Category — Food

After our trip to the south, the Ant and I headed to Barga, via Venice, via Rome.  We just spent one night in Rome.  A stop-over to save us from 9 hours on the train.

We stayed at the Hotel Aberdeen, a hotel I’d stayed in 6 months earlier.  I remembered it being a decent hike from the train station, so I prepared the Ant for the long walk in the sun.  Unfortunately, when I consulted the map I’d used on the earlier trip, I mistook the “X” I’d penciled in for the hotel, and not the Japanese retail store my friends had asked me to visit.  I figured this out about 25 minutes into the walk.

Fortunately, however, I remembered enough of the city to be able to navigate us back on track.  After climbing one of Rome’s hills.  Rome has hills?  Have you heard?  Seven, evidently.  I felt really lucky that the Ant was too consumed with trying to breathe to notice the enormous circle we’d taken.  I knew she’d figure out just how far we’d gone the next day when we took the 10 minute walk to the train station.  Hopefully, by then, she’d have forgotten the hour we spent in the heat.

It took us a little bit to recover.  But we were in Rome, and we didn’t want to waste that.  So we threw our stuff down and headed back out to eat.  I’m only going to say that we experienced bad pizza in Italy.  We promised each other never to speak of it again, so that’s all you get.  It was bad.

And then, mostly because I felt bad about the wild goose chase I’d just led us on, we spent the rest of the day touring the phallic symbols and rough men of Rome.  Yes, that’s what I said.  So here’s a little montage for my straight women, gay men, and other friends.  Enjoy.

The Ant kept sneaking up to the policemen and whispering, “Rome is rough.”

We did visit the Pantheon for me, which was nice.

And I took a ride a lion – one of my favorite pastimes.

And then we had some of the best gelato ever.

This is where Rick Steves excels, in my opinion.  Gelato and pizza.  I wish we’d listened to his advice earlier in the day…(shiver).

I asked the guy behind the counter what his favorites were, and he turned to the guy sitting on a stool behind the register.  “Ask him.”

The older, bearded gentleman smiled and waved his hands as he started listing all of his favorite flavors.  When he said “chocolate,” he closed his eyes and made the face of a lover remembering his partner.  “Mista,” he finally said to the boy with the scoop.

I walked away with a beautiful assortment of flavors including fig and the beloved chocolate.

And to finish the night, we headed to our trusty pizza standby, Pizza Zaza.  For a collection of the most excellent pizza we’ve had.  Potato and squash blossom, margherita and plum tomatoes.

I truly wish I could share with you the delight of squash blossom pizza at Zaza.  But I can’t, so here’s my best attempt.  Imagine a thin, crispy wafer of the most delicately salted, earthy, yellow cheese.  It’s better than that.

If you are going to Rome, please, please, please go there.  If you’re going to Rome and you think you might not be able to find it, please, please, please take me with you.  I’m serious, people.

We scarfed the ridiculous amount of pizza as we watched the staff set up an outdoor tv for the World Cup match.

The little outdoor seating area filled with locals watching the match before the Italians played, warming up their engagement, becoming louder and more animated.

If we hadn’t traveled from the south that day, I would have stayed here and watched with them.  Taken in the passion for food and sport and life.  Listened as the church bells rang from the spiral tower of San Eustacchio.  As it was, we were tired, so I took a little video.

And watched the delivery boy tape the pizza to his scooter.

And we headed back for the night.  And maybe we swung through some vendor tents.

And then back by Trevi.

Because it love it.  And the chestnut vendors there.

My nights in Rome have been magically hazy.  I think because of how completely exhausted I have been at the end of the days there.  My memories are less pictures of cops in riot gear and more feelings, full of the cool, creamy sweetness of exceptional gelato, and the glow of magazine carts.

“Napoli e bella.”  We’d heard it pretty much every time we mentioned to anyone that we’d be in the south of Italy.  At least from the folks in Italy.  One of my good friends had spent time there, and she was also a big fan, but other than that, I’d heard that Naples was dirty, dangerous, and really nothing great.  Still, “Napoli e bella,” echoed in our ears.

