THE BIG MOVE

I think I already mentioned that you need to be part mountain goat to navigate your way around Italy.  Well, add to that, part pack mule.  That’s how I felt trying to handle my luggage in the Napoli Airport.  And this is after I left one large suitcase full of clothes and some books in Sorrento.  (A teacher at the school is taking the clothes to a needy family.)  Still, my load is too heavy.  The word for nomad in Italian is “viaggiatriche”, pronounced via-jah-tree-chay, with the accent on “tree”.  I guess I’m still a viaggiatriche-in- training.

The flight from Sorrento to Catania in Sicily was only 40 minutes.  At the Catania airport, the rental car offices were not in the terminal, so I had to schlep my luggage about a quarter of a mile to the closest office.  (I’m guessing that I was pulling about 75 pounds of luggage in two cases—a carry-on hooked onto a larger bag, as well as another 15 pounds in my bagful of electronics and other stuff.)   Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep an internet connection the night before, so I wasn’t sure which car rental company my reservation was with.  And, more unfortunately, the car rental buildings are not all in one place.  The first one didn’t have my reservation, so I had to schlep my luggage to yet another building.  There were about 8 rental companies in this building, so I had some reason to hope I wouldn’t have to schlep again.  A woman who worked at one of the rental companies was SO nice.  Her company didn’t have my reservation, so she checked with four other places and found the one who did.  There are angels everywhere!

When I finished all the paperwork, I discovered that I had to schlep my luggage yet again to the back of the parking lot where several companies park their cars.  I should mention that it’s still summer in Sicily, and it was very hot—maybe 85 degrees or so—so I’m sweating by now.  I couldn’t find the car.  It wasn’t parked in the area where the rental company signs were posted.  And there was no one out there to ask for help.  So I started looking down every row toward the back of the lot, because the rental guy clearly said it was at the back of the lot.  I must have been out there for 30 minutes looking for the car, when finally, someone from the rental company came out with another customer, and he directed me to the car. 

I had rented a car with a manual transmission because it costs a fortune to rent one with an automatic transmission.  I haven’t driven a manual in a while, but things seemed to be going okay until I got lost.  The road signage here is terrible.  Half the signs are blocked by trees or overgrown bushes, and you can’t see the signs until you’re right on top of them.  And they have lots of roundabouts, which I’ve never liked.  Once I stopped for a red light, and the cars behind me started honking like crazy.  Yet later, when I did the same thing, no problem.....very confusing.  Anyway, my getting lost turned out great, because I ended up driving on the coast road, and even though that’s not where I was supposed to be, I saw some breathtaking views.  After a few miles, I noticed a sign for the expressway I was supposed to take, so I left the coastal highway, with some regret, and got back to the path toward my apartment in Piedimonte Etneo.  By some miracle, I found my way to the piazza where I was to meet my new landlord. 

I’ve exchanged my sea view for a view of Mt. Etna….here's the view from my balcony at dusk.....

And in the morning…..

Pretty awesome.

It’s very quiet here.  The only noise I heard yesterday afternoon was the sound of children playing outside and….guess what, church bells again, but these don’t ring every 15 minutes, 24/7, like they did in the marina.  They ring on the hour and half hour, and every once in a while they play a little song.  I’m not sure when they start and end, but it’s wonderfully peaceful here, and the air smells really good.  I picked up some groceries on the way here yesterday and ate the most delicious tomatoes I’ve ever had.  Must be this lava soil.  I’m very happy with my apartment.  It’s more modern than the one I had in Sorrento, and the landlord is very gracious and accommodating.  While I miss the vista of the sea, I’ll be visiting coastal towns and have plenty of opportunity to enjoy the seaside while I’m here.  I’m only about 8 kilometers from the beach.

Today, I’m just relaxing, because I feel very lazy after working like a pack mule yesterday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Here’s where Blanche and Donna come back into the picture.  

We had arranged to have dinner with them when we bumped into them after our trip to Positano.  A couple of evenings later, after we returned from Capri,  Grace went to meet them at the main piazza to guide them to Marina Grande, while I rushed back to prepare an antipasto for us to enjoy before we went for dinner. 

Blanche and Donna both hold administrative positions (civilian) at a military base in Vicenza, near Venice.  Blanche has only been there for three months, but I think Donna has been there for three years.  They’ve both travelled extensively in connection with their jobs.  They were on their way to enjoy a long weekend in Sorrento when Grace met them in the Venice airport, I think.  My facts are a little fuzzy, because all this information was discussed over some wine, and I'm out of drinking shape.  Meet my two new friends, Blanche, on the left, and Donna:

Anyway, these two ladies were great fun.  

