Our Grand Tour of Europe

Sunday, May 15

Suddenly we feel like we are on a real vacation… even though we have been on vacation for eleven months. (Disgusting, I know!) It must be something about being near the ocean. This is such a dramatic change from our last week in Rome—the setting, the pace, the sounds, the smells, and definitely our accommodations.

We decided to have a lazy day off today and enjoy our beautiful surroundings. We all slept in, awaking to the sound of roosters and church bells across the valley.

Charley walked to the village to get breakfast breads and came back with an assortment of crunchy and sweet pastries that Kelly and I didn’t really like. She hates to hurt Charley’s feelings when he brings her something she doesn’t like. Yesterday at the little market she whispered to me to please get some cornflakes for her breakfast.

While I was drying my hair, my pink European hairdryer blew up. I bought this hairdryer in Vienna, on the very first day of my very first trip to Europe in 1991. Charley took the hairdryer apart, but it’s dead. Kaput. We’ll have to replace it.

We read on the deck until about 11 am, when we walked into the village. We stopped at several of the ceramics shops and also looked at the menus at a couple of the restaurants. Most of the restaurants have big outdoor terraces and absolutely beautiful views. I loved the pottery of Provence, but the ceramics here are very special too… very substantial in bright, bold colors. Many of the patterns involve intricate geometric designs. Most of the shops have rows of the rooster pitchers my mother collects. I want to scoop up everything.

We passed a building with a sign that said DH Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover there. Many famous people have gravitated to Ravello: Richard Wagner, Virginia Wolff, Graham Greene, and Gore Vidal. One of my guidebooks says this: “Ravello was rediscovered by a variety of writers and artists who, between the 18th and 19th centuries, chose it as one of their key destinations on their Grand Tour of southern Italy.” And now here is the Wood Family on Our Grand Tour.

Stanislao had given me information about a series of classical music concerts held Villa Rudolfo, a 13th century villa that was the residence of several popes. The villa is located just off the main square. Richard Wagner stayed here and claimed it was the inspiration for his opera “Parsifal.” We bought tickets to a concert on Friday evening… 20 euro each for adults and 10 euro for Kelly, so an expensive treat for us.

We walked through a tunnel to arrive at the dead-end road leading to Ravello and a beautiful overlook. From this point you can see down the coast to the south… a broad expanse of water… another incredible view.

The main square was already quite busy. People were enjoying coffee under the umbrellas and visiting the Duomo. The food shops were only open a half-day because it was Sunday. We made quick visits to the butcher, the grocery shop, and the produce shop to buy sandwich meats, cheeses, and a couple of other things. We also stopped at the Tourist Office to get a map of walking trails and find out about bus and ferry schedules.

We also needed to get a new European hairdryer, since these are not always provided in our accommodations. We had seen a small appliance shop yesterday, but it was closed. We went in a tiny shop marked “Tabachi” (which is normally a newsstand selling cigarettes) but this shop seemed more like a hardware store or little general store. A wizened elderly man was behind the counter. We tried to say the word for hairdryer, finally pointing to it in the dictionary. A taller middle-aged man with a bushy moustache who had been standing outside came in to talk to the old man and help him understand what we were looking for. The old man pulled out a ladder and started climbing up to get a box off an upper shelf. It was a hairdryer, but one much bigger than we wanted. It’s possible that big hairdryer has been up on the shelf for 15 years. And it may be there another 15 years, because we didn’t buy it. I felt terrible about the elderly man climbing up on the ladder and then we didn’t even buy anything. The other man (perhaps his son) took us two doors down the little street to the appliance shop. A man was just unlocking the door. He had just the right hairdryer for 19 euro.

We stopped at a big ceramics factory, the largest ceramics shop in the village. They also paint many of the ceramics here. The selection was overwhelming, and they can ship purchases home for a reasonable cost. Kelly and I will visit later in the week for a major shopping expedition. This is a good place to pick up some gifts.

Boom! Boom! We couldn’t imagine what it was. An earthquake? A nuclear attack? I looked to see if the ceramics were rattling on the shelves. The woman in the shop told us there was a festival today and these were fireworks. We heard a band playing. When we got back to the main square, it was much busier than before. The band was playing in the shade, near the steps of the cathedral. We stopped and listened until they took a break. There didn’t really seem to be anything else involved in the festival.

We had lunch on the terrace of our villa and then enjoyed a siesta. I put on my bathing suit and read down in the sunny garden. Kelly and Charley stayed in the shade on the terrace. Kelly picked some lemons and made lemonade. Every hour or so there was another set of booms. About 3:30 we decided to visit the Villa Cimbrone, literally our next-door neighbor. This villa may date back to the 11th century. In the late 1800s an English nobleman purchased the property set about to develop it as “the most gorgeous place in the world.” I love gardens and these were just beautiful, including a rose garden, various statues, and even a small temple. We wandered along the paths to the very end of the rocky point, where a long terrace lined with marble busts looks out across a wide view of a very blue Mediterranean Sea. This is called the Terrace of Infinity. Gore Vidal wrote that it was the most beautiful view in the world. Kelly and I took lots of photos. When we left, Charley told the woman in the ticket booth that we were living just next door and asked if we could come back tomorrow. She marked our tickets so we don’t have to pay again.

We talked about going into the village for a drink, but decided just to stay at home. Kelly is totally engrossed in her current book. She hadn’t even wanted to leave to go to the Villa Cimbrone. I fixed chicken, pasta and a vegetable sauté (ratatouille) for dinner. The butcher had cut up two large chicken breasts for us, which resulted in an enormous amount of chicken. I coated some of the chicken in smashed-up corn flakes. It was a decent meal. I used smaller pots and pans today and had a better cooking experience than yesterday’s stress-fest.