“I think we should do Naples.”  The Ant and I were planning our last week in the south.  “I mean, our family is from there.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “If grandpa was here, he could tell us all about it.”

On our trip to the north, we’d been hesitant to tell people where our family was from.  Naples has a reputation, and Campo Basso, where my great grandmother was from, doesn’t seem to be much better.  The usual response we would get was a, “mmmmm” and a changed subject.  But here, far south of Naples, it seemed to be the crown jewel, a beautiful metropolis.

Our day started as it usually did, with a cappu, a pastry, and a ride on a bus.

A pretty darn crowded bus.

Then a ride on a train.  The a ride on a subway car.  One that went from empty to packed in approximately 20 seconds.

If Rome is the best of everything, Naples is the most of everything.  It’s intense, like bone marrow cooked down to its absolute essence, earthy, pushy.

We were only spending one day in Naples, so we wanted to hit the highlights.  Museum and pizza were high on the list.  When we emerged from the subway, we were hot and disoriented.  We’d watched a grandmother struggle aboard the car and, practically collapse into a seat that was quickly vacated by a hoard of giggling high-school aged girls.  She fanned herself with a collapsible fan she pulled from her purse and muttered rapidly about the heat.  The girls sat on each other’s laps to make room for her and rummaged in bags to find water to offer her.

Now, above ground, we were rummaging for our own water bottles, and I was looking for the “big, red building” that Rick Steves had described as marking the National Archeological museum.  Now, Rick has done me very well in the north, but his apparent ignorance of/loathing of the south was starting to annoy me.  (Yes, Frank you were right.)

As I looked up the street, up a hill, I saw at least 3 big, red buildings.

“Um, maybe it’s one of those,” I tried, gesturing feebly at them.

“Kristin!”  The Ant wasn’t amused.  And I wasn’t even joking.

I shrugged, and we headed up, sweating freely in the midday sun.

It turned out that the museum was a fourth big, red building.  Fortunately, it was closer than the others.  After trying to enter a metro entrance marked “Museo,” we finally found our way inside.  The museum is known to house many of the treasures that were stripped from Pompei when it was discovered.  The frescoes and mosaics were cut out and removed to become part of the royal collection.  I was most excited to see the mosaics and the “secret room,” a collection of erotic art commissioned by the wealthiest home-owners in Pompei.

Unfortunately, the mezzanine level, which houses both the mosaics, and the secret room was closed.  No erotic art for us.  Well, kind of.

We entered the galleries and began our appreciation of the art.

The Ant really had a deep understanding of the Farnese gallery.  I think it was the fine relation of the human form that captivated her.

I, on the other hand, identified with the “labrys-bearer,” and “fish-wrangler” as I like to call them.

Starting to get hungry, we ran through the collection of frescoes and tools.

And then checked out the sundial room, which, at noon every day, shows the date with a single shaft of light thrown onto the calendar on the floor.

Finally, we headed into the room of Greek sculpture.  From the first time I looked into the stone and bone eyes of the Greek statues in Athens, I’ve felt an affinity with these objects.  A near kinship.  When I look into the faces of Roman marble busts, I don’t see myself.  When I look into the eyes of the Greeks, I do.

Also, their asses.

And then we saw a really fascinating modern exhibit.  One with Medusa.

I once went for Halloween as Medusa.  You know what they don’t tell you in the US?  She’s Intersex.

No, really.  It’s part of the myth.  It just gets left out.  Fascinating.  I might have modified my costume a bit.

After Medusa, we were able to cross the museum off our list.  All that was left was pizza.  Pizza.  In Naples.  Rick had not been super helpful thus far, but he did have the names and locations of two famous pizza places listed in his Naples section.  I somehow convinced the Ant that it was necessary to eat at one of these two restaurants.  And also that I’d be able to navigate us through the streets of Naples to them.  Fortunately, they were across the street from each other.  And so we started walking.

There were a lot of people.  And a lot of shops.  And a lot of cars and scooters, and flags waving.

