Italy wrapup
Home again. 11 days was the perfect length, we loved the trip and are glad to be home.
Leaving Amalfi, we climbed seemingly straight up to get over the mountain. The trip to Naples is only about 30 miles, but it takes about an hour and half. It’s a seriously beautiful hour and a half; driving the tiny, curvy roads is a challenge sometimes well justified by the views and the tiny towns you pass through–many of which, except for the satellite dishes, could easily be backdrops for a WWII movie.
Getting into Naples, we lost data connection on the iPhones and spent 45 minutes driving in circles trying to find the Marriott Renaissance hotel. We only drove down a pedestrian street once. Google Maps has been a disappointment this trip; the next time we go I’ll have a better system in place. There are standalone apps for the iPad which don’t need a data connection to work, and that’s the way to go, I think.
The hotel recommended a local restaurant for dinner. The food was decent and the facility was intriguing:
A panoramic photo of the entirety of this tiny restaurant.
The place was miniscule; we certainly needed our reservation. There were a couple of outsides tables in the front, people were sitting there waiting for a table to open up. The food was excellent, the service was pretty good considering how crammed in everyone was. It was only a 2 block walk from the hotel, just right to settle our dinner before bedtime.
Leaving Naples the next day for the airport hotel, the granddaughters wanted to stop at an outlet mall. Yep, just like in Pleasanton or Gilroy, Vacaville or Santa Rosa, the outlet mall has entered the Italian landscape. First, we had to get out of Naples, which was much easier than getting in. I thought one of the buildings we passed was worth photographing;
The way the people live.
This was more of a working class apartment house, along a major artery with the worst paving I’ve ever seen in a first world country.
Thirty minutes later, we arrived. This mall was like a combination of Las Vegas and Disneyland. Many of the very same stores you would see at home, with the same merchandise. A few special differences made it interesting.
The entry sign in English.
Everything clean and open. Not much traffic on a Monday.
What would an outlet mall be without Polo?
If the world seems to be getting smaller, it may just be because of the spread of outlet malls. Walking down the clean, open arcades, you would be hard pressed to know whether you were in Kentucky or Campagnia. There just isn’t much here that says “Italy”.
Okay, here’s one difference:
A rack of cigarettes behind the counter at a diner.
There is more smoking in Italy than in California, to be sure. The restaurants have ash trays on the tables, there are more people smoking on the street, and you can buy smokes without being made to feel like a criminal.
Another American import
In truth, there isn’t much here for us. Most of these stores are American brands selling clothes made in Bangladesh, and subject to a 21% VAT and a ghastly exchange rate with the dollar. The prices are quite a bit higher than they are right here–who needs to come 6000 miles to spend more?
Surprisingly, the best deal we found was on a pair of ladies pants in the exceedingly upscale Prada store. We passed on the €125 baby shoes, but Demi only paid €30 for some very cool trousers.
The pants are in the bag–the lace shorts came from Positano.
Here’s a store you won’t see around here:
Perhaps Senator McCarthy was right.
Another store I don’t need to travel to Italy to visit.
The art there is good.
Shopping completed, we drove the last 2 hours to the airport Hilton, ready for our flight home at 11:15 the next morning. Hah.
At 4 am my phone rang–it was American Airlines telling me our flight had been delayed until 1:30. At 4:01, the phone rang again because Brad and Kate had a different reservation locator, with my phone number on both.
At 5 am, the same drill, pushing the flight back another hour.
At 6 am, the same again. The flight was now scheduled for 3:30.
At noon, we headed to the airport for our now 3:30 flight. The security theater was particularly idiotic, they were asking the same silly questions we used to endure 13 years ago: Did you pack your own bags? Did anyone give you a package? Have your bags been out of your control? Ridiculous. Then the security line was long and slow. Then they asked us the same stupid questions AGAIN before we could get on the plane, which finally departed at 4 pm.
Killing time in the airport.
