Archive for March, 2008

Sunday morning we woke up ridiculously early (for our vacation time, that is) to catch a train at Roma Termini to Naples. From there we took the Circumvesuviana to Pompeii and did a self-guided tour. I was so excited about Pompeii. I had no idea what to expect, really, beyond some casts of poor victims and remains of buildings. Maybe I was a little ignorant about Pompeii, but I thought it was a small little place. Turns out the ruins are a lot bigger than I expected. Our handy Rick Steves book suggested having at least 3 hours to tour the city and that’s all the time we could afford.

The trip from Rome to Pompeii was about 2.5 hours each way including wait time for the second train. We wanted to get back to Rome early enough to have a leisurely dinner, walk to the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon again in the daylight and start packing for the trip home on Monday. This meant catching a train at 9am and returning to Roma Termini by 5:30pm. Calculating in the time, we had three hours only to spend at Pompeii. While we were waiting for the Circumvesuviana train, the station would play recorded messages in Italian and then in English and Spanish. One of the messages was warning travelers about thieves. “Ladies and Gentlemen, please watch your pockets” I found that to be quite amusing. I like the subtle miscues in the Italian-English translations.

Here’s a good place to include a semi-retraction about Naples. Looking back at earlier posts, I realize I was little harsh on the city of Naples. Especially since I now know about the garbage pick up problems they’ve been having for the past few months. This completely explains the mounds of trash we saw on the streets earlier in the week. I still think this is not a very tourist friendly town, and the drivers are lunatics, but I apologize for saying it was a dump. Hopefully the garbage will be picked up soon and they can work out their mozzarella problems.

We arrived at Pompeii around 11:30 and got right in line. It must be our lucky week because the admission to Pompeii and Herculaneum – another city of Vesuvius ruins- was free! We got a map and booklet that gave information about the excavation, which was started in the 1700s when Italy became a unified nation. They’ve really done a lot of excavating, but there is still so much more area to uncover. This is an area currently being excavated.

First we had to get a good look at the volcano that started it all. Here’s us with Mount Vesuvius in the background. The sky was a bit hazy; I wish it would have been clearer!

This is the main city entrance. You can’t see this, but directly to the left is the pedestrian entrance, this one is for pack animals.

It was a very steep walk. The streets are basically round flat boulders that are tough on your feet. They suggest that women do not wear high heel shoes here. Jose and I were both wondering how many broken ankles happen at Pompeii each year. That’s something to research!

This is a picture of one of the famous Pompeii victims. This is not actually a body covered in volcanic dust…don’t laugh, some people really think it is. This is a plaster body cast. While they were excavating, the archaeologists were finding a lot of holes in the dried dust and ash. They soon figured out that these holes were actual remains of where decomposable materials once were. They would pour plaster into the holes and fill them up. After they dried, they would break off the volcanic ash and would be left with the perfect recreation of what had been in that hole. Most of the time, it was either people or animals. Sometimes it was an object made from animal products (hence the decomp)

I just about begged Jose not to smile during this photo…it just screams disrespect, but nooo he has to smile. morbid!

A section of the forum, or common area,

another view of the boulder rock streets

A few last Pompeii pictures. Most of the ruins are just random houses, here’s one they uncovered with original wall paintings.

This is a house with the original mosaic tile uncovered…isn’t that incredible?

Sooner than we realized, it was time to return to Rome. We saw less than half of what was at Pompeii. I think we were moving a little slowly, either from being tired, or just having so many things to look at! We stopped across the street for a quick sandwich and a lemon granita, which was so cold and delicious. It tasted just like a LemonChill!

On the way back from Naples, we were on the train waiting for it to leave the station when we heard a lot of loud screaming from outside. We looked up just in time to see a guy steal a woman’s purse. She chased him for as long as she could, but he hopped inside a commuter train (we assume he left from the other side, but don’t know for sure) and she lost him. I felt really bad for this lady. It was the first and only time we’d seen something violent happen. Well at the airport someone driving one of those carts that move people and baggage ran into a lady walking with her suitcase, but that’s not quite the same thing.

