Distracted1

Day 1, well actually day 2 but day 1 of actually ‘vacationing’…

Slept like the dead. Wake up to morning sunshine and coffee on the balcony, happy birthday to me!

So, what’s the plan? No plan! Which is the best kind of plan when it’s your birthday on vacation.

First, a shower… now, every new place we stay when we travel is like a plumbing puzzle. My favorites are like this one where you have to be under the shower head to turn on the water. No matter what you do, you get COLD water first.

We head out and down the hill to the city center. If you can call it a city… with a year round resident population of about 4000 people. Of course when spring comes and the weather warms all the summer house people come back… and the tourists.

Bellagio has been a place where people wanted to be for about 3000 years now. Though there are signs of something human around the paleolithic period some 30,000 years ago. What we know as Bellagio was 1^st “settled” by the Insubres and the Orobii about 800 or so BC. Then the Gauls showed up around 600-ish BC and kinda Borged the Insubres and assimilated them, as the Gauls were wont to do. The Orobii weren’t so ‘fortunate’. And then, what a surprise, in 225 BC, the Romans arrive. They brought the usual, roads, advanced water management, olive, bay laurel, chestnut and cypress trees, politics and bureaucracy.

Virgil (you know, The Aeneid?) spent time here and Pliny the Younger had a couple of villas here.

Bunches of wars later, in the renaissance and baroque periods there was a booming sericulture (silk worms and silk production) industry in the area….

We take some pictures, get a rough feel for the layout of the town, buy a new pencil (woohoo!) and scope out possible dinner spots. And that’s pretty much enough exertion for the day. Back up the hill for lunch at the apartment overlooking the lake.

Cheese and salumi, prosciutto and wine. What is it about … oh yah, heaven.

After a couple of hours of just watching the lake, the boats and the float planes, and just generally being in the moment, I went off on a little wander down the hill in the other direction in search of Peach Tea and chocolate. I don’t know what it is about San Benedetto peach tea, and I know there is peach tea in the US but I only drink peach tea when we are here. It’s just a thing… like breakfast burritos in Aspen but that’s another story.

There wasn’t any peach tea where I was hoping there would be peach tea so I just kept walking. I finally found my tea and some chocolate filled cookies at a little dent in the wall pizza/gelato shop.

Back up the hill to the apartment. I figure it was probably 2 km round trip… maybe I’ll be in better shape at the end of this vaca than I was at the beginning?

We spend some time noting in our notebooks, reading novels in the sunshine and watching the swallows catch bugs over the garden and generally just letting the last 2 years melt out of our minds.

Anywhoo- eventually dinner time. We decide to just do take away pizza from the place I got the tea. Margarita for D. and quatro stagioni for me. Off I go again down the hill. When I get to the place it is closed. It’s 6pm, too early for dinner you know. A lot of restaurants don’t even open until 7:30. Well across the street is another pizza place/restaurant and they are happy to make the crazy Americans who eat so early a couple of pizzas. I also order a bottle of rosso di casa to go.

No Problem, off I go with two pizza boxes in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. Apparently they haven’t been introduced to take out bags here yet.

It was delicious as expected and a great 1^st day.

Tomorrow we explore for real.

To be honest, the idea of traveling internationally right now has come with more than a small amount of anxiety, but now that we are here, fear is banished and we let the wine and cheese and Italian sunshine take it’s place.

It has been 3 years and this trip has been canceled/postponed twice, but world wide germ be damned we’re going to Italy now.

This was supposed to be a trip with two of our regular traveling companions Jack and Lynn, but at the last minute the germ got to them and they had to cancel just 36 hours before take-off time. Missing you for sure Jack and Lynn!

So, May 7, 11:57am eastern, we push back from the jetway at GRR bound for Atlanta and our connection to Milan! As I said, it has been 3 years and I have missed being in Italy terribly. BUT, what I have NOT missed is international air travel. We (at least I) am getting older and creakier so we usually spring for the ‘comfort +’ main cabin seats which are better than main cabin steerage seats but still feel like riding in the back seat of a stroller for twins.

After the 2 hour hop to Atlanta, we grab a sandwich (how are airport food prices legal? Seriously I want to know) and set up camp at gate E36 in the world’s busiest airport. 3 hours and a bit later it’s wheels up, Bellagio here we come!!