After dinner we read and relaxed. About 9:30 pm we heard the sounds of real fireworks and went outside to watch. It was a great display, and from our terrace we had a perfect view of the fireworks over the valley.

Monday, May 16

We loved our day on the Amalfi Coast today. Charley went down to the village for breakfast food and found some better soft croissants. He also checked on our car, which he thought he had parked in a “free” spot. There were two notices on the car. The Tourist Office advised him where he could park for free, and he ended up parking along the road about ten minutes from the main square. Charley told us there are 195 steps between our villa and the main square. There are two different routes. One is prettier, but involves a few more steps.

We left the house about 10:20 and walked all the way down the mountain to the town of Amalfi. The path to Amalfi from Ravello actually begins just outside our gate on the little passage Via St. Barbara. We probably could have walked to Amalfi in 45 minutes if we had walked straight down without stopping. But we stopped several times to admire the scenery and take photos. The footpath mostly involves steps—Charley counted most of them and said there were over 1300 steps. After our house, the path went mostly through little farming plots—lots of lemons but also vegetable gardens. I think a person could really live down there because of the difficulty of getting anything in or out, and we didn’t see any houses for a long time—just little farming sheds. The path went right underneath the Villa Cimbrone and we could look back up and see the little temple at the end and the terrace with the statue heads and the wonderful view.

Eventually we crossed a narrow road, skirted by the village of Castiglione and came into the seaside village of Atrani. We passed through the large square in front of the Church Santa Maria Maddelena and then followed little signs and arrows through the village. The path wound up through more steps… almost like we were going up the steps of a house, but it was a public passageway. Atrani has a pretty main square with several outdoor tables near a fountain, so we sat outside a café and ordered drink. Kelly had a strawberry milkshake. Atrani is right on the sea, and a passageway from the square led to a little beach area. We took a steep route from Atrani to Amalfi that didn’t involve going on the busy coastal road; instead we wound up and around more steps and passageways. We passed a very elderly woman who was climbing the steps with her bag of groceries.

Amalfi is a big and busy place with lots of restaurants, shops and tourists. There are several beach areas with colorful umbrellas and beach chairs for rent. I think you have to pay to even access the beach area. The water was a bright beautiful blue, as was the sky today. The mountains tumble down almost to the water’s edge, and the town is built cascading up the steep slope. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, Amalfi was a very important maritime town… an equal to Genoa or Pisa or Venice. The very elaborate duomo—almost Oriental in appearance—testifies to its former prominence.

We walked around the town and browsed in some shops. Many shops were selling straw hats and bags and beach shoes. I bought a pair of flip-flops. I saw some huge lemons outside a produce shop… as big as a melon. They’re called “ponciri” and are used in making pastry. While I used an “internet point” located in some kind of travel agency, Charley and Kelly explored more of the town and bought Kelly a flowered sun visor. We had lunch at a restaurant on the beach; the terrace had bright orange awnings and blue tablecloths. Charley and I shared a big caprese salad (very ripe tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella tied in some sort of knot). Charley and Kelly shared pasta bolognaise and pizza. I had a good pasta dish with bacon and tomatoes. Charley and I had big, very cold beers. We talked with an American couple at the next table from Los Angeles who are on their honeymoon.

I wanted to see the cathedral, but Charley had found out there was a charge to go in, and he really dislikes the idea of paying to go into a church, although he has done it at a few places. He also decided he wanted to walk back up the mountain to Ravello, a plan that didn’t appeal to Kelly and me at all. So our plan was to split up for the return to Ravello—Charley would begin his long upward trek while Kelly and I visited the cathedral and then we would take the bus up to Ravello. We bought our bus tickets (1 euro each) and then stopped at the Tourist Office to buy tickets for the ferry to the Isle of Capri tomorrow. We plan to walk back down to Amalfi to catch the ferry at 9:30 am.

It cost 2.50 euro for me to go in the cathedral but only 1 euro for Kelly. (I don’t have the problem Charley does about paying to see some of these wonderful churches—I don’t know how else these small towns raise the funds to maintain the churches and support the many visitors.) The cathedral sits at the top of steep stairs, the exterior decorated extensively with beautiful mosaics. There are actually two adjacent churches—a duomo and a basilica. Parts of the basilica date to the 9th century. The old basilica is now a museum and there are remnants of old wall paintings. The cathedral is dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle (the patron saint of fishermen) and his body was brought here in 1206 from Constantinople. The crypt is underneath the cathedral and is absolutely beautiful; the relics of St. Andrew are kept there. There are lots of paintings of St. Andrew—some as an apostle, some of his torture and death. It was definitely worth 2.50 euro to see all this.

I got a gelato and Kelly got a shaved ice drink and then we rushed over to catch the bus to Ravello. At this time of year the bus runs just once an hour, so we wanted to be on the 3:35 bus. The bus was crowded and a few people had to stand, but we got seats. I was on the aisle and couldn’t really see the road, but the road was very narrow and went steeply up the mountain. At one point the bus and several cars had to back down the mountain to let some other traffic pass. Charley would not have enjoyed this trip. (Maybe that’s why he decided to walk up 1300 steps??) I had read that the bus drivers are very skilled… I hoped that was true! Kelly and I talked with eight women from Illinois who are renting a villa near Positano for a week. They were very interested in our trip. Kelly desperately wanted to invite them to our villa for lemonade, but I thought it was too big of a group. They didn’t know much about Ravello, and we suggested they visit the Villa Cimbrione. (Later Kelly and I were sitting on our patio and saw some of them going by on the path just above. I called out to them, and it was neat to see their reaction when they realized our villa was right by the Villa Cimbrone.)