There was a lot of gum on the sidewalk.  There was a lot of graffiti, too.

“Dirty” is the way I heard it described.  In guidebooks, from other tourists, and from the people we met at lunch.

“She thinks it’s dirty.”  The couple next to us was visiting.  She from Madrid, he from Rome.

“I like it,” I said.  Not as though I was trying to be contrary.  Naples really had a feel to it.  Unsettled, seething – but interesting.

“Earthy.”  That’s the word I applied to the city.  Maybe the word I’d apply to myself.  Not sure.

“How do you eat so much.?  Magra.”

“He says you’re so skinny.”  The woman was translating the Italian to English.  Beautiful.  And he spoke to her in Spanish.

I smiled.  The Ant and I had just polished off two pizzas.  Two pizzas that turned out not to be ours.

In the bustle of the upstairs pizza parlor, the din that rose from the family-style tables crammed together, someone had misunderstood.  When they set the two pizzas in front of us, I wondered.  Then I pretended that they were two different types – our types:  margherita and 7 cheese.  I even swapped with the Ant.  Then we traded pieces, willing our taste buds to experience the 7 different cheeses.  Yes, we were that hungry.

As I gobbled, I thought about the other people who might be equally hungry, waiting for pizzas that wouldn’t come.  There were people inquiring about pizzas everywhere.  This seemed a common issue.  And then the third pizza arrived.

This was what a 7 cheese pizza was supposed to look like.  Ahem.

The waiter looked at our neighbors who told him we’d already eaten.  He shrugged and smiled and left us the pizza.

Our new friends looked at us.  The people on our other side stared.

“I’ll share!”  I declared.  They all waved their arms, distancing themselves from the fugitive pizza.

When we left the restaurant, it was with a pizza box under my arm.  There was no way I was going to let that thing go to waste.

“You’re going to carry that through Naples and on the train back to Salerno?”

“Yes, but if I find someone to give it to, I’ll do that,” I told the Ant.  She agreed.  In Portland there would be a dozen street kids asking for it the second I left.  But here, I ran into nobody who was even asking for money.  I found this odd in a city as earthy as Naples.

Walking back toward the museum and the metro stop, we ran into our friends Andrea and Irene from the restaurant.  We chatted about the city, and exchanged contact information.  Andrea told us not to show our cameras or money in the street.  Then we continued on, taking in the glory of the city.

The Ant didn’t so much share my love of Naples.

The day was just getting hotter.  Thinking of the crammed train ride ahead of us, we bought a bottle of water, found a park bench, and hydrated.  Then I grew a little restless.

“It’s time to move,” I said to the Ant.  It just felt like we’d been on that park bench a little too long.

When we stood up, a scruffy, bearded man put out his hand and asked for money.

“Una pizza buona?”  I asked, handing the box to him.

His face lit up.  “Si.  Si!  Buona.”

“Ciao,” I said and we walked along toward the station, past several big, red buildings.

That night I had an email from our new friend.

“Kristin, you didn’t eat too much pizza?” came the Italian question.

“No, don’t worry.  I gave it to a man on the street.”

“Well, then he surely saw an angel today.”  I loved that he thought of a woman with pizza as an angel.

Do you see why I love Naples?   A place where graffiti artists compete for your attention with fascist architecture, and angels walk the streets doling out pizza.  This is my kind of earthy.  Napoli e bella.

Our trip to Salerno was a scouting mission.  An attempt to find interesting towns where the Ant could retire.  We spent our time taking day trips around the region, with days off in Salerno.  The days off were mostly days of rest, the two of us lounging around the apartment, or heading to the café down the street.  Food was always a part of the equation, whether pizza from our favorite place, or fried balls of stuff from a cart.

On one of our days off we decided to explore Salerno’s history.  We knew three things about ancient Salerno.  First, it had an important duomo.  Second, it had a big castle.  Third, it had some medicinal gardens.  We were most interested in seeing the castello, which overlooked the city from a big hill, so we took the bus into town and started walking up.