If you fly Delta, and don’t take out a mortgage for those big fully reclining pods with real wine glasses and real silverware, up front, I would heartily recommend going a couple of hundred bucks crazy and getting the ‘premium select’ seats in main cabin. You know these are special because there are only 24 of them.

I mean, there is nearly 10 inches of space between the seat in front of me and my knees! It’s like being home on the sofa. Of course this doesn’t make eating on an airplane any more dignified. Every time I get served food that requires a knife and fork on a plane I think, “this could be a Japanese game show.”

Oh… and as nice and comfortable as the premium select seats are for reading and watching movies, at least as far as my body is concerned, sleep, not gonna happen.

So the first day doesn’t really count as vacation unless you think fun and relaxing is navigating passport control, car rental office in Italy (special experience every time) and then finding your way out of the airport and onto the highway going the direction you want to go without accidentally heading into the center of one of the biggest, busiest cities in Italy.

We didn’t get the small car I ordered but they did have “a nicer one that I could have for only a few more Euro per day.” Whatever, looks good, gimme the key lady. Well, it is nicer, which is nice. It is also bigger, which can make things a little more of a challenge on the mountain roads and when looking for parking, but whatever, I’ve driven bigger.

I quick learn how to drive in Italy again with remarkably little protest from the locals (not none, but not as much as could have been) and we’re off to Bellagio and Lake Como.

We revert to our handy paper map road (that Donna can not travel without, her trust in GPS apps not yet absolute, thank goodness) as I was not able to configure my phone correctly for Waze, or Google Maps directions. (I fixed this once we got to the apartment)

Only a couple of loopyloops around a couple of villages, a quick stop for a few necessities when we spot a grocery near the highway, eggs, milk, bread, coffee, pasta… wine, cheese salami, prosciutto… and one stop for mimed directions form a lady on the side of the road, we finally find Ca’ Maria, our home until Thursday.

I haven’t been this tired in years. 23 hours from our door to the door of our apartment in Bellagio with maybe an hour of sleep. Good Night!

Day 9 (4/11)

Travel day. We drive … it’s not very exciting…

We arrive in San Manaio around lunch time. Perfect. The Waze app and Jack direct us directly to the hotel. The last 1/2-3/4 mile or so is very narrow, rather steep (up and down), 1 lane, 2 way. We all think Yah, we’ll just stay here … no need to go out for anything. And, THERE’S PRIVATE HOTEL PARKING! Yes, I know that maybe I am being a bit more enthusiastic than warranted but … it really is nice.

The Park Hotel Villa Maria is a lovely old school small seaside retreat. Elegant but not ostentatious or stuffy. And, It’s pink!

The rooms are that quaint mid century Euro-chic. A little plain with deco accents and light switches that make no sense.

After we check in, we gather in the dining room for lunch. The menu is very seafood-centric. To be expected 300 yards from the Adriatic. It is also delicious.

We toddle off to our rooms full and a bit road weary. Some folks take a walk down along the road that leads to the water. Some folks, ahem, drift off for a minute or two.

The location and the scenery is oddly everything. There are towering pine trees with crows and jays making a racket. There are lemon trees heavy with fruit and there are palm trees that wave in the breeze. It is raining a bit but not enough to dampen spirits.

We while away the afternoon planning for tomorrow and simply relaxing in the moment.

Dinner in the hotel restaurant. Vitello for me, absolutely delicious with grilled zucchini and red bell pepper.

We make an early evening of it. Catch up on emails etc.. tomorrow is a long drive.

Day 10 (4/12)

Breakfast in the hotel dining room. (what a surprise) No seafood this time. Double espresso for me and I’m ready to go.

50 tunnels (in which we lose all cell and gps connections), a lot of beautiful views with the Adriatic to our right and the mountains to our left. 5-1/2 hours later, including a stop for lunch, a stop because we had lunch a little while ago and a stop for gas, and we arrive in Spoleto. GPS, (we call the front seat calls the voice Eleanor now, the back seat is still lobbying for Gertrude.) again took as straight to the hotel. It has been 10 years of using GPS with our paper map constant back up verification. I might start to trust the technology before too much longer.

The parking lot is a little small but we find space. After we check in the lady at the desk asks which cars are ours. Well the two giant ones parked in outside the front door. We are informed we will have to move them. The front desk lady also informs us that she will direct us where to park.

