Escape to Sorrento, Victoria’s answer to the glitz and glam of the Amalfi Coast

Not to be confused with the Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi coast, but almost just as glamorous, Sorrento in Victoria is a beachside beauty.

Over the years it has garnered a reputation as a holiday haunt popular with Melbourne’s most wealthy, attracting names such as billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox.

Alongside Portsea, with which it shares a decades-long affiliation and quiet rivalry, Sorrento is well known as a place for rich-listers to escape the city’s hustle and bustle. Late last year a clifftop mansion sold there for a reported, and staggering, $25.5 million.

But the median price for a four-bedroom house is, thankfully, a lot cheaper at $1.885 million.

The town’s main attraction is its proximity to the sparkling waters of Port Phillip Bay, followed closely by its historical buildings dating back to 1875 – many of them built in sandstone.

With such a cashed-up demographic, particularly during its summer peaks when the population swells dramatically, the local boutiques are high-end and the restaurants gourmet.

But that’s not the whole story. Sorrento is also home to a permanent population of down-to-earth hospitality workers, tradies, teachers and retired people who simply love life by the beach.

Population: 1592 as of 2016 census.

Who lives there?

Bridget Pitt grew up at Sorrento and now runs the Hotel Sorrento, which her parents  Rob and Anne purchased back in 1981 when it was operating as a Chinese restaurant. Pitt works alongside her brothers Myles and Marcus in managing the hotel, which any visitor to the bayside town will know from its clifftop position overlooking the water.

The hotel has a strong following with locals and Melburnians who own and rent holiday houses at Sorrento. Throughout summer, and just about every long weekend, the place is pumping.

There’s the odd raffle on Fridays and Saturdays, but Thursdays are when the locals come out to play.

“We call it Thirsty Thursdays – I think dad came up with that – and it’s typically a popular night with the locals,” Pitt said.

“Given there is that influx of holidaymakers on Friday and Saturday, you’ll find the locals’ favourite night is Thursday.”

Like many locals, Pitt left Sorrento to study at university, live in Melbourne and travel overseas. But she said the pull of beachside living was always going to bring her back.

“It’s amazing the volume of people moving back to the Peninsula because they realise the lifestyle is just so good,” she said.

“There’s a great community feel here. A lot of people just think it’s Sorrento in that peak period of Boxing Day and the second week of Jan when it just heaves, and the locals often hibernate in that period.

“The rest of the year it’s really superb, you’re on a first-name basis with all the people that live in the area. It’s a very welcoming town, it’s gorgeous.”

What happens there?

Sorrento capitalises on the heavy volume of visitors in summer with the Sorrento Bay Swim, a major fundraiser for the local surf life-saving club. This year’s event was cancelled due to COVID, but the club will soon announce a date for 2022.

The local sailing and golf clubs are also active during summer, along with polo at nearby Portsea. But when winter comes along, it’s all about football in Sorrento.

The Sorrento Sharks Football Club has played in 11 of the last 13 grand finals and, astoundingly, won seven of them.

Unsurprisingly, the club enjoys a strong following. The recent home match on the Easter long weekend attracted about 3000 spectators, said club vice-president Anthony Ring.

“The footy club becomes a winter hub and a lot of the locals mingle with the holiday people who are chipping their money into the club,” he said.

“The main thing is, every home game there’s a massive luncheon and that rolls into watching the senior football and then, after the game, drinks and everything.

“Most of the time they’re all 60- to 70-year-old people, so they’ve had a skinful by six o’clock, they roll home and have a cup of soup and hit the sack.”

The sharks have three senior teams and between six and eight juniors teams. Blairgowrie local and Melbourne Football Club captain Max Gawn comes to training most weeks to help out.

While the club has no problems with fund-raising thanks to many high-rolling sponsors, it struggles for players.

“We don’t have a high school and the more expensive it gets to live in Sorrento, obviously parents and their kids are moving further away,” Ring said.

“In the seniors, there’s maybe half a dozen players who live in Sorrento. So we struggle with numbers, but we are lucky to have this economic demographic we can tap into thanks to a lot of guys and girls who have done well for themselves.”

What’s life like?

After the summer crowds have eased, locals emerge from their semi-hibernation to enjoy their seaside town’s quieter periods. They enjoy bike rides and hikes at beautiful Point Nepean, the national park that sits at the very tip of the peninsula.

Millionaire’s Walk along Sorrento’s clifftop is another popular walking trail, thanks to its views of the jaw-dropping mansions on the land side and views out to the Bellarine Peninsula, Melbourne and Mount Dandenong on the bay side.

Sorrento is all about the beach, and this is what initially attracted Jane Wright when she bought a holiday house there. A year ago she decided to move there permanently.

“It’s great to be able to get up and go for a walk on the beach in the morning and start the day all fresh and enthusiastic as opposed to getting up and walking around the streets of Melbourne,” she said.

“It’s a nicer way of life, it’s a good lifestyle. You’ve got that fresh air, you’ve got the beach.”

Wright is the president of the Sorrento Surf Life Saving Club, which came about after enrolling her daughter in the Nippers program more than a decade ago.

“I enrolled her in Nippers to meet people and to make friends, but also to get a really good understanding of the beach and how to survive in the surf at Sorrento,” she said.

“It’s a safe beach, but it does have a few quirks. And I’m not a swimmer, so I was looking for some other way to be involved in the club and ended up joining the committee.”

What jobs are there?

A lot of the work in Sorrento is seasonally, particularly in the hospitality industry. However, Melbourne is just an hour’s drive away, so many workers commute in and out of the CBD easily enough.

Tradespeople have a good amount of work locally and along the peninsula, and account for 5 per cent of Sorrento’s workers, according to the 2016 Census.

Why should you move there?

Tina Arena’s Sorrento Moon is about her youth and family holidays spent in this holiday town. So many people have made incredible memories there and, for those who choose to stay there, continue to do so.