Our map, which wasn’t topographical and only showed us streets, indicated that it would be feasible to walk to the castle.  We picked out the right road and wound our way through the streets of medieval Salerno.  We happened upon the duomo, which seemed much more interesting in the guidebooks than in real life.

The dreariness of Salerno was only slightly less here.

Up, up, up we wound, the streets getting narrower as we walked.  Somewhere along the way we began to wonder if we were still on the right road.  So I ducked my head into some kind of a historical center, and found a beautiful young woman who seemed to be waiting to help us.

“Mi dispiaci, no parlo bene, l’italiano.”  I smiled my usual greeting, noting her abrupt movements as she came over to us.

“English?”  Like so many others, she’d guessed right.

I handed her our little map and asked where we were.

“Oh, mmm, allora, mmm.”  She muttered as she looked at the paper, turning it around on the counter we were leaning over.  She located our position on the map, after a good bit of studying.

“What are you looking for? Il giardino della Minerva?”

“The Castello,” the Ant and I answered together.

The woman looked at us.  “No, no, no.  It’s too far.  It’s not possible.”

The Ant and I exchanged dubious looks.  We wanted to see the castle, but we weren’t especially up for an impossible climb.

“But the gardens are very close.  Very beautiful.”

The Ant was nodding fervently.  “Okay.”

Our guide folded up the map and handed it to me as she led us to the door.    “Walk up here, and keep going, always forward.”  Good advice.  She returned the amused smile I flashed her.  We thanked her and headed up the hill in the direction she had pointed.

The Ant turned to me with a wry look on her face.  “Well you certainly do know how to find them.”  A little embarrassed, I chuckled and looked at the cobblestones we were walking.  Yes, it seemed I did know how to walk into a shop and find a helpful, pretty girl.

And she was right, it wasn’t far, but it’s not likely we would have found it without her instruction.  The undulating streets of this part of Salerno were a bit maze-like, due (as we would find out) to the fact that it was built on the side of a cliff.

Inside the unassuming gates of the garden, we paid our euros, grabbed the 4 page, single-spaced, English-language info pamphlet on the gardens and started mulling about.  The pamphlet told us that these gardens are recognized as the first medicinal gardens – ever.   The sense of peace and calm inside the gates was beautiful.  We spent the next hour or so wandering through the three levels of the gardens, snapping pictures, taking video, smelling plants, trying to identify some of them.  Plants strange to that part of the world, like Taro, materialized in the boggy beds around fountains.  Fish swam in pools with lily-pads.  I’m not sure if we saw any other visitors to the gardens.  It was like our own, private playground.

The gardens are built on the site of natural springs, so the entire location is filled with channels bringing water to the myriad of beds and fountains.

The terraces were connected by a staircase that was built as part of the outer wall, on the side of the cliff.  It treated us to spectacular views.

As we reached the top level, the woman from the admissions office came up behind us to tell us they were closing for lunch.

I grabbed a couple of last pictures and we made the climb back down to the gate.

We hiked back out toward the duomo, winding back through the streets where people live among a remarkable history.

We hadn’t eaten in something like 2 hours, so we were starving and stopped for a calzone at the first place we came to.  The Ant had something meaty, and I had something that equated to a salad in a calzone.

Much like the gardens, and the woman who led us there, it was quite unexpectedly lovely.

The Amalfi coast is definitely known as a place to see in Southern Italy.  In the months running up to the trip, every time I mentioned that I would be in the south, I got the question, “will you see Amalfi?” or the command, “make sure you go to the Amalfi coast.”

Like the Cinque Terre, the Amalfi coast is known for its jewel-like villages clinging to the coastline.  We decided that the best way for us to experience the towns would be by boat.  The boats that serve the cities up and down the coast are great.  Varying in size and fanciness, they take travelers the direct route, on the water, from one city to the other.

This was a new form of transportation for us, requiring us to locate the ticket office, dock and slip.  A stop by the information office insured we were headed in the right direction.

Once on board, we scoped out the best seats:  ground floor, starboard side, toward the front – just opposite the helm.  This gave us a good view of the coastline, and the captain, who was very friendly.