On the way from the bus stop back to our villa, Kelly and I stopped at a little limoncello “factory” that was offering free tastings. Limoncello is a local specialty, a liquor made from lemons. The woman gave me a little glass of the cold limoncello and… whew! It really had a sharp kick. She offered Kelly a taste too, but Kelly always declines any offers to taste anything alcoholic. We would like her to taste wine, but she’s not at all interested… probably a good thing. I bought a bottle of limoncello.

Charley was waiting on the patio when Kelly and I got back. He had arrived a few minutes before and didn’t seem too wiped out from his hike back up the 1300 steps. He said he had even stopped to chat with a couple from England for 20 minutes.

Kelly was buried in her book (the long Maeve Binchy book I bought in Rome), so Charley and I decided to use our return ticket and go back to Villa Cimbrone for a short walk. There weren’t many people there at all at 5 pm, but I did see three of the women from the bus. We walked down to the Terrace of Infinity again (there were only two other people there today) and then wandered back to the gate taking photos and enjoying the pretty gardens.

I fixed a Ready-Steady-Cook meal tonight, using leftovers from our last two dinners. We are definitely eating a lot of pasta in Italy. Kelly and Charley took their showers tonight. The hot water tanks are small, and we can’t take back-to-back showers in the same shower. In fact, we’ve learned that you really need to take a five-minute shower to make sure you have enough hot water. We also did laundry tonight. Stanislao asked us to turn off the hot water and just do laundry in cold water so we didn’t overload the electrical system. All this is a small price to pay for our week in what truly is a paradise!

Tuesday, May 17

Today was another wonderful day… we took the ferry to the Isle of Capri.

We set the alarm for 6:30 am, and I was up for my quick shower before waking Charley and Kelly. We just had coffee this morning and left about 8:00 am to walk down the 1300 steps to Amalfi. This time we only stopped to take a few pictures and moved much more quickly than yesterday. We were intrigued by a masted schooner anchored outside of Amalfi. Most of the steps are higher and wider than a “normal” step, which made the descent difficult—you couldn’t just step down right-left-right-left. Most of the time you ended up stepping down on the same foot every time, almost a hop. I have a feeling we’ll be sore tomorrow after making this trip two days in a row.

We reached Amalfi at 8:45, bought our bus tickets for the trip back, and had time for a little breakfast outside a small bar. I was too hot for another cup of coffee and had juice over ice instead. Our ferry left at 9:30 am, though we could have made the earlier ferry at 9:10. There are just two ferries a day going between Amalfi to Capri. (We learned that the name of the island is pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable.) We talked to some nice people on the dock—two women and two men. I talked mainly to the younger woman (maybe in her late 20’s) who said they were spending 15 days in Italy. She rattled off five or six places they were visiting. Today they were taking a ferry to Sorrento and then a train to Pompeii, which sounded like a long, complicated trip. I didn’t quite understand the relationship of the four people, but Charley later said he thought the two women and the two men had been traveling separately and met up somewhere in their trip.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Kelly and Charley sat inside the boat where Charley could be out of the sun and Kelly could read her book. I sat upstairs in the sunshine where I could watch the beautiful coastline. As we moved out into the sea, the view of Amalfi with the mountains rising steeply behind was just spectacular. There weren’t all that many passengers, so there was plenty of room to spread out. Most of the people seemed to be English-speaking. The three people sitting closest to me—two women and a man, perhaps in their mid 50’s—actually stripped down to their bathing suits for the ride.

The boat slowed down to move closely to another large coastal town about thirty minutes from Amalfi. It was Positano, another brightly-colored town built up on a mountainside. I thought perhaps we were going to dock and pick up more passengers (though the information at the dock didn’t say the ferry stopped at Positano), but we stopped moving a ways out from the town and there didn’t seem to be a large enough dock. All of a sudden people started climbing up the steps to the upper deck of the ferry. A launch of some sort had brought a load of passengers out from Positano, actually two launches. Suddenly our spacious ferry was packed with people, all headed to Capri.

I sat next to a couple who boarded the ferry in Positano, from Melbourne, Australia and on a five-week trip through Italy. The woman said she’s been with her company a long time and gets 13 weeks of vacation a year! We passed a couple tiny rocky islands off the coast that the Australian woman said were the famous Three Sirens rocks (mentioned The Odyssey), now called Li Galli. There was a beautiful home on one of the islands—the woman said this belonged to Rudolf Nureyev. The ferry veered off the coastline and soon the mass of Capri appeared before us. Capri is a small rocky island off the Sorrento Peninsula, four miles long and two miles wide. Roman emperors once vacationed here, and today it is a very popular tourist destination. The small island somehow manages to preserve spots of wild natural beauty while dealing with a huge hoard of day-trippers.

The whole trip—including the stop at Positano—took about an hour and a half, and we arrived at Capri around 11:00 am. Ferries from various places arrive at a big harbor, a little town called Marina Grande. Marina Grande was lined with souvenir shops and little cafes. It was kind of a transportation hub for the island and just swarming with people. Taxi drivers and tour guides waited outside each of the arriving ferries to solicit customers for a drive around the island. They drove little open cars with awnings. Tour groups also piled on to small buses waiting near the docks.

We lined up with other day-trippers to buy all-day passes to use the public transportation. First we took a funicular up to Capri Town, mid-way up the mountain. This was another busy place but much more upscale, with an attractive square filled with cafes, shops and more tourists. Here we lined up to take a bus to the supposedly more peaceful town of Anacapri, yet further up the mountain.