Landing in Chicago at 7, we did not expect to make our 8:10 flight home. Indeed, American had already booked us on the 7:20 flight the next morning and issued hotel and meal vouchers. But God was on our side, or something. There was no line at immigration. Our bags came off the conveyor faster than I have ever seen, and we sailed through customs. The American re-booking desk was incredibly efficient, and put us on the evening flight. We raced to the train for the next terminal, skated through security again with no line, and were in our seats on the new flight 41 minutes after we landed. That’s some kind of miracle that will never happen again.
One more thing: Gail left her iPhone on the counter at rebooking, a fact she noticed just as we were going into the security check in the next terminal. She was mildly distraught until she heard someone calling her–it was the agent from the rebooking desk, who had found the phone and raced after us to return it. I take back at least 23% of the bad things I’ve ever said about airline personnel, this guy was great.
Our trip was a huge success. I think the lasting impression will be the beauty of the cities terraced into the stone cliffs of the Amalfi coast, and the freshness and texture of the phenomenal tomatoes we enjoyed with every meal. The weather wasn’t what you might want, but I can see sun anytime here in California, the lightning and thunder over the Mediterranean were a treat.
Stay tuned for the next adventure.
Camped out in Rome
Here are Gail and Kate in the Alitalia lounge in Leonard daVinci airport in Rome.
We were supposed to leave at 11 this morning, but at 4 AM my phone started ringing with the news that our plane would be delayed. At Five there was another another call with a further delay. At six it was another delay. Not only do we not have our flight, but they don’t want me to sleep either.
Security theater was very, very slow. The system is just poorly design and implemented. They began by asking us the same stupid questions they asked in the states 10 years ago. Nobody has ever given me anything to take with me, and I don’t expect they ever will.
Like the well-trained sheep we are, most people took off their shoes, although there is no such requirement in Italy. Belts also came off for no reason what so ever. Just the habits our security apparatus has created.
Once inside the terminal, we enjoyed a free lunch courtesy of the airline. Then we managed to sneak Brad and Kate into the airline lounge while where we are currently waiting for our long-delayed plane.
It looks very unlikely that we will make our connecting flight in Chicago, so we are looking forward to seeing what the airport Hilton looks like. That’s presuming the airline doesn’t try to put us up in the Motel Six.
Travel is always an adventure; some adventures are more exciting than others. At least we are in a lounge where the drinks are free and the little canapé are tasty. Life is good.
Two steps forward, one step back
My grandmother, and every woman in the family before her back into history, hung her washing on a line. There wasn’t any other option
My mother had a dryer, although she often chose to use the outdoor line because she like the way the clothes smelled when air dried.
So here we are, in the 21st century, living a hyper modern life jetting around the world and communicating on the internet from anywhere, and how do you dry clothes in this “luxury” apartment?
A modern indoor clothes drying rack
Yep, here in Italy, the home of Versace and Ferrari, the mecca of design, apartments still don’t have dryers because they take up too much space and use too much electricity. You get a folding, plastic rack to air dry your clothes.
Three years ago in Ethiopia it took me two days to get my laundry back because it had to dry on the line, and here I’m having the very same situation–a pair of jean takes forever to dry, especially indoors where you can’t get much breeze.
I suppose my grandmother would think the folding rack was a great invention. I wonder what she did in rainy weather?
What is Happenning in Istanbul?
One of my friends posted this on Facebook this morning. All stories have at least two side, this is the side I haven’t been able to read online in the press.
Trattoria da Ciccio
Dinner last night at the Trattoria da Ciccio, an excellent fine dining experience about two mile north of Amalfi.
The trattoria was founded as a roadhouse in 1918, and is still operated by the same family. Today that means three brothers, great grandsons of the founder, are in charge, but papa is still around.
In fact, it was papa himself who picked us up–yes, in this tourist area fine restaurants will come get you and bring you home. Since there are 6 of us, they had to send 2 cars to do the job, and the boss himself was driving the very nice Lancia sedan we got to ride in.
