All of the small towns, along the Amalfi Coast, are incredibility steep with LOTS of steps. This is no exaggeration; in fact, depending on the direction you go, there are between 168 – 246 steps to reach our apartment! We started off our day by walking to the town of Amalfi and getting a pastry and a cappuccino. If you recall, yesterday, I mentioned that Southern Italians are extremely picky about how individuals pay for things? Well, the pastry shop decided that they don’t accept credit cards and asked for specific money (i.e. if the bill is 16 Euros and you give a 20 rather than getting 4 Euros in return we were asked for another Euro so they could give us 5 Euros back). We then caught the bus to Positano. Positano was absolutely charming (even with the rain!)! Rome was great however I didn’t realize how busy and hectic it was until we arrived in Atrani and again was reminded of the peacefulness and slowness of life while in Positano. After emerging ourselves in the “Positanoain” culture we took the sea ferry back to Atrani.
JAKE:
After relaxing back in Atrani in the rainy weather (which involved me drinking a delicious Danish beer in the rain on our balcony), we had dinner reservations in Amalfi at 7:30 pm (think 5:30 pm in the states). We walked along the side of the road, with Julie hugging the railing and not liking that I took us through the tunnel instead of the long stairway around the tunnel. It felt really odd walking into an empty restaurant and announcing I had reservations. This was definitely one of the nicest meals we have had. Since no one else was there, they surrounded us taking care of everything. The bathroom had a very fancy faucet I could not figure out how to turn on for about 5 minutes. We received an amuse bouche that looked like sushi, but it was rice and had some fish and citrus fruit on top. We then had a salad with pecorino cheese and lemon and orange slices and it was drizzled with honey. The lemon slice was tart but not inedible. Next we split pasta with mussels and tomatoes, which was also excellent. For our main entrees, Julie ordered halibut that was mozzarella encrusted (we think), and I had pezzagogna, a local fish, served with chickpeas. Of course this was good as well. Our desserts were simply stunning. Julie ordered a cappuccino that was kind of the consistency of crème brulee. I had a chocolate cylinder filled with lemon ice cream and surrounded by fresh fruit. If you watch How I Met Your Mother and our familiar with the Best Burger in NY episode, our conversations about these desserts were similar.
SIDEBAR: We are very easily impressed with nice bathrooms here because it’s amazing how far behind us the Europeans are in bathroom technology. I use the word technology loosely because it shouldn’t be hard to manage a decent bathroom. More to come tomorrow on their awful settings.
Wow
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