The bus was a miniature version of a typical bus… designed for miniature roads… with only one seat on each side of the aisle. We didn’t get seats on the trip up to Anacapri and found ourselves packed in the aisle with other tourists, trying to hold onto rails and dangling handgrips. I had a very hard time maintaining my balance as the bus started up the steep road to Anacapri. I couldn’t really see out the windows—fortunately, I believe—but the road was narrow, steep and twisty. I’m quite sure that in places we were literally inches from the side of the mountain. In one spot our bus had to back up to allow another vehicle by. Charley was in front of me, literally unable to look or speak. He was white, with his eyes closed… gripping poles on both sides of the bus. Was he praying? His fear of heights and fear of falling seems to have returned.

We finally reached the main square of Anacapri, and found it just as busy as our first two stops. We quickly moved down what seemed to be the main street, away from most of the people, and it was indeed a quiet and peaceful place. I was surprised at how many upscale shops there were… selling bright clothing, pretty sandals, coral jewelry and straw purses. In some of the shops there were older men—cobblers—making custom leather sandals for people. I wish I had waited to buy my flip-flops! These sandals really seemed mostly for show and not for the practicalities of walking a few miles a day.

Kelly wanted lunch the minute we arrived on Capri and I had put her off until it got closer to noon and until we reached Anacapri. I had hoped to find a place with an amazing view of the sea, which we never did find one in Anacapri. We finally settled on a restaurant with a pretty side terrace lined with bright geraniums right on a square by the XXXX church. I ordered fried courgette flowers as a starter to share with Charley, something we both wanted to try. For my main course I had risotto with seafood. Kelly had pasta bolognaise, and Charley had a caprese salad. This restaurant had absolutely wonderful bread… still hot from the oven. The waiter said it was pizza dough bread. We decided it was by far the best bread we’ve had in Italy.

My camera battery absolutely conked out at about this point. I have now taken over 10,000 photos on my camera, and the battery has been getting weaker and weaker, not able to hold a charge for long. Now the battery seems to be dead. I’ll have to rely on Kelly and her camera until I can get a new battery. First our hairdryer, now my camera battery…what will wear out next? We’ve been gone from home a long time.

I really wanted to ride the chairlift up to Monte Solaro (1944 feet) where we could get away from the intense tourist environment and really experience the beauty of Capri. Charley wasn’t interested enough in the views at the top to ride the chairlift, but Kelly agreed to go with me. The chairlift was interesting—just one seat, so each person rode alone to the top of the mountain. Kelly was initially hesitant but decided to ride up before me. It took her about 30 seconds to decide that the ride wasn’t scary at all and actually great fun. The trip to the top took 12 minutes, moving quickly past a few hotels and private homes up over top of flower gardens, lemon trees and small farming plots. I was surprised how much agriculture there was on Capri. The views over Anacapri and then over the sea were wonderful. Kelly and I reunited at the top and climbed a short set of steps to a viewing area. We had almost a 360-degree view of Capri and the sea around us, including the famous “I Faraglioni” rocks just off the shore of the island.

At the top there was a little bar with an attractive terrace. Kelly and I had ice cream and enjoyed the environment. We started out on a path that led to a jagged point at what seemed the edge of the world, but then remembered Charley and our planned meeting time. I’m so sorry he missed this special place—the chairlift wasn’t at all frightening… not that far off the ground. When we got to the bottom, Charley was waiting in a café drinking fizzy mineral water. He had found another special view at the Villa San Michele, so we followed him past more upscale shops and hotels to a belvedere with another wonderful view. From here we could see down to busy Capri Town and Marina Grande and across to the rugged mountain cliffs of the island. Charley pointed out the narrow road we had taken up on the bus… literally running along a sharp cliff. He wasn’t looking forward to the trip down.

By this time it was 3:30 pm, and we had to get back to the harbor for our return ferry at 5 pm. I felt rushed the whole time we were on Capri. The ferry didn’t get there until 11 and we had to leave at 5. The logistics of getting up to Anacapri were time-consuming. I’d like to visit Capri again, but not on a day trip. I think the best approach is to spend a few nights on the island. I’m sure the island is much more peaceful… and romantic… when all the day-trippers are gone. We saw some wonderful-looking hotels.

I had promised to buy Kelly a t-shirt. (“Pinky promise, Mom?!”) We had another harrowing bus ride back down to Capri Town. We looked at shirts at a couple of shops. Kelly quickly got frustrated in finding exactly what she was looking for. The tight fitting teenage shirts just aren’t right for her yet. Charley didn’t think she needed a shirt to begin with, so he got frustrated over her frustration. We finally gave up on finding a shirt in Capri Town (where there were just a few tourist/souvenir shops) and took the funicular down to Marina Grande. The marina area had lots of tourist shops and lots of t-shirts. Then Kelly struggled to pick a shirt from several that she liked, even lobbying at one point to get more than one shirt. I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to choose a 10-euro t-shirt. Imagine what it will be like to pick out a prom dress in a few years!

The ferry back to Amalfi took about an hour-and-a-half and was a much larger boat than the ferry we had taken over. Charley and I started out sitting up top and outside, but it got chilly and we joined Kelly in one of the interior cabins. We didn’t have a view, but it was a comfortable and warm ride. Ten minutes after we arrived in Amalfi, we were on a bus headed up to Ravello. Charley had a hard time with this bus ride too, as I thought he would. Kelly and I got seats and spent most of the ride chatting with a woman schoolteacher from Melbourne, Australia who was on a three-month trip to various places (Egypt, Spain, Italy) with a friend.

