You’ve heard of the food taunt? Even people who aren’t really foodies talk about this. You take your camera to a restaurant, you take a photo of the tastiest aspects of your meal, you post it on the internet or message it to your follow food-taunters and hope to inspire jealousy. I know of two guys who are oyster connoisseurs who can’t eat the things without food-taunting the other … from around the world.

Anyway, I don’t mean this to be a “scenery taunt,” but I fear it could be perceived that way.

We just happen to be staying at a ridiculously nice place with an amazing view, in mild, late-May Campanian temperatures and … well, the truth is the truth.

As anyone who has rented a place sight-unseen (even if they have links to photos of the place posted by the owners/managers) … you can’t really be sure what you’re getting until you are on the premises.

I mean, a clever photographer can make Barstow or the Bronx look like Eden.

This place, however,  looks like its photos. Except more so.

But before I rave about our good luck (and that’s what a lot of it is; luck, along with exhaustive planning by Leah) … let’s back up and describe how we got here because this is turning into a travel diary, mostly, for the two weeks we are  in Italy.

So, we started the day outside Rome … and below the flight path of jets coming into Da Vinci  airport. Place was fine, as long as you remembered, during the busy times of the day, to put your conversation on “pause” as the next 747 thundered past about 1,000 feet up.

Into the Fiat station wagon, on the road. Marvin in the navigator seat, armed with an enormous, Thomas Bros.-style road map of Italy.

I am reminded that in several European countries, particularly those with good mass transit, Saturday is not a slack day on the freeways (or autostradas, as we know them here), it is a heavy day. People, families, wedding parties, out and about and crowding the roads.

There was a time, 20-plus years ago, when I considered the Italians to be maniac drivers. Ha. That was before I spent four months in Hong Kong and going on eight months in Abu Dhabi, where driving is a contact sport.

So, even though I was driving a vehicle for the first extended period since last October … and even though it was a six-speed stick — and I haven’t had the pleasure of driving a stick in years — and even though the Fiat was a little sluggish with four people and their luggage aboard … it wasn’t that bad. Not at all.

Two lanes almost all the way. That’s how Italy rolls.  Same as in the U.S. on its interstate system, though. Only a few guys in sports cars suddenly appearing in my mirror doing 120 mph … only a few random lane-straddling incidents and, uh, interesting merges by large vehicles.

About 300 kilometers later (about 180 miles) we were at our turnoff for the Sorrento Peninsula. Actually, we were past it, which Leah spotted fairly quickly, thank goodness. Otherwise we might have reached Sicily a full week early. Off the autostrada, into a parking spot outside a cheese shop (Leah promptly marched in and bought some mozzarella; I mean, we were there, and it’s Italy.) and a consultation of the map. Yes, we had overshot. We would work our way back north on the A3 for a bit to get to the turnoff for all things on this peninsula, which forms the southern half of the Bay of Naples.

(Oh and just a word about Napoli. Haven’t been in the city since the semifinals of the 1990 World Cup, but my daughter lived and worked there a decade ago and described a dangerous, decrepit and dirty place (and she likes Naples) and if the road is any indication, nothing has changed. The city may be in its third or fourth year of a garbage strike, and the roads suddenly are a mess,  and guys were trying to sell us stuff at the toll booth (cost us about $25 for the pleasure of using the roads) … random stuff, like charm bracelets, pirated DVDs (I can’t imagine they were legit) … and I was reminded of Tijuana, and of the northern Italian dictum that “Africa begins south of Rome.” Well, anyway, we had a Third World moment there. Which we were to soon shake off.

So, back to the road, we find the correct turnoff, and then we’re up in the hills. Imagine Rim of the World Highway (you SoCal folks), and that’s what it was like, except that instead of the San Bernardino Valley below us to the right … it was the Tyrrhenian Sea. Through little towns, narrow lanes, hoping not to side-swipe anyone …

Now it gets tricky. We have forgotten to print out the directions to where we are going. We know it is in the area of Sorrento. That, we can find. But we have been driving for three hours now, and the crew is beginning to get hungry and vaguely mutinous. We are planning to push on through, but complications arise. The lack of a map. The lack of a phone that gets a clear signal. We can’t even call the caretaker who is waiting for us … somewhere ahead.

Finally, we stop in a square a bit short of Sorrento, and we make a connection. Keep coming on Corso Italia (the road we are on), and turn left at the hospital (ospedale). About four kilometers.

We do all that … and we’ve gone about five kilometers …  and we have no idea where we’re going and we don’t see a guy in the street waving at us. For lack of anything else to do, I drove the Fiat up the steep driveway to what looked like a substantial hotel. Basically, somewhere to park for a moment and let Leah — whose grasp of Italian is quite good considering she never studied it, only Spanish and French — jump out to go in to look for 1) someone who can give directions to an address we don’t have or 2) perhaps use a phone or get some decent reception on our mobiles, and call the caretaker.

She ends up being helped at the front desk by “Roberta” inside of what turns out to be a four-star hotel. The woman is extremely nice, solicitous, helpful — as if we are staying there instead of just washing up at the front door as direction-beggars. She calls the caretaker, they establish firm and specific directions … and we find him about five minutes later up the road, in front of the church at Massa Lubrense, the little village in which we actually are staying. Past Sorrento. Here is some basic info on the place. Mostly, it is a small town on a wide space in the hills. Most people live on terraces hacked into the cliffs dropping down to the sea. And here is a sort of self-congratulatory entry on the city/region from italia.com.

More about the town later. But for now … the view. Back to where we began. Finally.

Lorenzo, the caretaker, led us to the place — La Rosa dei venti villas — and showed us around and, oh, yes, this is nice.

The photo above is taken from the terrace. In the distance is the island of Capri, of women’s pants and Blue Grotto fame. Below us is the tiny breakwater in three pieces for the tiny beach.

It is a spectacular view. Have to admit. No taunt. Just fact.

The house is well-laid out. It runs parallel to the water, and is only about 30 feet deep … but about 60 long, and the terrace runs nearly the length of the place. Aside from the little living room with a TV. (May even watch some of that!). The rest of the house is a series of four bedrooms … a single, two doubles, and a fourth room with two twin beds. Sleeps seven! Two bathrooms. Three of the bedrooms open onto the terrace to let breezes and the sounds of the sea and birds in. Oh, and full kitchen, with dishwasher.

As nice as the inside of the place is, the terrace is the key here. It not only is long and furnished with a table (we will eat dinner here more than once) … it is covered from end to end by a terracotta roof.  Because, presumably, when we get into serious vacation season in this neck of the peninsula — July and August — the sun will be intense and sitting on the breeze-cooled terrace with a roof over your head will be heaven.

So far, we have sat on the terrace and had some white wine and watched the sun lowering somewhere out over the water (we face west) … and listened to the gentle swish of the sea ebbing onto the rocky shore, and back out.

Right now, I am looking out over the water, with a gentle zephyr in my face and background music of chirping birds and mild surf. Writing is a chore because I just want to soak in the environment.

This is one of those events where you don’t even have to force yourself — unless you’re a spoiled tycoon, or something — to stop and say, “Wow, are we lucky.”

Temps are in the middle 70s, the sun is out but not punishing and so far it has been more than we hoped for. And yes, we are quite thankful we have ended up where we did.