We visited it in childhood, us six kids packed into the 'Black Maria' (actually a Holden), and reshaped the shoreline with our endless sandcastles. We hooned down there a decade later to find it little changed. And so on through the years, escaping the city for this favoured place in the sun, reeking of history and saturated in beauty.
The timeless landscape is still there, with its gnarled and tortured treeforms. The solid, gracious limestone buildings still stand. The Walk of the Rich & Famous still meanders along the cliff top.
Panoramas of the shoreline still bear a startling resemblance to its Italian namesake.
The shopping is still truly magnificent, with antiques and stylish goodies to delight even the chronically jaded palate.Yet sky-high rates seem to be doing more to desecrate the landscape than anything else, with land sold off to within metres of dwellings, and the sounds of quickly rising new developments, built right to the boundary, echoing from daybreak to sunset.
Is this the new suburbia? Huge, tightly packed weekenders around the fringes of the country?The Portsea–Sorrento Artists' Walk poises paintings by well-known artists on strategic viewpoints. But the selection criteria allow only artists who are part of certain collections, meaning their stay in Sorrento was usually only for a short time while painting. If an artist lived here and painted the place, it doesn't count. That's sad, I reckon.