Walking on the bridge to the trattoria
Making our reservation, we had asked for a table with a view. Since the building, clinging to the side of the hill and built out cantilever style, is all glass, that was easy for them to accommodate. Our 8 pm reservation was on the early side, and we had the corner table. Sadly, the bad weather limited the view but we didn’t much care–the food was spectacular.
I thought I’d start with a Bellini, but the peaches weren’t up to snuff for the chef, so he didn’t buy them. Instead I had champagne and fresh, wild strawberries, which was a very able substitute, if not quite as sweet as I would like.
The strawberry version of a Bellini
We chose as an appetizer to have the baby octopus, which was certainly different. The little beggars were cooked in a tomato broth, and were, in not something to rave about, something to remember and talk about. They taste pretty much like calamari, as one would expect. Sort of like eating escargot, the best part was dipping your bread in the sauce.
Ndunderi, a heavy, dumpling like pasta, served over pumpkin puree with crispy leeks
I tried the ndunderi, which is apparently a local specialty, and liked it. The pasta is not like anything you will experience in the states–it is large and heavy and more like gnocchi than spaghetti. The pumpkin is sweet and refreshing, while the crispy leeks give a boost to the texture and a bite to the sweetness.
Gail and Brad both had the house specialty, a dish they have been serving since 1965:
The specialty of the house, spaghetti and clams in parchment served tableside
The spaghetti is cooked, placed in the parchment with clams, olives, capers, oil and wine, then baked. The clams cook, and the flavors all mix and mingle. They bring the entire package out to the table and open it for you there:
Two portions
This dish takes spaghetti con vongole to entirely new heights. When they open the parchment package the room fills with the aroma of the clams and olives, and every bite brings all the flavors together. It is a magnificent invention.
Sea Bream
The fish that came out of the sea this morning was bream, so that was the nightly special. Kate and Chloe shared this one. The entire fish is presented to the table, then the waiter filets and de-bones it for serving.
An interesting touch of grace:
A fish fork
The three of us who had fish received these forks, with outward facing tines the better to hold the flaky fish. Of such small touches is a great restaurant made.
Slow cooked cod over cherry tomato with a celery infused foam
So here modern meets classical. Chloe and Demi have been enjoying the “crazy water” fish–poached in wine, water, cherry tomatoes and spices. Chef Marco has re-invented that dish, serving cod cooked, I think, sous-vide, which can be quite salty, over the tomato “jam”, topped with the celery foam. It was excellent, the mixing of the sweet and the salty was perfectly balanced.
We all had so much to eat there was no discussion of dessert, but the house brought out fresh wild mulberries anyway, and a trio of house made liqueurs–limoncello, an apple liqueur and a melon/cream liqueur. The limoncello was far to tart for me, and at 32% alcohol too strong. The apple did nothing for me. The melon/cream, on the other hand, was heaven in a shot glass.
The house made meloncream liqueur
Like biting into a perfectly fresh cantaloupe, this was just delightful. They keep these bottles in the freezer, along with the shot glasses, so everything is frigid cold, fresh and beautiful. I could get addicted to this stuff, but I don’t think I’ll ever see it in BevMo.
The meal over, we shook hands with all the brothers and papa drove us home. Life is good.
The Cathedral of Amalfi
If you go to Europe, you have to see the cathedrals, that’s part of the rules. And you have to buy a tee shirt. These are just the basics of tourism. I bought the tee shirt in Positano, so today we saw the cathedral.
Amalfi may be a small town, but it has a big cathedral with a major attraction–the head and other bones of St. Andrew, one of the original apostles. Why somebody’s bones are important is beyond me, but there you have it.
In any event, we climbed the many steps up from the town square, paid our €3 entry fee and went in.
First off, you enter the coloister, which was the cemetery for the town nobles and was built between 1266 and 1268. The second you round the corner, all the noise of the city drops away, and you are very much in a quiet, contemplative space.
The cloister. There are 120 columns in the Moorish style
Surrounding the cloister are some of the more important sarcophagi, dating back as far as the 2nd century, still beautiful with their marble carving. I wonder what art of our age will survive 1900 years from now.
