London Gatwick Airport to Ravello, Italy.
After a bit stressful of a morning (we thought we might miss our morning flight and ran a mile to the gate only to find out that the airline was running late), we arrived in Naples airport. It was pretty nice to pass the Naval base and see where I might have spent part of my childhood. The city itself, though, was just your average city. I was so happy to be in the land of palm trees and ocean (yay! Seagulls!) I didn't notice all the graffiti and sketchy people on our warm bus ride from Naples airport to Naples train station. The wind would catch the little patches of trash and swirl them around into a litter-tornado. It felt kind of like L.A. or NYC. After thirty minutes on the bus, we had a short walk over to the train station to get our train tickets to the Amalfi Coast.
We got off the bus, and immediately I hear a bright, friendly voice say:
"Hi- do y'all mind if I walk with you to the train station?"
I turn to my left and see a bright, friendly face to match the bright, friendly voice of a woman about my age, dragging a suitcase and carrying an admittedly cute Yorkshire terrier. Caught a little off guard by this girl, I said "uhh sure! I guess the train station is this way? Anyway, we'll find it together!"
Turns out, she is in the US Navy and stationed in Naples, all alone, and just needed a human connection. I can't blame her. I need desperately to have someone to talk to, and when I go an afternoon alone I begin to go crazy. It's definitely no accident that I was born in a big family. It's bad, and I have tried to work on loving being alone. But I can't. I do not like it, Sam I am.
So this gal was on her way to the train station to go on a trip up to Venice. She had a "grit your teeth and bear it" sort of attitude to her loneliness. She is stationed here, she might as well travel. Her last post was Jacksonville Florida. I've never been there. After we chatted and walked to the station I introduced her to Max, who was walking just a step ahead of us. She nodded her head towards me and said "I just needed to see a friendly face and talk to someone nice and she looked like the right person to talk to!"
Well, glad I could help. We chatted a little longer, wished each other well and parted ways.
After an hour wait for the (late) train in Naples, we arrived in Salerno, Italy. This is on the coast. We bought two bus tickets for Amalfi, then patiently waited for the (late) bus. This is when I realized Italians can be very impatient people. They stamp their feet and pace the ground and look at me darkly-- as if it's MY fault!
--Gosh Mary, way to make the train late
--if it weren't for you, I would be halfway to my home by now!
I imagined them growling these thoughts as they stared at me through their narrowed, dark eyes... Perpetual scapegoat that I am, I was tempted to bow humbly and acquiesce to the irritated attitudes of those around me. But I suppressed this. It's definitely a stereotype that your transportation never runs on time, people! Don't even get me started on the joke that getting the trains to arrive on time was Mussolini's kindest act of service to this country. (*note: this is a gross exaggeration of what was probably one old lady who actually looked at me angrily about the lateness of the transportation, looking more for empathy than a person to blame)
Anyway, trains, buses, flights- they are all going to be late, and it does not bother me one bit. Because why? Because ITALY.
We drove on tiny streets that hugged the sides of cliffs in our bus. I have so much respect for that driver. Anytime we came round a corner, he had to blast the horn so that other cars could stop for us. We meandered up the mountainside to Amalfi, and then changed buses and continued on to Ravello, our first overnight stop on our journey through the coast.
The Church in Ravello, in the town square:
Ravello is up on the mountain, and it has been a destination for celebrities in the past, such as Greta Garbo and Richard Wagner (who gained some inspiration here for his opera Parsifal), and current celebrities like Justin Timberlake/Jessica Biel (when they were a thing, are they a thing? Who knows).
We stayed in a gorgeous little B&B called B&B I Limoni:
When we got off the bus, it took us a while to find out which direction to go in. The maps are oriented south to north, not north to south, and no compass or directional key to speak of. What's up with that?
We were stopped by an ancient Ravello (Ravellian?) man with a grocery bag and a cane, he stooped and despite being born and raised in this small town, he spoke fairly good English:
"Where are you going?" he asked pleasantly.
"B&B I limoni" we responded with a plea- help us find Via Gradoni!
"Ah, well, limoni- they are...they is...everywhere!" he offered with a smile. He grabbed my blurry, printed page with the map on it. The page got wrinkly in his tight but wobbly grip, and he seemed reluctant to ever give this piece of paper back to me. He happily told us: "Ah! Limoni! ....you just go to....there...and then here [he drew a square on the ground with his cane, meaning town square] you buy…limon- lemon! All thing with lemon. Sometimes there is a boy in the square with lemons. Ah, but he was not there today. But there is always limoni here. Just go...left. Yes, go left."His hazel eyes looked up at us. He looked like he might fall over with the exertion of telling us where to buy lemons! I think I muttered "hotel limoni" but he didn't hear me. I also could've sworn he meant go right, not left, since we had a vague notion of where the town square was.
"Dextro?" I added helpfully, with what I thought was a winning smile. This means right, and you have to go right to get to the square.
He looked at me with a furrowed brow, like he didn't know who I was, or why he was standing there on the warm cobblestones, talking to us, at that precise moment. Is it possible he had some form of dementia?? He spoke remarkably good English for a man who had no idea what he was talking about. Then he smiled. Oh well, then. We thanked him profusely, I managed to wrench the map out of his startlingly strong grasp, and we walked on.