We didn’t have any food at our house and ate dinner in Ravello. We walked almost back to our house thinking we would eat at the Villa Maria, a place with a beautiful outdoor terrace near our house. But when we got there, it seemed too elegant (and expensive) for the three of us this evening. After three weeks in Italy, Charley and Kelly are weary of pasta and pizza. I’ve had more variety with occasional veal and seafood. We walked back down to the village and ended up eating at Vittoria, a great little place that was just right for us. They gave us a complimentary aperitif and a complimentary starter of fried courgette flowers… our second of the day, and better than the ones I had paid for at lunchtime. Charley and Kelly both ended up having pizza after all, and I had large gnocchi, almost like ravioli. Charley and I shared a whole liter of wine.

We chatted with two couples at the next table for at least half an hour. They were from Canada and traveling in Italy for five weeks. We enjoyed sharing travel stories. One of the men was somewhat familiar with Provence. The two women were especially complimentary of Kelly. They are staying in Ravello and had also been to Capri for the day. Maybe we will see them again…

Wednesday, May 18

Yesterday we re-vamped our plan for the week. I had originally wanted to take the ferry to Positano today, but the ferry was expensive and now I wasn’t sure what we would do there. More shopping? An expensive lunch out? We decided we’d rather have a leisurely day at our pretty villa in Ravello.

We all slept late. It was cooler today and a bit windy. We had a very late breakfast—Kelly actually made hers an early lunch.

Kelly and I sat out in the garden and read. It was warmer in the sun. I wore my bathing suit and worked on my tan, forcing myself to lay on my stomach so I don’t end up with just a front tan. Charley read on the porch.

About 2 pm we walked into the village and had a late lunch at The Garden restaurant, looking south down the coast… another absolutely beautiful view. I had fried seafood and sautéed vegetables, Charley had a salad, and Kelly had pasta with butter. Our meal cost too much for what we got, but I think part of the cost was for the view.

There’s just one internet place in Ravello and it just has one terminal… in a bar with loud music. Unfortunately there wasn’t a spectacular view like the bar/internet place I used on Lake Como. I spent 45 minutes on the computer, mainly working on arrangements for the next part of our trip. I had a message from Jeanne about the boxes we’ve shipped home in the last several weeks, most of them from Provence. She’s received 17 boxes so far. The two big boxes we shipped from Provence were in very bad shape and one has obviously broken open. She reported that two empty envelopes (addressed to me at her house, which she had sent to me in France several months ago) had arrived separately. I wanted to save the return addresses and had just put the envelopes in one of the boxes. This was a very bad sign. What else could be missing from the Provence boxes?

When Charley took over on the computer, Kelly and I left to do our ceramics shopping. We planned to buy several gifts as well as some things for ourselves. The big ceramics place can ship a box to America at a reasonable price. We must have been at the shop for at least an hour, trying to make our decisions. Two very dressed-up and made-up American women were also in the shop fussing over the ceramics. I felt like Kelly and I were from another planet from these two ladies. Their husbands waited impatiently in the courtyard, terribly bored with the shopping but obviously willing to hand over their credit cards. We got a 10% discount for paying cash and ended up buying about 20 pounds of ceramics.

We also needed some groceries for the next two nights. We made the rounds of the little shops in Ravello—the alimentari, the produce shop, and then a different butchers shop. The shops didn’t even open up in the afternoon till after 5 pm. The butcher shop we liked didn’t seem to be open today. This new butcher talked on the phone the first five minutes we were in his shop, but then redeemed himself by spending at least five minutes cutting up the chicken breasts for us.

Charley was worried about us because we were gone so long. He had actually walked back into the village to look for us, and then made another trip up and back on the 190 steps to take the cash to pay for our purchases at the ceramics shop.

It was too cool to eat outside tonight, so we ate in little dining room. I attempted my beef stroganoff again tonight, but still didn’t quite find magical recipe I’d created back in Rome. I think it all relates to the cream. I’m having a harder time with the grocery shopping here than I did in France, where we had a huge supermarket and I understood what I was buying. We also had green beans and pasta tonight. Kelly has been anxious to eat more vegetables. She seems to be eating more responsibly and has definitely slimmed down.

We had a quiet evening. We worked on photos and postcards, and we read. Charley and Kelly walked back into the village to get milk and an evening treat.

Thursday, May 19

We had planned to go on a day trip today. We initially planned to go to Pompeii, the ancient city destroyed by a volcano in AD 79. Kelly was lobbying to go to Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that did the destruction and is now the only active volcano in Europe. She thought maybe we could go to both places. I didn’t particularly care about going to either of them and left the decision (and the guidebook research) to Charley and Kelly. When we got up this morning, Charley had read the guidebooks and said it didn’t seem we could visit both in the same day… not with an hour and a half drive each way. He had changed his mind and thought we should go to Mount Vesuvius instead of Pompeii. He said we’ve seen all kinds of ancient ruins (especially last week in Rome), but we haven’t ever seen a real volcano. I think he was also trying to support the experience Kelly wanted to have.

So we did our morning things and waited to see what the weather would do. It had rained overnight and was cool and windy. Unfortunately, the morning fog never really cleared and by 9 am we could tell it wasn’t going to be a good weather day—not an ideal day for hiking up to the crater of a volcano. We decided to postpone Mount Vesuvius until tomorrow and stay local today. There were still several things we wanted to see in Ravello, and we also wanted to hike across the valley to the village of Pontone and have lunch at a restaurant that had been recommended by our Slow Travel friends from England, Wendy and Richard.

We poked around the house until 10:30 and then walked to the village. It definitely looked like rain, so we carried umbrellas. We went to the post office to buy stamps and mail a few small packages to some of Kelly’s friends. We’re sending a lot of postcards since we left France, I think because we are visiting very unique places we’ve never been before. Kelly is faithfully sending a weekly postcard to her class at the village school in Bonnieux—one way for her to keep up with her French language skills.