She is not impressed with our understanding of what she wants us to do and eventually just moves the cones and chains and puts us off in the restricted area of the lot. Works for me. I want to ask if she has been sucking lemons all day because of the expression on her face but…

We meet in the lobby after freshening up to go for a wander about town. We have been to Spoleto before but it has been many years. Spoleto is a fairly small town for the size of it’s character and its sophistication. Though some people in Spoleto are a little … haughty.

Oh … and cats!

Day 11 (4/13)

A day of exploring and taking in the sights of Spoleto. We don’t have any tours planned or schedules to keep so we wander down to breakfast around 9:30… and it’s a feast! Two tables full of pastries, fruit, cheese, cold meats, cereals, eggs, yogurts… etc. I’m impressed. Especially for 90 euro a night! A double espresso… and I’m good to go.

We explore a couple of churches, the wonderful duomo and just wander lazily through the tiny winding streets. This is the way I like to experience Italy. There is a circular walk around the top of the town that is well worth the time. You can see the Ponte della Torri (Tower Bridge). Built in the 1300s (on foundations of a bridge that was built 600 years earlier) the bridge is 265 feet across a steep ravine and just about 300 feet tall. 9 arches … 300 feet tall?! Built of stone when dudes were still wearing metal armor and gunpowder was a crazy new invention. The mechanical clock was pretty new and radical and the wheelbarrow was a relatively recent invention. They say Dante was impressed and inspired by the bridge. Well yah. It’s pretty impressive.

As we pass the bridge, we hear some crazy noisy birds flying around over head. I see swallows and wonder what the heck kind of swallows make that noise… then I see parrots. A bunch of parrots. Big blue and red and yellow parrots… like pirate parrots. They’re in the trees and on the light posts and sitting on people’s shoulders. Turns out there is a parrot club. A bunch of people that have pet parrots that bring them out and fly them around like … I don’t know… trained parrots. They fly around and then the guys have whistles and call them by name and they come swooping in scaring the little kids and squawking like their tail feathers are on fire. Wasn’t expecting that.

We go up and explore the castle fortress / museum at the top of the city which is also definitely worth a look if you get to Spoleto. Very nicely done.

I thought I lost D in the museum… the place was a labyrinth.

Around the fortress there is a thick high wall with arrow slits in it and the whole medieval thing. The view is extraordinary. Of course if you are too short to see over the wall you have to find another way to see the view…

Dinner. We find a place called Ristorante Sabatini Giordano. I call from the room to make reservations for 10 and I’ll be darned, it works. When we get there they are actually expecting us. Yay me.

The waiter’s name is Genaro. He is from Naples and he is a riot. He is charming and accommodating and funny. The menu is expansive and has all the things I love about central Italian cuisine. Wild boar, sauteed spinach, grilled veggies, truffles, grilled all kinds of stuff… guinea fowl, asparagus…

Everyone enjoyed the whole experience immensely! Alberta even poured herself a second glass of wine!

At one point Genaro looked over the table and realized that D was the only one that didn’t have a plate in front of her, (she didn’t order anything for that course) he got a funny look on his face, marched off and came back with a small plate of cheese and honey. Just because he didn’t want her to feel left out I guess.

After dinner I asked for an alloro liqueur. (bay laurel) Genaro said he didn’t have such a thing but that he had something called zafferano liqueur… (saffron). Ok. I’m up for trying new things. It turned out to be a very nice flavor somewhere between a limoncello and an alloro. A star at the end of the meal.

As we got up to leave, Genaro asked if I had a bag… and winked and nodded at the bottle of zafferano on the table. I said, “no” then opened my jacket, “but I have a pocket.” He tucked the bottle in my pocket and gave me a hearty two-fisted handshake and said it was a pleasure to have us wished us good travels. We faded into the evening fat and happy.

We spend a relatively easy morning sipping coffee and looking at maps and discussing the merits and faults of various weather and directional apps. Out around 10am and headed for Lecce.

The drive started with the traditional wrong turn for good luck, this time presenting us with a railroad crossing with the gate down. Well, hey, that means no one is coming from the opposite direction and and making that 3 point U turn isn’t risking your life OR pissing anyone off.

We had a parking lot programmed into the GPS as our destination this time and presto! We found it straight away. Of course the parking spaces were pretty tight but honestly, I don’t think there are any spots in Italy designed to accommodate the battle ships we are driving.