Welcome to Ravello! That was mightily awkward!
We asked a few more people and finally managed to find Via Gradoni, where our place was located. It is actually not a "via" at all, it's JUST steps which meet the road. Hundreds of steep stone steps. And it was about halfway down the mountain, between the upper town square and the sea. So we scurried down and went through the gate.
"Sorry we're a bit late" Max said apologetically to the owner Rosalba after we introduced ourselves. She looked cheerfully at us and said "sorry, no English. Italiano??" To which we shook our heads. "Français?" She asked hopefully. All I remember is Max looking at me and saying "err she knows a little French" and suddenly I was saying things like "je suis désolée, nous sommes trop tard!" And she replied "pas de problème! Voici votre chambre...vous voulez quelque chose??" Rosalba is from Rome but studied French for a while and spent some time in southern France. Her husband Luigi who runs the B&B also was born and raised in Ravello, and he barely spoke English, and other than that it was Italian for him only.
This is how I ended up speaking French during the first few days of our trip to southern Italy. I love it when a brief, non-fluent relationship with a language becomes so entirely USEFUL. I know how to ask for more water and toilet paper! I know how to say her homemade cake is delicious and the sky is blue today despite the forecast of rain!
The world can be so full of possibilities.
Our room was nicely decorated:
This is me, rummaging, and it shows our big open doors out on to the terrace and the pretty stucco walls:
And this was the view from our terrace area:
B&B I Limoni is conveniently located closer to the ocean...towards the bottom of the mountain...below the town of Ravello...put it all together and it means yes, lots of descent and ascent. As kind, sweet Rosalba said:
Living towards the bottom is kind of a problem (with a wink).
Yo- massive understatement!
The tiny, steep corridors of steps are a marvel, to say the least. We have to climb 257 steep stone steps just to get to the first available paved road! Beyond that, it's another 350+ to get to the town square. On top of this is the sheer fact that hiking anywhere in Amalfi means hours straight of steps, steps, steps. It never ceased to amaze me how much strength the locals must have had, especially back in the days before the roads were built. Getting your daily tasks accomplished was made infinitely more difficult by the steps involved, I can imagine. But the locals know they wouldn't give it up for the world.
We wandered up to Ravello.
We ate our first night at Cumpa' Cosimo. We were seated, given water, then nonna came up to us.
"We have a bean zuppa, a good bean zuppa, and would you like pasta or fish?"
Keep in mind we have full menus in front of us and had started mulling over our own choices before she came up to us, thank you very much. Yet, her soft, warm gaze and pleasant attitude somehow made us hang on to every word and follow each suggestion with a smile and nod. In a bright floral apron dress, her once black hair now greyed pulled back tightly by a teal hairpiece, wearing those sensible tan stockings and 2-inch comfortable shoes that only older Italian ladies wear, she ruled the joint and definitely was in charge of the menu.
"Ok, I do bean zuppa, lasagna to share and grilled fish with potatoes"
Who could argue with that? We obediently passed her our menus and answered "Bianco" to her wine inquiry. The meal was incredible. The simple tomato-y bean soup was so good, she asked if we would like more when she came to check on us. It was tempting, but we decided not to imbibe just in case. Her son (in his late 30s early 40s) was helping out that evening. We sprinted through that meal. The main plate was tender sea bass cooked to perfection and served with potato and local lemons. They filleted the fish right in front of us before dishing up, and after we had finished we were offered limoncello. I am only sorry that I was so exhausted, I didn't think to take photos of our meal!
Limoncello is the local specialty. I have heard that some people love it and some, quite simply, don't. Well I LOVE it. It's an after dinner liquor ("digestive") and the shot of it comes in an icy chilled shot glass. Since there are so many lemons in this region, they have limoncello everywhere. It has a strong lemon peel flavor, and so is slightly bitter even though it's very sweet. So the whole experience is like a sweet lemon ice, only insanely alcoholic.
The waiter asked us both if we would like some. Having never tried it, I nodded eagerly. He looked at Max, who was on the path to refusal ("I'll just have a little taste of hers" he was saying) and the waiter said "I bring you both some, she is not going to leave any for you to try."
Very wise man indeed. I had my shot of it, and liked it though I was startled by the taste at first. It's so lemony! Then Max had a tiny taste of his, and he is not a fan, so I finished it. Then the waiter brought another shot for me! (Good thing I can hold my alcohol, I thought. A lesser individual would have gone silly at this point, but I inherited the iron constitution of somebody back in my ancestral line.) There were no flower pots nearby to dump it in and plus, I liked the stuff. I rallied. Following my third after-dinner shot, I hoped and prayed he wouldn't bring me another one, regardless of my alcohol holding abilities.
We paid our bill (we felt that she undercharged us) and said goodbye.
We walked back to our B&B, pondering what life was like for these people back in the day. People like 'nonna' of Cumpa' Cosimo. They had long days working in the vineyards and tending their gardens, walking up and down all of those steps with groceries. What about the pregnant ladies? Or the kids who learnt to walk on these uneven, steep pathways? It must be some inherited strength, we thought. As if their bodies pass on an evolutionary advantage to withstand steepness until the end of time.
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