I think he liked the Ant.  In the way only an Italian captain can look, this guy was both weather beaten and stylish.  His face was worn, under his designer sunglasses, and metallic trainers distracted from the flesh-toned medical sock running the length of one leg.  He kept leaning out of the cockpit, pointing to the coastline and throwing out the names of the towns.

“Cetara.  Positano.  Atrani.”

Along with the towns, their majolica-tiled cathedral domes blending together, we were treated to views of ancient lighthouses, and caves.

Finally, our captain friend leaned out and said, “Amalfi!”

Amalfi.  That was our destination for the day.  First on the list:  cappuccino.

We hadn’t had much in the way of breakfast, opting instead to catch the early boat.  Now we needed to find a pastry shop that we liked the looks of.  We walked through the town square, past the cathedral, and into a shop with pizza and baba in the front window.

“Due cappuccino, per favore.”  I walked over to the pastry case to see what I could find.  “E una di queste”  I pointed to the bready things that looked like popovers.

“Normale?” asked the proprietor, a round man with shaggy white hair.

“Si.”  I had no idea what the alternative was, but the cream-covered plates in the case looked a bit over-the-top.  Even for me.

He pulled one of the pastries out and put it on a plate.  Then he drenched it in some kind of liquid from a stainless steel bottle, and handed it to me.

“Grazie.”  I took my prize over to the Ant who was waiting at the bar for the cappu.

“Look at this.”  We both stared at it in awe.  We didn’t know what we had, but we were appropriately excited.

Baba is a regional pastry that is drenched in rum.  Not so much my bag, but it was tasty, nonetheless. With our cappuccino in front of us, we settled in for the caffeination we so desperately needed.

“Buon giorno.”  The young man behind the counter was smiling at us, looking up from cleaning the marble slab.  He looked curious.  “Where are you from?”

The familiar question was slightly amusing.  He’d guessed the language, surely he could guess the country.

“The United States.  America.”

“Si, si.  But where?”  Ah, he’d already figured it out.

“Idaho, Oregon.  The west.”  Sometimes people have heard of Oregon, but almost nobody knows Idaho.  Even in the US, Idaho, Iowa and Ohio are interchangeable for the vast number of Americans.

“Ah, but you are Italian?  You look Italian.  I think, you look Italian, but something is not right.”

“Yes!  Our family is Italian.”  We’re more than happy to share this information with anyone who shows an interest.  It gives a little cred.  (I’m sure the “not right” was our shoes.)

“You stay in Amalfi?”

“No, Salerno.”

He shook his head.  “Next time you stay in Amalfi.  This is my town.  I show you.  You will be here tonight?  You come back, I will be your tour guide.  I will show you everything.  Right now I have to work, but tonight, you come back.  What are your names?”

He was animated, looking intently from one of us to the other, sincere in his interest to show us his town.

“Kristin.”

“Leslie.”

He repeated the names.  “Lezley.”  He worked it out, the name an unfamiliar one.  “Kreesteen.”  My name, so close to the Italian equivalent, is almost always converted to Christian.  I went by “Kris” a lot the last time I was here.  It’s not something I accept very often in the states, but in Italy, it seems to fit.

“I am Nicola.”

We both repeated.  “Neecola.”

“Kreesteen, you will return tonight?”  He was grinning, awkwardly, but determinedly.

“Forse, Nicola.  Forse no.”  It was possible, though unlikely.  I didn’t want this sweet boy to get his hopes up.  They were definitely on the rise.  Flattering, but hard to have to manage his expectations while we stood there drinking cappuccino.  “Torniamo a Salerno.”  We would be going back to Salerno.

Done with our coffees, we pushed the cups toward Nicola and smiled.

“Kreesteen, I hope you will return tonight.  I will hope to see you.”  Apparently his expectations weren’t going to be managed.

“Ciao Nicola.  Grazie.”

We stepped out of the shop into the sunlight and walked back to the cathedral.

“Wow, he liked you,” crooned the Ant.