Lecce reminds me of Noto in Sicily in it’s architectural variety. There is ancient and plain, there is fancy and there is rococo double extra fancy.

One of the most interesting places we visited was the Museo Archiologico Faggiano. What was and still appears from the outside to be a simple small house on a narrow street in the center of town, turns out to be around 3000 years of historical amazing. The Faggiano family bought the place in the 1990s as a rental property which it was until 2001 when they decided to renovate and open a cafe. The renters had always complained of dampness and so they figured that there was probably a leaky pipe under the stone floor. They got the permit from the city to do the work on the pipe and renovate for a cafe. They busted through the floor to fix the pipe and as they dug they kept finding odd bits of pottery and other things. They kept digging and finding things and digging and finding stuff and eventually one of the neighbors reported them to the archaeology police. The government sent someone to investigate and sure enough the place was deemed historically important and would need to be completely excavated before they could do anything with the building. The government would do it but there was just one problem, there wasn’t any money to do it for now. They would have to shut the building and wait until the government could get around to excavating. It’s Italy, that could be next year, that could be 10 years from now. The other option was to do it themselves under the supervision of a government provided archaeologist. So Luciano and his 3 sons (12, 19 and 21 years old) started digging. They uncovered 10s of thousands of artifacts, as well as whole rooms, escape tunnels, cisterns, granaries, tombs, it went on and on… sometimes they would have to lower the youngest on a rope into the smaller spaces to fill buckets with dirt and whatever else. There was even a pit for draining the blood out of bodies before entombing them. At one time the place was a convent… at another time it was a place for the Knights Templar to stop and get armed on their way to crusades…

So 7 years after they started what should have been a couple of weeks work, they had a really cool and historically significant private museum instead of a cafe. This whole story was told to us by the middle son with much humor and enthusiasm. If you ever get to Lecce be sure to check it out. It made the front page of the New York Times if you want to read their story…

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/15/world/europe/centuries-of-italian-history-are-unearthed-in-quest-to-fix-toilet.html

Dinner was at the restaurant that it wasn’t yesterday. It was excellent. The menu was a bit of an adventure… first time I’ve seen ‘asino’ on a menu (donkey) not the first time I’ve seen cavalo (horse). There was however amazing vitello, pea soup with quail egg, priest’s ears in a marinara, a delicious mixed grill with lamb and veal… oh… and some wine…

Tomorrow we head off north along the Adriatic coast towards Manaio then Spoleto.

Up early to go to Mattera and Alberobello today. It’s a lovely day this morning. We are washed, dressed, fed and coffee’d with notable punctuality. On the road by 9:15.

After a short, unplanned scenic detour, we are headed straight for Mattera. So, If I haven’t mentioned anything about parking in this part of the world, the only place I can think of that rivals how much of a pain it is, is downtown Grand Rapids. When your party consists of two GIANT vehicles (meaning a medium SUV and a mini-van), parking is a major part of your experience. In central and northern Italy where tourism is a more significant and established part of the economy, parking is a bit more thought out and planned for… and the signage is more helpful. But I rant…

We do find a garage and squeeze (!!!) our giant cars into two tiny spots. There is some honking and choice words from locals as this process takes a little time. On the bright side, garage parking cost about 2 euro for per car for the entire time we were in Mattera.

And it is still a lovely day.. for May flowers. Raining and windy… sigh. But it’s still Italy.

Mattera is plain mind blowing. In the 1950s it was considered the “shame of Italy”. Modernization did NOT come to Mattera after the war and there were people still living in modified caves without running water or electricity! The thing is they were OK with that. But the government makes everyone move out of the caves except a couple of families who somehow got a pass on the rules. They built them houses on the outskirts of the city. The problem was that the government then didn’t do anything to bring the old city up to date… it turned into a slum full of drugs and crime and the usual suspects. It wasn’t until the 80s that the sassi (cave dwellings) began to be restored and updated and in 1993 the area was designated a Unesco world heritage site and in 2019 it was named the European Capital of Culture! It is the 3^rd oldest continuously occupied city in the world after Alepo and Jerricho. There have been people living in this valley, in this spot as a community for 12,000 years. Ow. I thought living in the same house for 12 years was a long time.

We had a wonderful guided tour led by the lovely and very knowledgeable Ganella. She was patient with our pace and our questions. Her English was quite good and we were happy to follow her through the rain, up and down the stone steps and across the slippery limestone courtyards and now we all feel like experts on Mattera. Oh… and they’re going to start filming the next James Bond movie in Mattera in the next couple of weeks.

