15 Via Marrechiaro
Wind and rain on the Amalfi Coast
Dad and I at the Colosseum
One of my favorite rooms in the Vatican Museums
In the Vatican Museums
The New Year started off with several inconveniences making it very memorable and “an opportunity to practice flexibility” and patience. The ferry from Malta was canceled so we flew to Rome. We got to spend New Year’s in Rome as well and saw another organ concert at the church in Piazza Repubblica. It was a walk-in free organ concert and beautiful in the chilly elaborately decorated church. I had seen the Christmas Eve concert and gone to mass there as well the day before Dad and Diana arrived. The priests in all their regalia performed their processional and placed the baby Jesus figure that looked like a small man in the manger of the life-size Nativity scene at the church’s entrance. We saw the Vatican and St. Peter’s cathedral with a good tour guide, although it was crowded to canned sardine standards being New Year’s weekend. Rome is supposed the place to be on Christmas and on New Year’s. We jumped around “budget” hotels that were not cheap because we hadn’t made prior arrangements and it was crazy busy. The second day we saw the Colosseum, the Palatine hill, and the Roman Forum ruins. At the museum in the Palantine Hill I read about the story of the founding of Rome by Romulus. He and his brother had been raised by wolves and found at a cave on the base of one of the hills of Rome. When they grew they fought and Romulus beat Remus, then founding the city on the hill he preferred, Rome began. (that’s brief but I believe it covers the bases)
I enjoyed Salerno. The Holiday Inn was very new and was a beautiful place. The Amalfi Coast was absolutely fabulous. It ranked among my favorite things on the trip. The bus driver was legit. He drove speedily along the thing highway cutting over cliffs and steep hillsides, barely slowing at curves with blindspots, just honking to advise any oncomers. He stopped at a bar so I could use the restroom. I liked the chap. He got a good ranking in my book. If you go to the Amalfi coast, take the bus, it’s a great experience. In Italy you buy the bus tickets at a bar or Tabbachi, (tobacco shop) and then get on the bus and validate them. You can’t buy tickets from the driver and some people get on and don’t validate, but don’t be caught without a ticket. We ate in Amalfi at a darling trattoria off the side street up a little stairway kind of hidden and past the church. I had delicious gnocchi and an arrugula salad. HM.
Oh did we have some interesting learning experiences and made several memories because of the lack of Italian knowledge.
I think the Amalfi coast was a favorite site, Pompeii was also incredible and walking around Naples and seeing the places were Dad remembered being was a favorite thing for me.
Getting into Naples was a little exhausting as well, but we walked around Spaccanapoli and ate at a pizzeria Dad had read about in Michelin, called Il Mattino that Bill Clinton had visited. It was delicious with good sauces.
We changed hotels to a safer place in Naples and went out to find 15 Via Marechiaro, the first floor of which was the Cranney residence in 1960 when Dad grew up in Naples. The family at 15 Via Marechiaro were incredibly kind, welcoming and very hospitable. I felt a little funny not being able to communicate fully but the family was so sweet and gave us a tour of the ground floor even though it is not currently occupied but slightly unorganized from maybe their daughter moving in and out or a renovation in the 1980s or something. The gracious mother then invited us up for a coffee and the Papa was watching the Napoli fútbol game. The housekeeper made us coffees and we exchanged addresses and chatted. It was Epiphany so we had some delicious chocolates at their house. Roberta, the daughter about my age, said the “Gay Odin” are the best chocolates in all of Naples and gave us the directions to go to their store. The elder daughter was not at home, as she was at work, and I had understood she was a psychiatrist, although Dad thought she was a brain surgeon. It was understood she was a doctor in a specialty dealing with the brain. I just kept smiling and chuckling, trying to communicate. It was fun to see Dad absolutely enthralled seeing his old house, smiling and remembering where each persons’ room was, his older brothers sticking their heads into his and Max’s room scaring them, and running down the hall to meet his Dad after a trip. We took pictures again of Dad on the gorgeous staircase. Dad was so cute and just so happy. It was fun to hear his childhood memories, some of them I had heard before, but it was a special treat to get to see where they took place. So Roberta is a new friend on Facebook and the whole experience was very memorable. Dad, Di and I then walked down to the tide pools where his maid would take him as a child to play. They were covered by the high tide but it was a beautiful coastal walk through a lovely neighborhood.