“Yes, he was very sweet.  I hope he’s not too sad when we don’t come back tonight.”  I really don’t like making sweet boys sad.  It’s usually the sweet ones that unwittingly fall for me, developing puppy-dog crushes and making me squish their hearts a little.

The cathedral was on our list of things to see, so we walked up the zillion stairs to the entrance, noticing the colorful rice bits strewn everywhere, and a hunky guy with a messenger bag.

“Did you see him?”  I asked the Ant.  “Go back and look.  He’s hot.”  The Ant is single, and Italian men are fun eye candy.  Even for a big-ole lesbian like me.  In the states, 90% guys looking like this would be gay.  And I love my gays.  So, even though I usually make a point of not giving false hope to my family by talking about cute men (I’d once gotten a call from my sister, chastising me for telling my mother that I was going to have my “gay husband’s” baby.  “What, exactly ,did you tell Mom?!”)  it had been fun to point out the extra-yummy ones to the Ant and see if she agreed.  She doubled back and took a peek, pretending to take in the building.   This one was a little to smooth for her.  So we headed inside.

The art and architecture inside was fine.  We saw beautiful, delicate columns, and an over-the-top tomb decorated in marble and gold.  Most of it we passed by without much consideration, as our stomachs began to churn.  Cappuccino and rum-soaked baba wasn’t really enough to sustain us through much sight-seeing.

Back in the street we considered where to go for lunch.  We’d seen pizza, but nothing had really grabbed us.

“We could always go to Nicola’s place.”  The Ant was smiling and looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, we could.”  I wasn’t up for too much in the way of game-playing.  “But let’s not.”

Amalfi isn’t that big of a town.  We walked up the main street, away from the water until it became distinctly un-touristy.  Good for a peaceful walk, but not good for food.  Back into town we jogged, the hilly street propelling us downward.  We dismissed take-out places, in favor of somewhere we could sit, rejected the feel and price of several, and climbed a set of stairs to an interesting prospect, only to find it closed.

“Nicola would like to see you.”  I didn’t respond to the statement from the Ant.  “You know you’re not going to live that down for a while, right?  But it’s only because I love you.”  She was nudging me affectionately with her shoulder.

“You love me, so you taunt me?”  I answered sharply.  The lack of food had pushed me over the edge.  “It’s not so fun for me.  Here, this place looks good.”

Finally, we’d found a pizza place that passed muster.  We sat in the courtyard, and I breathed a little.

“I’m sorry I snapped.  It’s just difficult.”  I felt like I owed her an explanation.  Like I wanted to give one.  “Think what it’s like to have beautiful, kind, sweet boys take an interest in you.  To have them flatter you.  And then to have to embarrass them, or to break their hearts just a little.  Over and over.  It’s not so fun.”

She was looking at me with big eyes, nodding faintly.

“And then imagine what it’s like to be me, knowing that, every time a guy hits on me, whether it’s Nicola, or a gas station attendant, that my family wishes I’d accept.  That they wish I would say yes.”

Both of us were tearing up now.

“It’s hard.  And it makes me unwilling to do things like point out hot guys.”

We paused to order lunch, both of us breathing deeply, knowing the conversation was a good one.  A hard one.

We talked about the day, years ago, when I had come out to the Ant, the concerns she’d had, and the great journey of acceptance she’d traveled (she loves the gay men almost as much as I do).

Our pizza arrived, and we were more than a little happy.

The food was beautiful and really good.  We were so hungry that we even ordered dessert.  A gorgeous pine nut torta with strawberry sauce.

The rest of our day was filled with a tour of the paper factory, given by another sweet boy named , Rafael, and a hike to the nearby town of Atrani.

The Ant and I were gentle with each other.  I didn’t snap again, and she didn’t mention Nicola.  We simply walked together through the sweltering day, shared a giant bottle of water, and went home to make dinner.

We didn’t talk about boys again until the next day, when we were walking to the bus station.

“So, I’m thinking,” the Ant started, a look of determination on her face, “that in this journey of acceptance I’m taking,”  I looked at her, interested to hear the rest, “that it would be good for you to tell me when you see someone who is cute.”   Okay, I could do that.  “Like you could say, ‘she’s really attractive’ so that I could get an idea of what type you like.”