You can see in the stones that were cut from the walls of the valley and excavated from the caves that the whole area was at one time under the sea! The little sandstone carved rosettes are actually grills for vent shafts from cave dwellings below the level you see for air and smoke. They are everywhere. the layers and layers of excavated cave dwellings are boggling.

Oh… and a really sweet kitty.

We decide to go home through Alberobello, city of a bazillion trulli. Parking was of course an issue but we all have legs (I made sure to check) so we took the first couple of spots we could find and set off walking. We walk… and walk and eventually we do find the trulli center of town. There were hundreds of trulli that formed the whole center of the old city. Trulli shops, trulli homes, trulli hotels, trulli bars, trulli chiropractor’s offices… mostly white and natural stone colors with symbols for luck and to ward off bad juju painted on the roofs.

This is also where we find St Lucy… bringer of light in the darkness of winter, protector of the blind and patron saint of googly eyes.

We didn’t have a lot of time in Alberobello because we had to get back to the house and get ready for 7pm dinner reservations.

Aaaaand when we get back to the villa and still haven’t received a reservation confirmation re figure out that we don’t have a reservation because… they are closed on Tuesday. Looks like cheese and salami and caprese salad for dinner then. It’s all good.

Tomorrow we load up and head north along the Adriatic …

Locorotondo. This area is full of Trulli, the conical structures originally built by the peasant workers from the stones that they cleared from the fields that they worked. Without adding any materials and since they had no windows and because they could pull out the capstone and the place would fall into a pile of rocks that didn’t look like a house, they could escape paying any taxes on a dwelling. Interesting structures and oddly appealing in a gnomey, smurphy, nisse kind of way. On their own they aren’t very big, but when you mash 4 or 5 of them together you can almost make a proper, though slightly awkward, house out of them.

It is the time of Lent, March 6 – April 18 this year, and in this part of Italy there is a charming tradition known as La Caremma or Quaresima  and a couple of other names in other parts of the area. She is the widow or sister of Carnivale.  She is supposed to scare the children into being true to their Lenten sacrifices. She is manifest in the form of an ugly old lady or witch. She usually caries a distaff and a spinning spindle and also has an orange with 7 feathers stuck in it. One feather being removed each week between Lent and Easter. She is hung in effigy from balconies and light posts and on Holy Thursday before Easter the dolls are gathered and burned! representing the resurrection. The first time I spotted one of these witches hanging in the middle of an intersection I was a little perplexed to say the least…

Lunch at a place called Curduu… most of us order the ‘menu of the day’ … a little of everything. Oop.

5 courses. Mozz, eggplant and capacollo then something like a bit of lasagna then capolini and broccoli rab for pasta… cognilio (rabbit) for secondi and lemon torte for desert. Oh… and wine. A local bottle this time, cab, malbec, merlot blend. Quite tasty.

Locorotondo is a very cute, very southern little town. We notice a lot of for sale signs in the area. The landscape is stunning. Very different than Tuscany or the north. It is rugged and rocky. Palm trees and prickly pear cactus. HUGE olive trees and small vineyards… ‘Undiscovered’ by the tourism world at this point. As they realize the potential for tourism and tidy the area up accordingly maybe develop a service mindset, that will change I suspect.

Day 5

Up early! After an anxious sleep… Worried a bit about getting the cars out of the garage. Will they be open early on a Sunday morning? I should have had him write the price I negotiated on the claim ticket. Can we manage to get a ride to the garage maybe from Oksana’s husband or do we have to walk the 25 minutes?

Turns out it was a lot of fretting and fitful sleep for nothing. Nicola was happy to give us a ride to the garage… the garage guy remembered me AND our deal, the cars were right at the front of the garage and we were out of there in 5 minutes.

We were back to the villa to pick up the rest of the tribe and all the bags in 15 minutes. The only real issue was the little old man with the fruit cart who parks in the pull off spot in the crazy road where we turn around, threw a fit when we pulled in to turn around and threatened to call the police. Fine… whatever dude, we pulled out and blocked the road with our 6 point u-turns. Your ulcer, not mine kumquat man.