When we arrived back in Rome, the sun was still shining (thanks to last night’s spring forward). The cab driver let us off at the Trevi Fountain and we were able to get some pictures of it during the day. It does not possess the same magic that it does at night, but it was still nice to look at.

We stopped at our little grocery store to stock up on gifts, mostly food items for people at home and then walked back to the B&B. Here are a few photos of things we’ve only seen at night. This is one of the many obelisks that are found all around Rome and a closeup of the carvings on the side.


This is the view of the Pantheon as it appears when you turn down a street. I love this photo because it looks like the buildings are playing peek-a-boo!

and this it the view at the end of the street above

We went to dinner at the place directly next door to our B&B called Taverna Le Coppelle. They were known for their pizzas. We had the best, most friendly waitress we’ve seen yet. She explained things on the menu and made some good suggestions, like these items on a fritto misto plate. This is rice balls, potato croquettes, and baby mozzarella

another caprese sald…I LOVE basil, and tomatoes, and well cheese too. At least mozzarella cheese

Tonight I had orrechiette (little ears) with broccoli and some mild sausage. It was very tasty.

Jose had a pizza, which was also very good.

Once again, I had veal saltimbocca alla Romana, but it didn’t photograph well. Regardless of how it looks below, this tastes just incredible.

These are the pictures of our room at the B&B.



That’s pretty much all of the trip. I’ll be posting some loose ends over the next week so feel free to come back here to visit. We have to upload all the video clips so be on the lookout for that. I will also post the names and addresses of the places we stayed. Thanks to everyone who kept coming back to read and traveling “with” us. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did.
C & J

Yesterday I was explaining how very little of anything is labeled in Rome. The monuments and giant obelisks in the middle of piazzas have nothing indicating what they are or why they are there. Occasionally, something will be written in Italian, but even asking for that is pushing it.

Today we ventured way back to the times of Julius Caesar and Augustus and a lot of other people I can’t recall the names of. I have to give credit to two people for getting me (and Jose indirectly) interested in this whole ancient Roman experience. My brother, Jason and a fellow teacher from school, Katie, both mentioned the HBO series “Rome” to me at almost the same time. I believe it was the time between seasons 1 and 2 when all the fans were dying for new episodes. They were both raving about how incredible the show was, the actors were all amazing, and the effects and details (costuming and props —not historical details) were just perfect. If I am not mistaken, my reply to both of them was, “no, haven’t seen that one, but have you seen Dexter, the show about the forensic blood analyst that’s a serial killer, but he only kills bad people?” Anyway, a few months later, we ended up catching the second to last episode of Rome’s second (and final) season. We were hooked. Immediately! Within weeks we had seen all the episodes and were just so impressed with the show. Warning: The show is amazing, but it’s also not PG. It’s extremely graphic in every aspect: sex, violence, language, but as a whole it works perfectly.

They filmed here in Rome and it supposedly cost almost $300 million to film both seasons. As with many cable shows, it ended before it’s time, but they couldn’t afford to continue filming. If anyone caught another great show, Journeyman, from last fall, the main character is played by one of the main characters in Rome. The actor’s name is Kevin McKidd. The other main character from Rome is supposed to have a show on network tv soon too. His name is Ray Stevenson. Here’s some info on the series Rome from wiki.

Wow that took a while, the whole point of that story was to set the stage for the day we had today. We toured the Colosseum, and the ancient Roman Forum. It was hot today. I even got a sunburn! which I was not expecting!

We left the B&B around 10am and got to the Colosseum quickly. It was quite a sight to pull up on the road next to this huge mammoth structure. It was incredible! I kept saying Wow over and over like an idiot, as the taxi driver rolled his eyes.