Oh!  She wanted to know what type of women I liked!  Wow.

“I mean, maybe don’t go on and on about it, but…” she was a little flustered, her brow furrowed and her hands extended.

“No, I won’t talk about how I want to slap her ass or anything, but sure.  That would be fun.  Kind of like a cultural exchange.”

We looked at each other and laughed.  It wasn’t enough that we were traveling through Italy.  This would be our cultural experience:  eyebrows lifted toward hot women, and fingers covertly pointed at yummy guys.  And not another mention of Nicola.

After a culturally significant trip to Paestum, we were ready for a day of rest.  The weather had been getting gradually warmer and sunnier, a challenge for my afternoon runs, but gorgeous for a bit of beach.  Salerno sits on the gulf of Naples in the Tyrrhenian Sea.  The water is warm, salty and blue, blue, blue.  The colorful umbrellas of the pay-to-play beaches called a siren song, inviting us to enjoy a lavish day in the Italian sun.

We gathered our books and towels, donned our suits and slathered ourselves in sunscreen.

The owner of our apartment, Carmine, had pointed out his favorite private beach and the underground passage that would take us from the bus stop behind the apartment directly to the crosswalk in front of the beach.  Beach bags in hand, we decided it was time for a mid-morning snack to prepare us for the sea.  Like every morning, we’d made our espresso in the stovetop Moka pot and heated our croissants in the little toaster oven.  But we weren’t sure what kind of food we’d find at the beach, and we didn’t want to cut the day short if we got hungry.  I like to eat, but I also like to swim.

Considering and rejecting the possibility of carrying a pizza box with us, we stopped by our local coffee shop for a cappu and pastry.  We’re good at ordering and eating these things.  We’re not so tidy with it, however.

This view would become a familiar one to us, and to our patient waiters and waitresses.

Once full of pastry, we located the underground pass-through and descended the stairs into the passage that used to serve an out-of-commission train station.  The entrance was obscured by an orange construction barrier, its walls plastered with colorful posters and littered with graffiti.  But it provided a valuable shortcut over the coming weeks, allowing us quick access to gelato and sand.

Carmine’s beach, Karsaal seemed to be a favorite for many locals.  With a large parking lot, fancy sit-down restaurant, fine pool and pretty beach, it was much more full than many of the others we’d walked by on our adventures in Salerno.

Along with mothers and children, grandmothers, and men strutting like peacocks, we followed the after-church rush through the gates.  For 15 Euro a piece, we had the run of the place.  Lounge chairs, umbrellas, pool, cabanas, and some of the best people watching, ever.  We headed to the waterfront and chose a couple of lounge chairs under an umbrella on the small black and white rocks.  We watched the locals for a bit, and I dragged one of the fancy chaises that littered the beach over to our camp.

The built-in shades were amazing.  For the next couple of hours we bathed in the sun, swam in the sea, and watched the scene unfold in front of us.  Spettacolare.  Sailboats danced across the bay, competing for our attention with the sea of humanity dancing on the sand.  A pair of men, lounging in their tiny swimsuits, and gold chains, gestured wildly, emphatically trying to convince each other of their position on some unknown topic.

A young buck of a man who looked like a statue of a tattooed Roman god strutted back and forth from the water to his chair, lovingly arranging his girlfriend’s towel on the matching chaise.

Despite our best efforts, the morning pastry was wearing off.  We’d missed the lunch rush, watching families disappear from the sand, and reappear with sandwiches.  I ventured out again and again, taking advantage of the deserted sea.

Eventually, we agreed it was time for food.  We packed up, smiled our goodbyes to the tattooed god and trudged up the stairs in search of a pizza.  Our first attempt was the restaurant.  It was short lived.  Walking along the patio above the beach, we peeked at the people who were dining.  They weren’t eating.  They were dining.  In dresses and white linen pants.  My hula-girl camo boardshorts weren’t going to cut it.