We finally visited the duomo (cathedral) in Ravello, founded near the end of the 11th century. For a small village, it’s an impressive church. The big pulpit is decorated in mosaics, supported on four glittering spiral columns set on the backs of little lion statues. The most important relic in the church is a vial of blood of St. Pantaleone, the patron saint of Ravello. (Charley of course wondered if the saint is an ancestor of our gardener, Signore Panteleone, who we seem to run into somewhere in the village once or twice a day.) The blood of St. Pantaleone miraculously liquefies each year on July 27th, which even more miraculously happens to be the feast day of St. Pantaleone. Charley and I both went into a tiny space back behind the altar where you could get a close-up view of the vial of blood. I’m okay looking at a vial of a saint’s blood… but I’m not that interested in seeing a 2000-year-old arm or leg close up. I also think I’ll also pass on the head of St. Catherine when we get to Siena.

Just as we began our walk to Pontone, it started to drizzle. We used our umbrellas most of the way. Pontone is a small village on the opposite side of the Valle dell Dragone, about halfway up the mountain. We can see the village from our house. We used our map of walks from the Tourist Office, and followed the well-marked path, which involved mostly steps again. This narrow path was apparently the main way out of the village until the paved road was built in 1930. In a couple of places we crossed over the twisty road we had taken on the bus from Amalfi up to Ravello. Finally—when we were just above the little Dragone River that runs down the valley—we crossed under the portico of a building to arrive in the yard of a vehicle repair station and then turned right at the crossroads to take the tiny road to Pontone. When we looked up across the valley, we could see our little white house… right at the end of the village with vines across the top of the veranda. Next to our house we could see the gardens of the Villa Cimbrone with the little temple at the very end of the cliff.

The road passed through two short tunnels that we can see from our house. As we started into the first tunnel, we heard the sound of bells and then a group of goats—about 20 of them—darted out of the tunnel toward us. Each goat had a little bell, and we were delighted to see a couple of little kids. Charley has claimed to hear bells across the valley at night, and now we’ve found the source. We have no idea where the goats were going, since there didn’t seem to be any easy access to pasture land… and no goatherd anywhere in sight.

We climbed up the road in the continuing drizzle to reach Pontone and found the Ristorante-Pizzeria San Giovanni. The narrow road by the restaurant was being re-paved, and as we approached, a man carrying a tray of food crossed the wet cement on a wide board. The kitchen and indoor part of the restaurant were on one side of the street and the outdoor terrace was on the other side. We headed for the outdoor terrace. Kelly didn’t realize the cement was wet and tromped right through the cement, leaving her imprint on the newly paved street of Pontone.

The restaurant terrace had a great view of the valley looking across to Ravello, beautiful even in the drizzle. And once again, there was our little house clearly visible on the other side. The owner indicated that several of the tables were reserved, but pointed us to a table for three. We arrived just past noon, and a group of six enjoying a meal at another table. A bit later an English couple arrived and were seated next to us.

We found ourselves eavesdropping on the other group—five Americans (three women and two men) and one very talkative Italian speaking English very quickly. After a time it became obvious that he was the tour guide for the group and was very well acquainted with the restaurant and the owner. He ordered the food for the group and gave a detailed explanation of everything they were eating and drinking. He absolutely dominated the conversation. I couldn’t imagine spending 15 minutes with him, much less a whole day. Several of the people in his group sat almost silent through the whole meal. Three bottles were brought to their table at the end of the meal—one was limoncello—though not everyone at the table took a sample. At one point we interacted briefly with a few of the Americans. We pointed out our house across the valley, and they told us that they were on a two-week Mediterranean cruise and rattled off a list of ports in several countries they were visiting… Monte Carlo was one place.

The prices were reasonable, and we ordered a lot of food. We had a liter of red wine, a bottle of water, and Kelly’s normal Fanta. They brought us a complementary plate of bruschetta. I had a plate of parma ham and mozzarella (the cheese in little balls) that I shared with Charley. Kelly and I shared pasta arrabitatia. Charley had a veal dish in a lemon sauce, a bit like saltimbocca. I had fried calamari. Kelly had a pizza that she shared. The food came out in a strange order. I’ve noticed that in many restaurants (including in France), when people order different numbers of courses, they bring everyone something on the first round of food. One person may be having their appetizer, but another person who didn’t order an appetizer will get their main course. In America, all the main courses come at the same time, and a person who doesn’t get an appetizer just watch and watches.

We struck up a conversation with the two English people at the next table. The husband was a very large man with a great smile and a mop of gray/white hair…. very outgoing and quite humorous with a droll wit. They are staying in Amalfi—someplace they’ve apparently been several times—and had taken the bus up to the village of Minuta and were walking down. The man definitely didn’t seem in good enough shape to make the walk up. We talked about our trip, including our time in England, and chatted about their travels.

About the time we were finishing our main courses, the whole environment of our quiet little terrace changed… not for the better, I’m afraid. The cruise ship group and their chatty guide had departed earlier, but now four other big tables filled up with Americans and their Italian guides. We assumed everyone was from the cruise ship, out for a day tour of the Amalfi Coast. The Americans seemed totally helpless with the language, the menu and the food. Their Italian guides—most of them wearing suits and ties—bustled around their groups like mother hens, placing their orders and even carrying their drinks and food across the street from the kitchen. It was obvious they were on a tight time schedule.

“Everyone must go to the toilet while we are here,” we heard one of the guides tell his group loudly.

We walked around to back side of Pontone and looked down next valley. We could see English couple heading down stairs on the other side, making their way to Amalfi.

