ITALY SPRING 2022 - ALMOST TIME TO CHECK IN

TIME TO SAY ARRIVERDERCI

The best part of traveling is sharing it with the ones who matter to you. Sitting at dinner tonight we quizzed each other on things like what was the name of the winery where we did the wine tasting, who was the first to go in the pool or what was your best meal, We had answers for some but not all. That's why I do these blogs. They press the details of our travels into words that we can use to recount exactly where we first had pici al cacio e pepe, or the name of the  store that still holds the painting I'd like to come back for. It takes the burden off of an aging memory and lets me relive the "what, where's and yes that really did happen's" of our trips.

My family appreciates the scrapbooks I assemble using the bits of ephemera we've collected along the way, some sketches of places we've been and prints from all the pictures I've taken but it's the words that define the final story.

Today is our last full day in Maiori. The day started out overcast and cool. Emmy and I continued our ritual of breakfast on the roof. I chose the pancakes and Emmy chose the scrambled eggs and a platter of cold meats that were part of the included breakfast that in our reservation we chose to ignore. My pancakes lived up or down to my expectations of high design with little substance. Emmy's breakfast fared about the same. But my macchiato served in an tall glass would be what would keep me going for the day. 

Emmy and Rick decided to wait out the haze enveloping the beach by staying in the room reading or listening to podcasts while I went exploring.

I hadn't fallen in love with the seaside towns of the Amalfi Coast. Popularity has hidden much of its old world charm with a midcentury building boom of nondescript apartment buildings and hotels that now look dingy and depressing.

What I discovered in my walk was if you walk deep enough into the area beyond the beaches and up into the cliffs there's a lot of soul still there.

There's a church that dominates the night lit up giving a dot on the landscape to anchor yourself as to where you are. My goal was to see if I could find it.

Once you're into the streets and alleys that spider web out from the beach the height of those worn buildings obscures the churches dome making it hard to find.

It turned out getting lost in the web was an ecclesiastical blessing since my initial wandering took me to a less famous church but one with artifacts the superstitious or irreverent would appreciate. I include myself on the later.

The mutilated Jesus resting under a shroud

in front of an illustrated marble stone imbedded in the floor showing a group of hooded men was a real dichotomy of the ultra religious and the scarily racist. 

The fortuneteller with her mini-me on the other side of the alter added another supernatural aura to this temple of god.

And to top it off there was a diorama of the birth of Christ canopied with a blue plastic tarp to protect it from a leak in the roof. But by far the scariest scenario in the diorama was the woman in the foreground being taken down by the priest in his vestments. I didn't run out of here but I certainly watched my back as I left.

I followed my nose from the haunting church of the shrouded Christ toward where I believed I'd run into the Duomo I'd been looking for.

What I discovered was an amazing ancient architecture covered in a patina of decay washed in weathered pastels and rust.

Alley ways no wider than a donkey's ass inter-connected the broader streets. These were the paths I followed until I finally found my way to the Duomo I had originally set out to find.

Inside was another glorious dome and oculus emanating from the intersection of four arched naves. There seemed to be no security at all in either one of these churches.

You could walk through each one and peek into their private offices even opening closets filled with the priest's vestments. I thought of trying one on but then I demurred. 

It turned out the way to the church had been right where I started. I had gone around in a complete circle but if I  hadn't I wouldn't have discovered the aged architecture of the original agricultural core of Miaori.

That night we were looking to close out our trip with one final meal of distinction. We chose a restaurant with high online praise only to find out it must have been written by the owner. You never want to end a vacation on a bad meal but when the frutta da mare arrived looking as if it came from a defrosted frozen meal packet we had to admit defeat.

Here's hoping we can find something near the airport in Rome to fly away on a better note.

 

ITALY SPRING 2022 - THE AMALFI

 ONE LAZY DAY

Your first day anywhere is an adjustment. It's the day you get the kinks out, learn the lay of the land and begin the process of acclimation. When you are only spending two full days and a couple of half days in a place like we are on the Amalfi Coast you have to work fast to not feel like a foreigner in a strange land. 

We started off with breakfast. When we booked our hotel we did it without including breakfast. For us this is the way we roll. We never know until we can smell the bacon of that morning if we are all going to have breakfast or not. It may be all of us or a few of us. Or if the night before turns out to have been a rough one no one might have the energy to face a plate of scramble eggs and maple syrup. So why pay for something you're not sure if you are going to use. Today it was going to be just Emmy and me. Rick's stomach did not want to participate. Each hotel has its own way of serving and this one was particularly difficult to figure out. The normal procedure is to come in and then be seated by a breakfast host who notes your room number and offers you their variety of coffees. Here we sat ourselves and went to the buffet area without any sort of introduction. I'm more of a sweets person but Emmy only goes for savory. The buffet was impressive but there were no braziers of cooked meats or egg dishes to choose from. Disappointment was written across her face. There was an a la carte menu on the table and it did include several items like eggs benedict and an meat or cheese platter. I'm using the word platter generously as the portions for everything at this hotel are for the faint of eating. When the waiter arrived at our table he began explaining what was included in the prepaid breakfast. Here's where we learned that at this hotel the hot and savory part of the menu is something you order, it is not set out on the buffet perhaps for fear someone might overstock their plate. At tomorrow's breakfast, should we decide to participate, we'll know now how it works. That's one lesson learned. 

