervour pervading 1929 Italy, then firmly in the grip of Mussolini's one-party Fascist state and not yet tempered by the onset of the Depression, is clearly displayed by the prominent Italian flags shown flying atop the Hotel Tramontana. His spending on a massive public works programme, together with treaties with the Roman Catholic Church, resulting in the creation of the Vatican State, had brought him to the height of his popularity. Mount Vesuvius, as if in agreement, issues a column of steam, smoke and ash in the background.

Sorrento - La spiaggia e Hotel Sirene, dated 1 June, PM 3 June 1950 B/W postcard, publ. Vincenzo Carcavello, Via S. Baldacchini 29 - Napoli

Although from more than two decades later the detail from this 1950 black-and-white postcard is probably very close to what the shoreline development looked in those heady pre-Depression, pre-War years. When our young German family - I assume German but they could well have been Austrian, for example - visited Sorrento in July 1929, the Weimar Republic was experiencing a period of political stability and economic recovery under the very able Foreign Minister Gustave Stresemann. After the Wall Street crash commonly known as Black Tuesday in October that year, US loans vital to the German economy were recalled and unemployment soared, ultimately contributing to the achievement of another totalitarian, one-party Fascist state by Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1932 (Wikipedia). I suspect that our family would not have returned to Sorrento the following year!

"Sorrento - Strand 08.05.06" Image © Heike11 and courtesy of Panoramio

"Beach in Sorrento" (Hotel Tramontano at top left) Image © bingram and courtesy of Panoramio

"Sorrento, beach" Image © Sugár and courtesy of Panoramio
These three images, all from Panoramio contributers, probably give one a good sense of the modern day tourist experience. Need I say more?