The drive was remarkably low key! Low traffic, decent weather, GPS was well behaved and we didn’t loose the other half of the group at the toll booth this time. The trick was finding an open gas station and Autogrill on a Sunday. It took a while longer than we had hoped but we found one. It wasn’t the fanciest Autogrill we’ve ever been in by any stretch… but they had decent restrooms and a small but good selection of surprisingly fresh sandwiches. All we needed.

The gas pump guy must have been really bored because no one was using the full service island and so was happy to help the dopey Americans at the self serve island fill their giant cars with diesel. A couple of euros as a thank you elicited a genuine, if raggedy, smile of appreciation.

We arrived at villa number 2 (Villa Murredda) about an hour early… we sat in the car trying to figure out the cell service that we couldn’t get until the ‘manager’ arrived.

The place is huge. This is a good thing. The place has wifi. This is a good thing. The place has 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a pool, an outdoor kitchen and dining area and … a dining table big enough for 10. Nice.

But… remember, it’s Sunday. We need supplies. Breakfast food, dinner for tonight and another night that we will prepare at the villa and wine… boy to we need wine.

We are told that the only place open for groceries on a Sunday is in Ostuni. Supposedly about 10 or 12 kilometers away. Ok only about 6 or 7 miles, what’s the big deal? We have Waze and Google Maps. Well, southern Italian cell service coverage (for roaming American’s anyway) is uh … hit or miss… mostly miss.

Off we go. 26 round-abouts, and 25 minutes later GPS tells us we are at our location. There is a hardware store (closed), a cement statue factory (closed), several unidentifiable businesses (closed) and a bowling alley (Open!). We pull in the bowling alley parking lot with our giant car blocking 3 parking spots and I jump out to go in and ask where the heck the grocery is.

The girl at the counter obviously feels a certain pity for someone as obviously simple as me and brings up google maps on her phone. (gee, wish we had thought of that…) she explains the map on her phone, which mysteriously shows a different location than our Google map… Hmmm. She explains, “google map, google map”. I take a picture of the map on her phone with my phone and go back out to the car. We head off back the direction we came. St. Adoophus must have been looking out for us because we finally found the only grocery in the world open on a Sunday… We stocked up, got dinner supplies and WINE and somehow found our way back to the villa before midnight.

Dinner is cheese and salami, prosciutto, crackers, fruit and caprese salad…. oh and wine.

Jack gives a quick Nespresso machine lesson for those who may want to make themselves a cup of coffee in the morning and we are settled in.

After the exhausting day and the frustrating parking and Manuella’s reaction to our plan for Ravello and taking into account our sore muscles and achy backs, we decided to take an easy morning at the villa and go into Positano in the afternoon to do a little shopping, people watching and dinner out. The plan is also to be home in time to pack up and be ready to get on the road in the morning. Of course we’re expecting it will take at least 45 minutes to fetch the cars and get back to the villa…

The beach in Positano is a people watching paradise. The world is on display all over the gravel. The bella figura Italians, completely uninhibited Ausies, the “hey look at me glam” Russians, the buttoned up and over dressed Japanese… and of course the cargo shorts and logo t-shirted Americans. It ‘s quite a show really.

Dinner is at Buca di Bacco, one of the nicer restaurants in Town. We ran into a couple from Ann Arbor at the next table and of course the conversation came around to the NCAA basketball tourney.

The food was excellent. The was grilled sea bass with beans and crusty potatoes, a grilled seafood platter with squid, prawns, octopus, clams, sardines… etc. I had the steamed sea bass with asparagus and a ceasar salad. oh… and there was wine. 😉 The service was very friendly and solicitous. But unfortunately they were not particularly competent. 2 messed up orders out of 10 and 2 messed up bills out of 6. Good thing the food was as good as it was.

We walked/wobbled our way home along the crazy road, our flashlights bobbing along at our sides in the assumption that they would make us more visible hence safe from being run over by a tour bus or a scooter.

We will miss this place, the kitties, Oksana and her coffee and pastries and tiding up after us… the friendly hair dryer in our bathroom…

Circadian rhythm seems to be knocked further out of whack than usual. Sleep was elusive and the alarm was a welcome relief from the effort of TRYING to sleep. Trying to sleep is hard work.

8:30 and we’re off! The crazy twisty road calls.