From the cloister, you visit the old basilica, which has been turned into a museum, but I didn’t find it all that intriguing. Then you descend into the crypt of Saint Andrew:
The altar of St Andrew, the sculpture was created by a student of Michelangelo
The crypt of Saint Andrew is the heart of the cathedral, and by far the most beautiful part. The enormous bronze sculpture, weighing approximately 800 kg (1750 pounds), was created by Michelangelo Naccherino, a student of that other guy named Michelangelo.
The ceilings in this room are all adorned with frescoes.
Ceiling in the Crypt of Saint Andrew
Notice the non-ornate stained glass window.
I’m sure an art historian could do a semester class just on this room, it is entirely worth the visit to the cathedral.
One of the walls
Climbing up out of the crypt, you finally enter the cathedral itself. Having visited the great cathedrals in Paris and Cologne, I was expecting the hugely overcooked decorations of the baroque era, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Amalfi is much more sedate, yet still exquisite.
The main altar of the cathedral.
Stepping out of the church, we had an excellent view of the town square and the mountain behind it:
Amalfi town square. Gail and Brad are huddled in the doorway under the striped awning.
Just as we started down the long steep stairs to the square, it began to pour. The weather on this trip has been exciting, to say the least. Another day of thunderstorms and downpours just adds to the adventure.
Positano again
Back to Positano again; Chloe bought some pants yesterday, they needed to be shortened, and we went to pick them up.
Chloe and “the pants”
I think those are some seriously cool pants, but it doesn’t really bother me that they don’t come in my size.
Go to town, eat lunch. What else would you do? We peeked and poked at a number of eateries, and settled on the Hotel Palazzo, a very snazzy establishment with a lovely outdoor dining area.
A jasmine scented arbor perfect for dining al fresco.
I’ve never passed up pasta al pesto in my live, and surely wasn’t going to start here.
Notice the curly basil on the top.
I’m accustomed to the flat-leaf basil, and indeed that is what we have mostly had here. But there is apparently another variety, this curly leaf stuff. It tastes much more minty that one is accustomed to. This is something the restaurant grows onsite in its excellent gardens.
Basil doesn’t get any fresher than this.
The gardens are more extensive than just basil:
Fresh tomatoes, vegetables and herbs
The thyme is grown in sculpture:
Just one of many sculpture/planter boxes
My aunt Mildred, considered the best cook in the family, made her spaghetti with clams with canned clams and people still loved it. They use the real thing here, which looks great although Gail thought the clams too “clammy”.
Spaghetti con vongole done right
Diet Coke is called Coke Light in Europe, but it’s still my drink of choice:
It just looks better this way
A tourist town invariably has art galleries, and most of the time you get to look at kitschy junk. Positano, though, has some galleries with serious, high-quality pieces we would be proud to own. This is the one I liked enough to ask the price:
Sculpture by Mathias Verginer
Who wouldn’t want a sculpture of a naked fat lady on top of a zebra striped elephant? Gail and I both wanted to take this one home, but it was €9,100, or about $11,800. It’s still there if you are interested, that’s way out of our budget.
Gail doesn’t care for “souvenirs”, but it’s OK to bring home a “remembrance”. My remembrance is these new shoes Gail saw in a window:
Not quite like Chloe’s pants, but they work for me.
That was enough fun for one day. The drive back went faster with my fancy new driving shoes, and we were home in time for an online bridge tournament and a nap. I’d hate to miss my nap. Dinner was at home, and we enjoyed an enormous thunder and lightning storm over the Mediterranean while we ate tomatoes and cheese and rigatoni and crusty Italian bread. Life is good.
Italy in miniature
Driving along the coast northward from Amalfi towards Positano, you pass through the tiny burg of Praiano. Just before you get there, on the uphill side of the road, in a wide spot where you can pull off, is a miniature version in ceramic.
There are a number of these miniatures in this area, but this is the largest and most interesting.