And my friend Grace is also great fun.  Here we are at the start of the evening:

After we had our antipasto and many laughs at my apartment, we went to one of my favorite restaurants in the marina—Zintonio’s .  It’s built on a pier, so you’re right on the water as you dine.  

Shortly after we were seated, a couple of women sat at the table for two right next to us, and, of course, they were drawn into our evening of dining, wining, entertainment (live singer), and more laughs—lots and lots of them.  Both women were from Miami—both were lawyers and one just wrote a book about the American legal system. 

Meet Debbie and Lorie:

After dinner, I was surprised by my friend Grace, who had arranged for a birthday cake (with three singing waiters, all of whom gave me European style cheek kisses—one voluntarily and the two cute young ones at my request).   Some pictures from this evening of revelry:

The four of us:

 My sweet little birthday cake delivered by cute waiter 1:

Birthday kisses coming my way from cute waiter 2:

And from cute waiter 3:

What a great way to spend a birthday I didn’t even want to celebrate!

Thanks, good friend Gracie, for treating me to this great evening.  

IL CIBO ITALIANO

Those closest to me are probably a little worried.  “What’s going on with her?”......they might be asking.  “Why hasn’t she written anything about food yet?  The woman writing this blog may be some imposter posing as our foodie friend Colleen.”

No, I haven’t suddenly switched to the “eat to live” camp.  It’s just that since I’m going to be here for so long, my budget can’t handle eating out all the time.  So I eat out two or three times a week.  Okay, some of you might be thinking, why aren’t you raving about the wonderful food you’ve eaten those two or three times?  Well, I might be if I could keep an internet connection long enough to really check out which are the best restaurants in Sorrento.  The best meal I’ve had so far was a dinner at a lovely beachside restaurant in Positano, with my New Zealand and Swiss pals.  It was sea bass, prepared to perfection, in a simple olive oil and lemon sauce.  I lingered over every bite.  (There, doesn’t that sound more like me?)  Their caprese salad, fresh tomatoes with fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese and basil was also wonderful.

My landlady, Signora Cacace, owns a trattoria called Da Emilia.  Emilia, her mother, opened the trattoria in the late 1940’s, and now daughter Irena runs it.  Rick Steves has recommended it, so it gets a lot of business.  Her Sorrento style gnocchi are really good—in tomato sauce with fresh basil—and there’s a platter of lightly fried local fish that I also like, including fresh anchovies, a new experience for me.  Here are some pictures I took at Da Emilia:

The restaurant has two seating areas, one right by the water…..

Plus a covered patio and seating in the trattoria proper.

Signora Cacace (and me)……

Signora Cacace below a pictures her mother Emilia and her father…..

Here are some of the items on her menu:

Insalata mista, which is on every restaurant’s menu and is different at every one of them…..

Insalata with tuna and tomato…..

One of my favorites, gnocchi Sorrento style (with tomato sauce and basil)……

 Ravioli (with ricotta cheese inside)…..

Lightly fried sardines, yum……this technique of lightly battering fish and frying them is typical in the Napoli region…….

Lightly fried squid…..

A delivery of fish that were caught that day……

 I’ve also been to a couple of other restaurants in the marina and had some very good seafood risotto at this one…….

This restaurant is owned by five sisters, but only two of them were there when I took these pictures…..

Both these sisters are quite aggressive….they call to people as they walk by, asking them to eat at their restaurant, and sometimes they walk up to people and hand them a menu.  They have a bad rep in the marina for their aggressive behavior, as well as pretty mediocre food.  Their restaurant is attached to my apartment building.

 Yes, I’ve had pizza, too, but I’m probably not the one to judge whether the pizza here is better than the U.S. or not, because I rarely ate pizza at home.  The options for toppings are more limited here, as with everything else.  The best pizza I’ve had so far is one I ate in Cassino when I visited my friend Antonio.  I had the classic Margharita style, and the buffalo mozzarella and the crust were both divine.  (Yes, it really is me.)  The Napoli region is known for its buffalo mozzarella and, fresh or aged, it is absolutely delicious.

Sorrento is a pure tourist town.  The menus here tend to be very similar, and everything is a la carte.  Frankly, I haven’t been wowed by the food here, which was a disappointment, because I had such a wonderful culinary experience when my niece Shelley and I were in Italy several years ago.  Maybe that’s because I had done a lot of research and selected great little trattorie for our meals.  She and I would usually order an antipasto, a primi (usually pasta) and secundi (meat or fish) and share each plate.  And, of course, we had our daily gelato fix.  I don’t have gelato every day—maybe three times a week, and my favorite place has about 80 flavors.  I won’t be here long enough to try all of them.