So we doubled back and hit the snack bar.  They had colorful industry signs for gelato and snacks.  And an empty case that looked like it might have held real food at some point.  I sidled up to the bar and braved a question, “qualcosa para mangiare?”

The girl looked back at me and pursed her lips, looking at the empty case.  “Un attimo.”  She disappeared into the back of the shop and reemerged with a middle-aged woman, who was carrying a good amount of sas in her mane of auburn hair.

“Di mi,” she commanded.  Okay, but tell her what?  I tried again:

“Qualcosa para mangiare?”  We were just looking for something to eat.  The people outside were eating.  Was she the keeper of the food?

“Si.  Panini?”  I nodded.  A sandwich would work.

“Formagio, salume?”  She ran down the list of ingredients, shrugging.  “Prosciutto.  Cotto o crudo?”

I looked at the Aunt.  “You want ham and cheese?  Cooked or raw?”

“Cooked.”  She was nodding.

“Cotto,” I confirmed.

“Uno?”

“Due, per favore.”  There was no way we were sharing today.

“Okay.”  She turned to walk away.

“Pero, sono vegeteriana.”  I didn’t want ham, cooked or not.

She turned halfway around, and looked at me, challenging.  “Quindi?”  So then what the hell did I want?  “Formagio?  Pomodoro?”

“Si, si.  Buono.”  I get pretty thrilled when it comes to food, and my excitement about the sandwiches this woman was about to make was starting to show.

She turned to face me fully, “buonissimo?” she asked, an amused look on her face.

“Si.  Buonissimo,” I said, smiling and giving an affirming hand gesture.

She nodded, closed her eyes briefly, and disappeared into the back room.

While we waited, we cruised around the little shop.  We looked at the gelato, and perused the bags of chips, deciding we’d probably need some of the “Wacko” brand.  A few minutes later, the auburn food commander reappeared with two wicker baskets, and two beautiful sandwiches.

The girl at the register looked at her, and the commander told her how much to charge us, shrugging as she apparently pulled the number out of thin air.  Perhaps this wasn’t where the locals were getting their sandwiches.

The little patio outside the shop was empty, and we chose a table closest to the view.

On closer examination, it was clear that the sandwiches we’d seen in people’s hands weren’t these.  Those were more like pre-packaged deli sandwiches.  These were not.

I’m not so sure how it is that we came to have these spectacular sandwiches.  We didn’t see any others like them.  We gobbled them down, along with the un-spectacular Wacko chips and a decent, no-color-added Fanta orange soda.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging at the pool, by the edge of the turquoise water, rimmed with mahogany cabanas, more lounge chairs, and people in colorful bathing caps.  I’d been looking forward to a dip and a swim, but first I thought I’d let my lunch digest.  Safety first, you know.

We sat and watched the kids running around the edge, the lifeguards yelling at them, the girls tucking their hair into the swimcaps.  The boys tucking their hair into the swimcaps…then the Ant noticed it.  Everyone in the pool had a cap.  90% of them looked the same:  yellow with a white racing stripe.  Maybe we needed a swimcap to go in the pool?  Interesting.

I pulled out my little dictionary (I bring it pretty much everywhere – even to the beach) and looked up swimcap.  “Cuffia.”  The Ant had seen a couple of girls picking up yellow and white packets from the front desk.  I gathered change, practiced the word, “coof-ya” and walked to the desk.

“Ciao,” one of the women was looking at me with a friendly smile.  The other looked like a puppy that someone had kicked.  “Una cuffia?”  The puppy woman looked at me like she didn’t understand.  The other responded.  “They are all done for the day, I’m sorry.”

“Can I swim without one?”  She looked shocked.

“No, I’m sorry.”

Back at the pool, I watched the swimmers taunting me.  In their colorful caps, they lazed about, up and down the lanes.  Teenage boys splashed each other.  I was quarantined to the poolside, my short hair a menace.

As we packed up, I reviewed what I’d learned that day:  if you’re hungry, ask someone to make you a sandwich; also, along with my little dictionary, I should always carry a swimcap.  These were valuable lessons for someone who likes to eat and swim.