Now for the beach, the blurb on hotels.stilla$$holes explained how the hotel had access to its own private beach. This was sort of true. You could access two beaches through the hotel. You paid the hotel for this privilege: 25 euros each day you wanted to use the beach for an umbrella and two lounge chairs. Because there were three of us and they wouldn't do halvsies we paid 50 euros and secured two umbrellas and four chairs. The hotel also provided you with towels for which you paid 10 euros per towel that was refunded when you returned them. Lesson two complete.

The beaches at Maiori are beautiful. The Mediterranean aqua blue waters are almost as calm as glass, I'm guessing due to the bay like curve of the coast here in Maiori. The Italians use way to many vowels every chance they get. We chose our position on the third tier of umbrellas away from the water. This was lesson three and we learned this by chance and not by experience.

The beach is not a fine sand beach; it's a course sand that turns into small rocks and then larger rocks the closer you get to the water. Our position was right on the edge of sand becoming small rock, the kind although smooth still makes you wince when you walk on it. It meant we were on comfortable although hot sand and those in front of us had to do the bunny hop every time they stood up and tried to hot foot it on the pebbles on their way into the water. 

We had arrived around 10:30 deciding we'd stay out until one-ish and then go to lunch. All we all wanted was pizza. This became lesson number four. Lunch at almost every place we tried required a reservation. The best I could do with any eateries that didn't look as if they prepared their meals in a microwave was a 2:30 seating for three. We were way too hunger.

We ended up defeated and opted for a place advertising pizza and burgers with plastic chairs and no pretentions. Turned out the piazza was classic and I think even Prue from the Great British Baking Show would have approved. I guess that's lesson four and a half.

Once back at the hotel both Rick and Emmy napped through most of the rest of the afternoon. It wasn't until just before dinner that they both roused. After showering Rick and I went to the restaurant's lounge for a drink. Lesson five: I'm not sure if I'd order another Limoncello spritzer. I was hoping for the smooth sweet taste of the Limoncello but it was way too tart for me.

Lesson six and probably the most important one of all is one we really didn't learn here but one we always rely on when we're traveling: ask for anything with a smile and always learn the words in the native tongues of the country you are visiting for "please" and "thank you". It will get you through many a hard time. This is how we scored reservations at the Torre Normanna restaurant, a seven hundred year old watch tower jutting out into the bay. The smile bought us the help of our concierge. A "grazie" got us an 8:30 table for three overlooking the bay as the sun was doing its final decent.

Here's our dinner:

Appetizers for Rick and Emmy: Six delicious succulent and salty oysters each served cold with slices of Amalfi lemons

My appetizer was a puff pastry stuffed with cod and burrata on a pool of Provolone dei Monaco fondue. Apparently it was so good I must have dived in before I could remember to take a picture

Rick's main course was a seared sea bass sautéed in lemon and capers with a dressing of broccoli and julienne fried leeks.

Emmy chose a pasta for her main course, a handmade scialatielli in a fresh tomato, garlic, olive oil and parsley sauce and then ladened with mussels, assorted clams, shrimp and scampi.

For my main course I went for a local sea bream filet in a lightly herbed broth with olives, capers and vegetables topped with a crisp bread cracker 

Once again and I'm not sure if it was the wine that did it but my delicious dessert went the way of my appetizer without the honor of a photograph of its own

The last lesson, number seven, is to enjoy. We have always made travel a priority. In the TAP Airline lounge in Lisbon there's a saying by Saint Augustine painted on the wall that reads: " The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page". It's a lesson that for us is the reason for living, that and gelato.

ITALY SPRING 2022 - DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

 WTF

When a vacation entails more than one destination the restorative benefits of that vacation can vaporize on the spot into mass panic and the uttering of vile words toward inanimate objects, "Where the f*#k did you put my f*#king power cord. We're not going anywhere until someone finds my g@d damn cord!"

This time around our packing and unpacking, double checking of every nook and cranny and getting everything loaded into the car went off without a swear word uttered or a loss of dignity by any one of the three of us. I checked our bedroom and our bath, Rick did a visual assessment of the kitchen cupboards and frig and Emmy took care of her bedroom and bath. When all the bags had been zipped shut and loaded into the car it was time to say our good-byes and drive out the gates of Armena one last time.