The next day Dad and I went to Pompeii, got audio guides and walked around. The sun broke through the rays across the sky and on the valley below. Seeing archeological excavations always sets me into reflecting about how people come and go through civilizations. It is incredible that our lives are what we know, but so many others exist and have existed with full complex lives of their own. It makes me think, what am I doing with my life to make it purposeful? We saw plaster casts of the people that died in the ruins and the baths and the brothel, the temples to various gods and goddesses and small cobblestone streets, the Villa dei Misteri and its frescos and winery and a few houses with atriums or open inner gardens…
After Pompeii we all went out in search of Ristorante Il Grotino, the old cave restaurant where Dad used to eat as a kid and the owners of which adored aunt Carrie, calling her Carolyn Maria Fortuna… Well sadly it had closed since the twenty years ago visit that Aunt Carrie had found it. A little old woman by the name of Maria walked us to the entrance, told us it had closed, and talked to us. She asked us what we were going to do and when I asked for a recommendation as to where to eat, she walked us down the hill , took us into a restaurant and told the waiters to treat us well. She had kind of explained that she knew they did good pizza and wasn’t sure about pasta. She hovered over us ordering, la nona, and kind of bickered with the waiters and about the ambience or something. She sat down when Dad invited her to eat, but didn’t want to eat anything. She watched us eat and kept speaking to us, telling me to tell my Dad what she was saying that I partly understood. I kept laughing and there was a group of French men that spoke English and Italian and asked if we needed help while trying to order from the waiter. It was really quite comical. The elder lady asked Dad’s and Diana’s ages and told us she was 84 and that she never got sick but ate a lot. She said Dad ate well, I believe. All of these things were only somewhat understood because of the language barrier. She said Diana was a good woman because she said very little which made me feel uncomfortable but laugh because I was translating. When we paid our bill, Maria wanted to know how much it was and kept insisting on knowing, but I had to repeat from Dad several times that it was fine. She bickered about the restaurant and said things with a unsatisfied facial expression about the surroundings. She told us to go to a restaurant in Washington D.C. that I believe had the same name and tell them we had met Maria. After we paid the bill she wanted to buy us coffee and Dad said no thanks and wanted me to communicate that we would walk her home. I warned that I didn’t know how to communicate that without mis-communicating that she accompany us home. So we all got on the funicular and got off on our stop where I realized she was walking us home, so then we all awkwardly said goodbye or “ciao” and “mille grazie” and went off in separate directions. Maria stopped on the street to chat with a friend and then was going to church or to pray… We headed back to where we had come from and I walked the street looking for boots after a quick treat with too much nutella. We had had very good spaghetti- I had spaghetti a la sorrentina with pomodoro I believe, a delicious tomato sauce. Hm and mozzarella di bufala with lemon sauce, which our waiter had said was typical of Napoli.
Lago Patria: Hotel Agora is a charming hotel that caters to military personnel and other travelers. One of the marines in the lobby said, “Thank ye” and I felt in the warm presence of Americans. Jennifer, Alisa Murren Lewis’ cousin, is a very cute woman with a strong presence and charm. She welcomed us at the reception and brought us a bottle of Italian Riserva Chianti, which was delicious and not available in the bar, only from their family wine cellar. It was a red wine 2003 Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Rufina (Di origine Italia, of Italian origin) Marchesi de Frescobaldi. She did say it was available in the US for those American blog followers. They were incredibly generous hosts and drove us to the train station the next day. Thank you for such a lovely stay! I enjoyed the best cappuccino of the trip in the hotel lobby before we departed for the train station. American coffee is just tinted water in comparison, I felt like the caffeine had been injected into my veins for a majority of the day.
The day before had been consumed with a travel bus adventure as Dad was trying to figure out the public transportation system and I don’t speak Italian although I was the one who could best communicate with my Spanish. Jennifer had warned us that there was not a good bus system but Dad thought he had found a train… another “opportunity to practice flexibility."
So the train from Napoli to Roma was an adventure as well. We made it to our assigned seats and four people occupied the cabin of six seats. One gentleman got up and Dad asked to see his ticket. Dad made some small talk and the three of us ended up with seats, while the gentleman walked to his proper assigned seat. There was another African man in our cabin and Dad asked him where he was from and if he was friends with the other gentleman. He wasn’t immediately responsive, but did say he was from Nigeria, I believe, which was a different country than the other but had said yes about being friends.
Maybe an hour later three men came through one with a dog and asked whose suitcase was above my head, although he was speaking in Italian and we weren’t completely sure what he was saying. No one immediately claimed it, but Dad asked, “What? I don’t understand” in English. He then asked us in English what luggage was ours and each person pointed them out. The black gentleman was pretending to sleep and then switched to French, not seeming to understand English well. They asked him what luggage was his. One thing was in blue plastic, which earlier had startled me when it fell on my lap. He had then stowed it on the other side when the Italian girl recommended the nook rather than his seat for its placement. The three interrogaters asked him for his papers and to step out of the cabin with his baggage. They had to ask him again if the grey suitcase above my head was his. He then said yes and pulled it down. I remember him pulling it down from over my head, the grey worn fabric with yellow trim.
We didn’t see him again, except Dad saw him out the train window at the next stop in handcuffs with the police. Right after the men had left the cabin area, Dad had asked in the cabin, “I don’t understand what happened. What was that about?” An Indian looking man had said that they were French police. Dad thought the man was solo in handcuffs and his other acquaintance was not there, maybe still on the train, I wondered. The police and search dog had walked down and come back from the direction that the other man had gone. Crazy.
Dad’s hypothesis was drugs. My first thought was fashion knockoffs. I am not joking, but I don’t know how serious the French police—dog-in-tow—really are about la mode.
I will try to post some more pictures....