Our walk back to Ravello was harder… we’d just had a big meal and now we had to go up the steps on the other side of the valley. We didn’t count the number of steps, but we had to stop several times to catch our breaths. The day turned sunny for just a while… wouldn’t you know it, just when we were climbing uphill.

We stopped in the main square of Ravello to have cold drinks under an umbrella. We watched the American tour groups moving back and forth, following their guides—one guide held up a closed umbrella; another one held up a fan. After eleven months of traveling in Europe, how did we somehow end up surrounded by Americans here in Italy?

“I’m not really sure I like all these American tourists here,” I told Charley.

“Why?” he replied. “Do you feel like you’re not so much of a novelty?”

That wasn’t it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps Italy seems less foreign because so many Americans are here… Or perhaps I watched some of the American and found myself horrified by their clothes, their inability to say even hello and thank you in Italian, their loud demeanor, their intense desire to fit Italy into some kind of American mold. Yesterday at lunch—a very nice restaurant—the American man at the next table… I’m certain in his mid 40’s… was wearing a baggy San Francisco Giants tank top with a pair of above-the-knee khaki shorts. He looked like he was going outside to wash his car. And today an American man sitting at the next table in the square talked loudly on his cell phone for at least 15 minutes… I tried not to listen, but he was so loud… it sounded like he was talking to his office back at home, doing a business deal. “Yeah, I’m sitting here in Ravello…”

We walked back to our villa. It really was much cooler today. Kelly and Charley read on the deck wrapped in big bath towels, but I read inside and took a nap. For dinner I fixed chicken, steamed broccoli, and pasta. We ate inside again. I went to bed early. I like this life.

Friday, May 20

I woke up around 6 am, the sun streaming in the window. It was a perfect day for our trip to Mt. Vesuvius. This was the first time we have used our car since last Saturday, other than Charley’s two trips to move it to other parking spots.

We’ve made some decisions about our trip to Florence on Saturday. My original plan was that we’d take the car to Florence and figure out—somehow—where to park it… likely in an expensive spot. The more I thought about that, it wasn’t an ideal solution. Instead (based on advice from our rental agency), we’ve decided to drive tomorrow to Chiusi—not too far from where we’ll spend our month in Tuscany—and park our car in a safe place near the station. We’ll then take the train from Chiusi to Florence (about an hour’s trip), leaving the car in Chiusi while we’re gone. I have my fingers crossed that this really will be a safe approach. We’ve also decided not to haul all our luggage to Florence for just four days. We’ll leave the two big bags hidden in the trunk space of the car, filled with things we don’t need for the short stay in Florence.

Ever since last Saturday when we (mostly Charley) dragged our luggage up and down almost 200 steps to our villa on the edge of Ravello, we’ve been dreading the thought of getting the luggage back to the car. The first 100 steps are all uphill. Charley doesn’t want to pay 20 euro for the man with the motorized cart. Today we decided to take the two big bags with us when we went to the car. We also took a bag of books we hope to trade at a place called The Paperback Exchange in Florence. This way we’ll only have to make one trip with luggage when we leave tomorrow.

This plan worked just fine. Kelly and Charley managed the two big bags and I handled the bag of books and the backpack for today. Kelly and I waited at the bus stop while Charley walked to the edge of town where he had parked the car on the side of the road. He swung by to load the bags and pick us up… and by 10:30 am, we were off.

We should have researched a little more about the logistics of visiting Vesuvius. Two guidebooks indicated we should drive to the station in Ercoleno (Herculaneum), park at the station, and take a bus. We drove up over the mountain through the Valico di Chiunzi and found our way through a town called “Angri” to the A3 autostrada. From there it was a 30-minute drive toward Naples to the exit for Ercoleno. The impressive mass of Mt. Vesuvius (4190 feet) rose before us on the plain, and we had a spectacular view of Naples and Naples Bay as we began our descent. It’s really a lovely drive over the mountain, though a bit harrowing. At one point—not too far out of Ravello—we came around a curve to find a man herding goats right along the mountain road….perhaps as many as 100 goats in the road. This is a busy narrow road used by trucks, buses, cars and speeding motorcycles! Like the goats we had seen in the tunnel the other day, there didn’t even seem to be a place to graze the goats. Where were they going—and what are they for? Unlike France, where goat cheese is a really big thing, we haven’t heard anything about goat cheese here.

Ercoleno was a mess… a big, dirty town filled with vehicles and people. Somewhere in the midst of all this is the archaeological treasure of Herculaneum, an ancient town destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD and buried in lava. We never did see Herculaneum—or find the station where we could park our car and take a bus to Vesuvius. Charley hated driving in Ercoleno. He’s a very polite driver, unusually kind about beckoning people into traffic and yielding to other drivers. In this culture, though, if you yield to one driver, five others will also follow and no one will yield back to you. “Let’s just give up and go back home,” Charley said at one point in frustration. We’d been driving in Ercoleno for maybe 10 minutes (I’m sure it seemed like an hour to him), and he was tense over the driving and repulsed by the squalor of the town. I wasn’t driving and wasn’t as tense. I sure didn’t want to give up on the whole plan for Mt. Vesuvius and waste our day. I suggested we go ahead and drive to Vesuvius ourselves and figure out how to hike up onto the crater.

This turned out to be a good plan given our timing today. (The parking at the top is very limited, so maybe that’s why the guidebooks suggest another approach.) The route to Vesuvius (Vesuvio) was clearly marked out of Ercoleno. We took small roads winding out of the town, so small it was hard to believe the roads were even going anywhere, much less somewhere important. We finally came to a park office, in what seemed to be a family’s home. The woman didn’t speak English, but we somehow understood that the Vesuvius crater was 9 km further up the road and that there were restaurants on the road too. It was almost noon—Charley needed a break and we were hungry.