We all hugged, promised we'd all be back, turned over the opener for our private gate to Alessandro and drove away kicking up a final cloud of dust turning Armena into a memory. As we bounced along the rutted gravel road, Emmy seated in the front and playing the role of navigator asked, "Papa can I have your leather bag ?"

I asked Rick, who was sitting in the back seat, to pass the bag up to Emmy, the bag with all our itinerary information, the bag with all our money, the bag with our CDC cards and the bag with our F*#KING  passports. The g@d damn bag that was still sitting on the couch in the living room back in Armena. Not all departures go smoothly.

Our return to Armena was much sooner than we had expected. We hadn't even made if off the dirt road so we turned around and sheepishly retrieved the bag, our passports but not our dignity.

Once calm was returned there was one more thing we needed to do to make our journey to the Amalfi Coast complete: we needed to clean the car of the dust of Armena by getting it washed.

No one wanted to arrive at our new hotel looking like a bunch of rubes. 

Now with the GPS set for the four-star Hotel Club due Torri on the Amalfi Coast we were ready for the five hour drive ahead of us. The first part of the drive took us back through the familiar scenery of winding Tuscan roads and fields of red poppies.

With nothing to rush us we stopped along the way at several points to seal in the memory of the  breathtakingly beautiful vistas we would be leaving behind. 

Once we reached the A1 autostrada the driving became more of a speed rally where I was pushing 140 kph and there were still cars seemingly appearing from nowhere their lights flashing at me in my rearview mirror to move over so they could pass at speeds I believe levitated them off the pavement turning them into flying machines driven by pilots with incomprehensible death wishes.

The Adams-Kings had warned us of the drive along the coast as being a nail biting experience but for some reason we had managed to take a different route avoiding all those hairpin turns on the edges of cliffs with no more room to save oneself between a crushing stone wall and an eminent death plunge into the sea below.

Rick had booked our hotel through hotels.com and it was the address they had included with our reservation that both Emmy and he had loaded into their Mapquest apps. Let me tell you hotels.com is going to get a real big bitch slap from Rick once we get back to the US. We all started to feel a bit queasy as we got closer and closer to the final destination Mapquest was taking us to. The areas we were now going through seemed a bit seedy and not at all what we were thinking would be a place we'd find a four-star hotel with private beach access. When our female robotic voice purred, "You have arrived at your destination", we were at a back alley driveway with a forty-year-old delivery van parked in it. There was no way or place for me to stop. I had to pass by while the bitch on Mapquest or whatever navigational app we were on rerouted us to ge us back to that same driveway. Emmy and Rick were both furiously punching keys on their iPhones checking and rechecking the address they had been given via hotels.smucks to make sure they had done it correctly. All this was happening as I am trying to figure out were I can pull off of this street we've now found ourselves on so we can sit and reorient ourselves as to what to do next. Somehow I managed to get us turned around. I barely avoided putting us back on the autostrada with no exit for miles and pulled the car into a bus stop. God help anyone telling us we would need to move from this designated bus stop. They were going to have to get a tow truck to do it because I wasn't moving.

I suggested that I should get out and walk back to the place hotels.a$&holes had told us was the address for our hotel and see if there was an entrance on the other side. The area we were in was a warren of alleys filled completely with ceramic stores. The facades of all the buildings were covered with tiles and the dingy shops were filled with all sorts of platters, pitchers and plates, oh my. It was a bit like having arrived in Oz. Emmy had me write the name of the hotel and the street address down. This is what I was hoping to find on one hand and hoping was completely the wrong place on the other. I finally asked one of the shop owners if he knew where the Via Diego Taiani was. He pointed me down one of the pedestrian only streets and told me to turn right. When I asked him if I could drive there his face contorted in a way that answered my question without having to use any words. There were no cars allowed in here at all. 

I walked back to the safety of our car illegally but safely parked in a bus stop  where Emmy and Rick had been on the phone with the hotel where the concierge was telling them this had happened before. A real woman with a real voice gave us new directions to our hotel, another twenty-five minutes away. We were still skeptical. Emmy and I were ready to abandon ship and just leave for the safety of a cheap hotel anywhere but where we were.

But then we all did our best to put on happy faces and to give it one more try. Off we went now to conquer those hairpin turns balancing on the narrow roads and risking certain death on an unfortunate drop off the side of a mountain. I was surprisingly calm. Rick was furious at every hotel.com employee and every robotic voice on any GPS app. Emmy was just scared $h!tless as she clutched the car's sissy bar fearing our impending doom.

By luck and diligence we ended up at the correct hotel in a beautiful small town with a valet who would park our car for us, a car we had no desire to get into again until we had to leave and return it to the car rental office at the airport in Rome.

The hotel is beautiful.

The views from our room are spectacular.

Rick found a place to relax.

The dinner that night at the hotel was pretentious and indulgent but amusing.

We are just relieved that by the grace of god and masses of irreverent swear words somehow we managed to get here.