After getting our giant cars our of their tiny parking spots the drive to Pompii was relatively uneventful… the usual 2 storey, 50 foot German tour buses, the motorinis zipping between lanes and the complete lack of lines on the road or traffic signals. The distance from our villa to Pompeii is about 8.5 miles as the crow flies about 20 miles driving. It took about an hour and 25 minutes. Sheesh. Easy peasy.

Only issue was car #2 with half our party which got separated from us at a toll plaza and had to re-route. No worries, our charming and good looking (so I’m told by the ladies in our group) guide, Gian Luca, was patient and understanding.

Several of us have been to Pompeii before but we just wandered aimlessly unguided. That time it was hot and crowded and we didn’t really know much about what we were looking at. Gian Luca was very thorough and informative. We started with at the entrance to the park at the big ‘you are here’ map and he gave us an overview of the city and an historical timeline. He told the history of Pompeii in the form of little stories and scenes of life as it would have been. He had facts. Did you know there was actually no lava in the eruption of August 24, 79 AD? Pompeii was destroyed by the poisonous pyroclastic flow and entombed under about 25 feet of ash. Everything was dead and gone in the space of 20 minutes.

This is Etna now… on August 23, 79AD  the two peaks were connected and the top of Etna was a bit more than twice as high as we see it. On August 24th, it wasn’t any more.

The arena can still be a pretty brutal place….

This steam/sauna room had a double layer floor and double layer walls where hot water and steam circulated… !

So many facts! While touring the brothel, as everyone must, we were informed that a red light district is so called because the Romans/Pompeii-ans preferred their ‘service providers’ to have red hair. (I did on occasion wonder how factual all of his facts actually were… but they WERE entertaining.)

We booked a two hour tour. About 3 hours after we started we wrapped up one of the best guided tours of anything that I’ve had. Would highly recommend. Pompeitour.com (yes only one ‘I’) Request Gian Luca.

The drive back was as much fun as all the other trips along crazy road… it was parking when we got back to Positano that turned into the real adventure. We drove along the road to the villa, just kinda hoping we’d find a couple of spots along the side of the road like we did when we first arrived. Well we didn’t. And there’s pretty much no way to turn around… so we kept going for a kilometer or two until we got frustrated enough to just block the entire road with two cars making a 6 point u-turn and go back the way we came… we passed the villa again still with no spots to be had. When we came to the road that leads down to the center of Positano (where I knew there were a few pay to park garages) I thought “screw it, I’m done with this” and turned into the center of town. Yup, the road got even smaller. We turned into not the first, not the second, but maybe the third garage. When I asked the cost to park, I was told 4 euro per hour. That would be 96 euro per 24 hours… I wanted to leave the cars until we leave on Sunday. I was able to get him down to 30 euro per 24 hour day. Sold. Goodnight Irene.

We did dinner at the villa again. Kathy and Ken did a chicken Marsala with carrots and cherry tomatoes with balsamic and gelato for desert. Oh… and wine. Mmm. so good.

Tomorrow will be an easy morning as we decided that perhaps we should pace ourselves and not exhaust ourselves in the first 4 days of 3 weeks. A relaxing breakfast and morning hanging out on the veranda… wander into town to shop and look at the church and then dinner sounds like a plan.

yesterday was exhausting… yesterday’s post was admittedly rather droopy as was I when I wrote it. So, to make up for it I offer a few photos and thoughts on them…

People often look at me like I’m crazy when they find out that I am going to be driving around Italy. Well, yes, maybe a little but I really enjoy driving around Italy. Are they crazy? Yes, but they are all the same kind of crazy so you know what to expect. Not like in the US where everyone is their own special kind of crazy and there’s no way to know what they are going to do. The biggest challenge in Italy is the narrow roads. This is an average road in Positano. Plenty of room for a car and pedestrians on either side right?

Most of the guide books say don’t drive to Positano. the road is too windy, too narrow, too many buses and no parking. They’re right. Oh well.

I wonder how you get to have a private parking spot like this and how much it costs.

This is one of our cars… Land Rover Discovery. Seats 5 with room for 5 carry-on bags and 5 personal bags. When we told Manuella that we were planning to go to Ravello, her eyes got big and she said “in those cars?!” She seems to think that they are huge and that we would have little chance of making it without incident. Hmmmm.

Even in the rain, Positano is stunning, dramatic, enchanting. It is easy to understand why the world has come to view Positano as an icon of Italian seaside splendor.

Lemons… just lemons. Everywhere lemons …