As I mentioned in my last post, I ate Chinese food in Cassino, and it was quite different than what we get in the U.S.  The spring rolls I had were very crispy, but I couldn’t identify anything but cabbage inside.  I ordered rice spaghetti with seafood and got a lot of spaghetti and a smidgen of seafood.  The sauce was very bland.  I finally saw a little bar in Sorrento that has hamburgers, and I went there this week to have my “cheeseburger fix”.  It was at the quality level of McDonald’s….a bit disappointing….and yet, it was enough to remind me of what a burger tastes like. 

There are typically no sides that come with your entrée, so you have to order a side salad or vegetable to go with your pasta, fish, or meat.  Even if you order just one course with a side salad, your bill will usually be 20 euro or more, because you pay for water and there is a table cover charge included in your bill. (I’m told it’s for the use of the cutlery and table linens).  But, you don't have to tip here, unless you want--according to my Italian friends, it isn't expected.

 I haven’t been able to cook here like I did at home, because:

         a.   I don’t have all the kitchen equipment I need—e.g., no food chopper, no food processer, no blender, not even a vegetable peeler or a whisk.  I tried to find the latter two in a kitchen store here and they don’t seem to have heard of either.

        b.  I can’t find many of the ingredients I need for my favorite recipes in the supermarket, e.g., chicken broth!  I really don’t like broth made with bouillon cubes, so I guess if I want to make soup, I’ll have to buy a whole chicken and make my own.

    When I do cook, I get my fresh fruit and veggies from Signora Carolina....

     

More on food when I get to Sicily.

CELEBRATING THE FISH

What could be more fitting for a fishing village than to have a festival celebrating what brings sustenance to the tables of its inhabitants?  Today, Marina Grande is having a Sardines and Anchovies Festival.  I googled it to see if I could find out anything about this tradition, but to no avail.  They started yesterday to decorate the marina by stringing white lights from the building balconies across to the lamp posts in a zigzag pattern.  A few tents went up.  All day, there has been more preparation, in the rain—more tents went up, and they hung fishnets in a canoe shape between the lamp posts.  I have no idea why, unless it’s just a declaration of identity. 

Things started to liven up around 7 p.m.  It was pouring rain, but I went out to see what was happening.  i didn’t take my camera because it’s hard to hold the umbrella and take pictures at the same time.  But, there were several food tents selling different kinds of fish and other foods.  I went to Da Emilia, the trattoria owned by my landlady, to get some fish—a mixture of sardines, shrimp, squid, and octopus—and also sampled some grilled salmon from another tent.  There was also a tent displaying giant size desserts, many of which had the names of local hotels in icing on the top.  For 5 euro, you could get a plate of fish with some bread and a glass of wine.  

Later, around 8 p.m., there was a live band, which sounded like it was in my living room, because they sheltered themselves in a room on the first floor of my building.  Fortunately, they were pretty good, and I enjoyed listening to the music until about 11 p.m.  There was a great fireworks display, too, and, of course, the church bells rang like crazy off and on during the evening.  It’s really too bad it was raining during most of the evening hours, because I’m sure that discouraged many people from coming to enjoy the wonderful fresh local fish.

THE TOOTH FAIRY

Life has been very good here.   Even without the luxuries of the U.S., I’ve been having a great time and meeting some great people.  But, for those of you who have told me how green with envy you are, there’s a down side to being away from home.  I’ve already written about the problem with my knees and how you need to be part mountain goat to navigate your way around Italy.  Now I’ve had a health issue that can’t be fixed with a compression bandage.  Believe it or not, I broke a tooth on the crust of some of this wonderful Italian bread.  I mean, the whole tooth just broke off! 

I had a similar wrangle with a bagel a few years ago, and I thought I'd learned not to bite into hard, crusty things.  But the piece of bread I had torn off was too big a bite, and I had already dipped it in olive oil.  I didn’t want to get my fingers oily, so I just bit it in half.  At the time, I was lunching and talking with my friend Grace, and there was a 5 piece band that had just started playing.  So all this happened without conscious thinking.  (Does this remind you of the washing machine in any way?!)

I called the school to ask if they could find me a dentist who could speak English, and they made an appointment for me.  The dentist was in Piano di Sorrento, a 20 minute bus ride from Sorrento, and off I went on Tuesday.  I discovered, upon arrival, that the dentist spoke no English.  Now this makes me a bit uncomfortable.  His assistant spoke a little English, but not enough to explain what he was going to do to me.  The solution:  they called the school, and a woman named Christiana interpreted for me.  She told me the dentist was going to do a root canal.  Okay, that’s what was done on the other tooth, so I was okay with proceeding.  Unfortunately, the dentist couldn’t remove the nerve.  Apparently, it’s another one of those irksome aging issues—your root canals can close up, so the nerve can’t be easily accessed.  The dentist put some kind of medicine into the opening he made that would supposedly facilitate a second attempt.