A panorama of the entire city
The miniature city is both accurate and complete. There is a plaque from the artist:
The artist Michele Castellano taking credit for the installation
The town church
The houses along the cliffs–they really look like this
The climate here is much like California, with hot, dry summers. Cactus grows quite a bit in this area.
More of the city buildings
The arbors and trellises here are all made from hard, straight wood, just the way it looks here.
Cliff house detail
High and to the right of the construction is a Nativity Scene, just because we’re in Italy. There is a donation box to assist in the maintenance, naturally.
Ceramics have been important in this area for 3000 years; the clay here must be just right. There are many ceramic factories where you can get a set of dishes custom made, or invest in “art” or serving platters or huge ceramic tables which would be great on the patio. I think it’s interesting that local artists do these miniatures not for profit but for the love of their art.
Positano
Postcard photo, much better than I was able to take
Positano is perhaps the most picturesque city in all of Italy, and it is about 30 km north of where we are staying. This whole coastline consists of solid rock sticking straight out of the Mediterranean, with houses and farms cut directly into the stone. Positano is an incredibly densely populated little place on an extremely steep part of the shore. There appears to be only 1 road, and it is 1 way–you start at the top and loop around the city and back up. If you miss your stop you have to go all the way back around again.
The only road in town, lined by shops with the pedestrian walkway on the side
This is absolutely a tourist mecca, designed to handle a daily influx of thousands by land and by sea. There are seemingly thousands of shops, selling souvenirs, clothing, wine, art, candles and ceramics.
The agriculture in this area, which is marvelously terraced into the rock, is mostly lemons. Rich, large, fragrant lemons, from which is made limoncello, a bitter/sweet liqueur. Ceramics are big here (is there good clay, I wonder?), which leads to much tableware decorated with lemons–it all fits together. Flax must grow nearby, because linen is an important industry, and many of the dress shops feature lovely linen dresses produced entirely locally.
The local linen all in natural colors
A rack of linen shirts
The shops use the local trees as sales racks:
The tree trunk enhances the natural colors and texture of the shorts
One of the granddaughters, because I like the photo:
Chloe
In a place with tiny streets and high fuel prices (I paid $8.50/gallon for diesel, which is cheaper than gasoline here), lots of people ride scooters, but that doesn’t keep them from taking their pets along:
The pup likes riding there
We saw an interesting way to sell shirts–the hangars show you what you will look like with the shirt on:
The chest hair may be optional. Photo by Kate Masiello
We had some time before dinner, so Brad, Gail and I stopped into a very nice restaurant for a glass of wine. They weren’t really open because at 5:30 in the afternoon no self respecting restaurant is open. The owner, though, was more than willing to accommodate us, and glasses of wine and Coca lite appeared. Then a plate with bread, cheese and salami. Then a plate of the incredible local olives, which seem to have almost no brine taste. All the little noshes were courtesy of the house, that’s just the way they do things here. It was lovely.
Dinner was an adventure. Kate found a well-recommended restaurant in TripAdvisor, but it was way, way up the hill, and we were parked in a lot in the middle of the town. Not to worry, they pick up and deliver–we just had to be in front of the Farmacia (pharmacy) at 6:30, and a van picked us up and drove us 3 or 4 miles over the usual tiny, twisting streets to a community high up in the hills where our restaurant, Il Ritrovo (the hangout), sat overlooking the ocean, but not the great view of the city that was promised.
The food was spectacular, but the lighting precluded photos. They started by bringing us complimentary champagne and bruschetta. The girls had more fish in crazy water; they have decided to go on a search for the best crazy water in Italy. I had pasta with walnut cream sauce, Gail had lamb and Kate had a rump steak. The fish was crazy good, the meats were cooked perfectly medium rare, my pasta was excellent and Brad’s pasta was so good he liked it more with each bite. We finished with cannoli, (“Leave the gun, take the cannoli”, I immediately thought) and tiramisu. Everything was excellent: this place deserves it’s TripAdvisor rating.