Two or three kilometers ahead we found a restaurant (the Kona Restaurant) that looked decent. They were still cleaning off their outdoor terrace, but we waited a few minutes and then sat outside in the sun to relax and eat. Italians eat later than Americans—their lunchtime doesn’t really start until 1 pm or so, though restaurants may open earlier for tourists. Dinner is probably more typically at 8 pm, though again, places open earlier for tourists. The menu was all in Italian and quite limited (maybe four options for each course), but we had a good meal. The staff spoke just a little English but they were pleasant and polite. Charley had some kind of ravioli and I had some kind of pasta. Kelly had just spaghetti with butter (burro). We had a small bottle of wine and little frozen ice cream desserts. It was a pleasant hour or so in the sunshine and shifted our day away from the 15 minutes of stress in Ercoleno.

We wound our way up toward the top of Mt. Vesuvius, spotting our first lava flow. The road twisted and turned and all of a sudden we came upon cars and buses parked on the side of the narrow road and people trudging up and down, to and from their cars. We decided to keep on going and finally parked right at the very end of the road—only 2.50 euro to park. It wasn’t necessary to take a bus after all—at least not at 1:30 pm on this Friday in late May.

It cost 6.50 euro per person to enter the restricted area and walk up to the crater of the volcano. We had read that it was necessary to go with a guide, and we thought our tickets were for a guided tour, but every place we asked, they kept beckoning us on, and we never saw a guide. My theory is that all the guides were at lunch. We were just as happy to walk on our own, and it wasn’t unusually dangerous. It’s a bit of a tough walk… a dusty path that winds up the side of the volcano and quite steep. For the first time since we arrived in Venice three weeks ago, we weren’t surrounded by other Americans. The other walkers headed up the path seemed to be German, French and English… but not Americans. The walk was strenuous, and we had to stop a few times to rest.

Today was a good science lesson for Kelly. The whole environment is very strange. The lower area of the mountain was unexpectedly beautiful with bright yellow broom, cherry and apricot orchards, and vineyards. Even higher up, scrub and beautiful wildflowers have managed to grow on top of the charcoal-gray lava. But the top it was totally barren and desolate… just the dusty gray rock. There were absolutely beautiful views out across the Mediterranean though. We could see the large island of Ischia off the coast of Naples and the rocky peaks of Capri further to the south.

Finally we reached the top of Vesuvius, where the path circles almost halfway around the massive crater and we could look down into the forbidding pit. The crater is 2145 feet wide and 759 feet deep. A plume of smoke trickled up from somewhere deep in the earth. There have been five eruptions in the last 400 years. The most recent eruption was in 1944, so it’s believed they are due for another eruption. The area around Mt. Vesuvius is now densely populated—especially the city of Naples which has a million people. There are even several villages right on the mountain. It surprised us to find so much investment and so many people in an area of such high risk.

The walk down was much, much easier. The lunch hour was over, and as we walked down we passed many more people going up… several groups of schoolchildren and also now people following Vesuvius guides. We were glad we had arrived at lunchtime—fewer people and no guides to deal with. We bought a book so we could learn all the details.

We had an easy drive back to Ravello, though there was more traffic on the little mountain road and anxious Italian drivers wanting to pass in very dangerous spots. Some of the local people use tiny three wheeled trucks as utility vehicles—one wheel in the front and two wheels in the back. We got behind one of these little vehicles, loaded with stuff, creeping up the mountain at about 10 miles an hour. We couldn’t believe the driver could even get his heavy little vehicle to go up the hill, and I prayed that he had good brakes. Charley finally found a place to pass him.

We arrived in Ravello about 4:30. Charley parked the car along the road in another “free” spot and we walked the 30 minutes back to our house. We had tickets to a concert at the Villa Rufolo at 9:30 and planned to have dinner at the Vittoria again. We relaxed at the house, and Charley and Kelly took their showers. I’ll take my shower in the morning when we have hot water again.

We had another good meal at the Vittoria, though the service wasn’t as good as the other night. There was a large party in the front room that must have stressed the staff. Our complimentary appetizer today was some type of little salty fish in oil instead of the fried courgette flower, which we would have preferred. I saw other diners with the courgette flowers, so I’m not sure why we ended up with the little fish. Charley and I shared parma ham and buffalo mozzarella again, then he had lamb chops and potatoes and I had grilled prawns. Kelly had a pizza. Charley and I passed on dessert, but Kelly had fresh pineapple. It seemed to take forever to get our check.

We arrived at the Villa Rufolo about 9:15 for our 9:30 concert. I had hoped to get a look around the Villa, but it was too dark and they had blocked off access to the other areas. We should have visited earlier in the week. Some of the most spectacular views from Ravello are from this villa’s gardens.

Ravello has a music festival for several months each year, with concerts a couple days a week. Our concert featured a pianist, who played six very heavy and dark pieces. We had chosen this concert because the original information said the pianist would play Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven, but when we arrived the program for the evening seemed different and we’re not sure what he played—perhaps all Liszt. He stood and bowed at the end of each piece, but never smiled at all. There was an intermission in the middle and several people left. We really only liked the piece he played as an encore. The concert was okay, not great. In some ways I was glad we went, but I probably would have been just as happy to keep my 50 euros and stay at home and read a book.

We walked back to our house through the tiny streets one last time, this time in the dark. It was a late night for us, and we have an early start in the morning. I got to sleep finally around midnight. I have really enjoyed our week here—maybe one of my favorite weeks of the entire trip. I think we all would have liked to stay another week, though we will not miss all the steps!