Back I go three days later.  My appointment is at 6 p.m. on a Friday evening—these Italians work crazy hours.  This time, in addition to the dentist, there’s a tall, scruffy bearded man who is introduced to me as the technician.  It took me a while to figure out that he was the “tooth fairy”.  After what seemed like an eternity, the nerve was successfully removed, and then came a rather lengthy process of getting a tooth fitted properly, which was quite a collaborative effort between the dentist and the “tooth fairy”.  

I have to say that these two did a wonderful job.  And it turns out that the Christiana who did all the interpreting for me via phone is the director of the language school.  I was pretty impressed with this personal attention. 

Since I’ll be leaving here next week, I’ll probably wait until I get to Thailand to get the permanent tooth, because I'm pretty sure it will be much less expensive there.  (Did I mention that I’m going to Thailand next?)

Anyway, I would rather have been at home when this happened than have two Italian men talking over my mouth and not being able to understand anything they said.  My Italian lessons have not covered dental terms.

No pictures in this post, because I’m pretty sure you wouldn't be that interested in seeing my new tooth.  

A side note:  I got to Piano di Sorrento early, so I went into a library to pass the time reading.  And guess what?  All their books were locked up!

GOAT ISLAND?

I’m not sure who would win the debate about which island is more beautiful-- Ischia or Capri.  From all the accounts I’d heard about Capri from the many people I’d met who have gone there, I was predisposed to think that Ischia would win.  But after Grace and I spent a few hours there, I’m torn.  I think the fact that we were there on a Monday three weeks after the end of “high season”, and the place wasn’t jammed with tourists, had a lot to do with the impression this island left with me. 

The Romans called this island "goat island", and its name may be derived from Latin for goats "capreae".  After putting our bodies through the torture of navigating Pompei and Positano (again), we decided to be kind to our knees and take the 20 euro tour with Guisseppe, the tour guide who “sold us” on the ferry to Capri.  We left the harbor on a small tour bus with about a dozen other people and went first to Anacapri, which is perched in the cliffs above Capritown.  

All the way, Guiseppe is educating us about the island and pointing out sights in two, or possibly three, languages—Italian, Spanish, and English.  It was difficult to understand him, because he would do parts of the sentences in each language, so you’d have to wait for the “rest of the story” until he said the phrase in the other two languages.  Very confusing.  

After he lead us to the famous villa of a Swedish physician/author (Munthe), we had some time to have lunch and explore the area a bit.  There were lots of high end shops with beautiful (and expensive) merchandise.  I guess if all there is to do is window shop, you might as well be looking at some high quality goods!

Pictures of/from Anacapri:

Then we went down to Capritown, also on a cliff—just a lower one.  Guisseppe led us to this house, which is was the Mussolini family house on Capri....

It's really big and beautiful...couldn't get it all in one frame.  Guisseppe made numerous references to Mussolini during our tour, but we couldn't understand what he was saying.  

Guisseppe left us on our own to explore Capritown.  We walked down (again!) to these beautiful gardens on the slopes of the town where we took pictures of each other by the famous faraglioni rocks which you see so often in pictures of Capri……………Guisseppe told us that this would be the proof that we were here!

The surrounding gardens were beautiful and tranquil, and we just relaxed on this beautiful bench for a while enjoying the beauty of the garden and the day………….

Then we walked back uphill (there’s no end to uphill in Italia) and caught the funiculare back down to the harbor to wait for a ferry back to Sorrento.  In a garden above the harbor back in Sorrento, I saw this beautiful tree--Grace called it a tulip tree--which I thought was especially unique and beautiful.

POSITANO AGAIN?! BASTA!

Okay, you already know I love Positano already, but Grace wanted to see it, too, so back I went to give her the tour.  But first we went further south to visit Amalfi, the town that gave this coast its name.  Amalfi is a much more humble than Positano….there really wasn’t much there to see, except this beautiful church……….

 We had a wonderful lunch there—spaghetti carbonara and grilled sea bass, which is about half the price here as in the U.S.  Yes, some things are less expensive here.....and for an optional donation, you get entertainment…..

Then we caught a bus and headed for Positano, which Grace enjoyed very much.  We walked down to the beach and then up that steep slope, once again.  By this time, my knees are objecting again to the mountain goat existence I seem to be leading.  I’ll add only a couple more pictures here, because I've gone on about Positano just about enough (basta)…….but I do  love this picture......

This looked like a lilac tree.....

When we got back to Sorrento, we had a light dinner at Maria Marrone’s Trattoria.  (That’s my Italian name.)