During dinner, it started to rain heavily, and we were in a building with clear plastic, roll-up sides (which were down, thankfully) so we could really enjoy the pounding sound of the water. Then it cleared in time for us to walk to the car that returned us to town.
Getting our cars back was a small challenge–Kate couldn’t find her ticket from the parking lot and they didn’t want to release the car without it. Fortunately the rental papers were in the glove box so she could prove that we were entitled to that little Fiat, and home we drove.
You can’t go home for the first time
Tom Wolfe said you can’t go home again, I didn’t have all that much fun going “home”, where my grandparents came from, for the first time.
San Demetrio Corone is quite a bit south of Amalfi, situated in the instep of the boot, high in the hills bordering the Ionian Sea. Just getting from our apartment to the freeway is a slow trudge, 20 km of narrow winding road that took 45 minutes to traverse.
Once on the A3, the main north/south freeway in Italy, things speeded up, a lot. With no speed limits that anyone can discern, I was moving along at 140 to 175 km/hr, which is 85 to 105 mph. That little BMW we rented makes the most of its diesel motor. Google maps in my iPhone announce the turns and we were having a great time.
This would have been easy, but there was a 30km stretch where the road went down to 1 lane because they are completely rebuilding it. There are many, many tunnels here as the road slices through the mountains, and the Italians are not just remodeling the old ones, they are building brand new, wider, beautifully lit tunnels to match the new, wider, smoother roads. This is a multi-billion Euro project, in a bankrupt nation. At least they don’t have to waste any money on a defense budget, the USA takes care of that, don’t ask me why.
Then came the turnoff from the freeway, and things went straight downhill. The phone couldn’t get a signal in the boonies, and I had no idea how to find the tiny burg we were headed to. I’d drive this way for a while, then ask somebody, who didn’t speak English. Much pointing, and I’d drive the other way for a while. No maps available in the gas stations. I don’t handle frustration well. Gail was getting hungry. This had definitely stopped being fun.
Finally, in one of the larger of the little towns we stumbled into, I got a signal on Gail’s phone and found our way. 12 km up a narrow road we arrived at this:
You won’t guess the second language here, but “Shen Miter” is the name of the town.
It turns out the most of the residents here are bilingual–they speak Arbëreshë, a dialect of Albanian maintained from the time in the 1400’s when Albanians fleeing the Ottoman invasion emigrated to Italy. My father’s first language was Albanian, learned from his grandmother until he was 4; now I understand the background.
I had great romantic hopes of a quaint, romantic village in the hills with a cozy town square where we could eat lunch. Not to be.
We had a nice lunch, where the waitress spoke good English, but that’s because she was educated in Germany. I never really found much of a town square. I was hoping for old buildings and narrow streets, and found a few, but mostly found more modern apartments. San Demetrio is a town of 3000 people in the winter and 7000 in the summer, when it fills with tourists taking a slow month of their generous European vacation time.
I found one square, with a WWI monument:
Notice that there isn’t much happening. I think that’s the norm. This is the definition of a sleepy little village.
Some kind of municipal building, I think.
I just like the sculpture in front:
Poseidon? An Albanian king? I have no idea and there was no plaque.
I saw one large church, so I stopped in. To my surprise, it wasn’t a Catholic church but rather Greek Orthodox (I think).
Not the church I expected
We had been on the road seemingly forever, I was tired and cranky from the GPS fiasco, there was a long drive home and I just couldn’t work up the enthusiasm for more exploring, so we headed back. The trip I had been thinking of to the land of my forebears was considerably less than my expectations.
At least the ride home was good–less traffic through the construction zone, and I got braver about the high speeds, once making it to 195 kph, or 121 miles an hour. That didn’t last long, but it sure was fun.
There was an interesting ship in the harbor–a modern, three masted sailing vessel. We never decided if it was a private yacht or a cruise ship, but it was certainly beautiful:
A sight you rarely see.
Demi and Chloe cooked us up a feast at home last night, as good as anything we have had outside. I missed my nap with all that driving, so it was early to bed. More fun to be had tomorrow.
Totally Unauthorized 