Our plan was to buy tickets at Palatine Hill instead of the Colosseum because the lines would be shorter. So we walked there and the line was much shorter but Jose suggested that I scout the doorway to see if we could get in another way. As I was scusi-ing my way through loads of people, I see a man holding about twenty-five tickets in his hand pretty much throwing them to the large group he was with. He was giddy with excitment saying “I guess they’re free today! They must be giving them away.” Then, I swear this is true, he hee-hawed. Yes, like a donkey. So I quickly waved Jose over and we got in line and within seconds we were at the ticket booth. The man at the counter handed us two tickets and said “Free today”. BONUS! This included our fees for the Forum, Palatine Hill and the Colosseum! So we turned around and headed for the Colosseum. Look, here’s a roman soldier on his cellphone!

We get there and there is a huge line all the way around the Colosseum. We were pretty sure this was the line for people who did not have tickets (and didn’t yet know they were free) so we walked around until we found the actual entrance you go in when you HAVE your tickets, which was packed. There was some confusion over how the guided tour and individual lines divided so there were irate people being asked to leave the line they had been standing in for who knows how long because it was for groups. So they started hooting and hollering in a lot of different languages waving the tickets they already had. What do we do? Of course, jump right in just as security moved them through to avoid an angry mob-like situation Within three minutes of arriving at the Colosseum we were inside and had bypassed about 1000 people in line. I know, one day karma is going to catch up…or is this karma’s way of apologizing for the Uffizi Gallery incident?

We took an elevator up to the second level of the Colosseum and walked around. This was very enlightening to see. In the pictures below you can see the original floor on the left picture. In the right one, the flooring was removed to show the tunnels and passages below.

There are as many as thirty lifts down here that corresponded to areas on the fighting floor where animals or other gladiators or slaves could be popped up behind a gladiator. This is a pretty elaborate system. While we were looking at everything, we saw a descendant of one of those wild animals used as killing machines, trotting along the top edge of a tunnel stopping every now and then to bask in the sun. I was so scared, I was unable to focus the camera on the scary kitty cat errr wild beast.

The Colosseum looks completely different from the inside, and I prefer the look of the outside. Here are some other views.

After the Colosseum, we walked to the opening of the Roman Forum area. Here is where the remains of the ancient roman life exist today. This was very, very cool. I’ve never walked on ruins before. Here you can rest on columns, sit on boulders, lean on buildings that were important to history. There were so many things to look at, it was very overwhelming. When we get home, I’ll post the link to the photo album where all the photos will be stored, because it’s impossible to post as many as I’d like to this blog.

As I mentioned earlier, Italy does not like to give information about its monuments or things of interest. Here’s a place, over 2000 years old and we’re allowed to climb all over it, but we can’t ever know why that piece of rock is historically prominent??? craziness!

We experienced quite a bit of frustration trying to decipher the maps we had (Rick Steves book and the one we got at the entrance). The map scales were different and it seemed like things were angled in other directions. There were many moments of “Where they heck are we???” and “What is that thing??” from us and from the people around us. Frustration and confusion are wordless emotions. Plus the shaking of fingers and pointing at maps and then in circles around also indicate there could possibly be a map problem.

Here are some places we thought were important enough to photograph. This is the location where Julius Caesar was burned after his assassination. Behind the wall is the actual spot, marked by flowers.

(Doesn’t Jose look very pensive and reflective??)

Here is (we think) the Curia, where the Senate met (contrary to belief, Caesar was not assassinated in this building, they were meeting in another building across the street — how’s that for trivia???)

These ruins are just beautiful. This used to be the forum, the open area in the center of town. These rocks have been here for over 2000 years. amazing!

We spent about two and a half hours just wandering around looking at old buildings and rubble and imagining what it used to look like. I think if I lived here, I would never get sick of this.

We finally moved our way out of the forum to another staircase which lead to another level of buildings. Jose wanted to see the Marmatine Prison where St. Peter and St. Paul were held prisoner.

I will be completely honest in saying that this place was sad and not pleasant. You walk into the main entrance and this is the hole in the ground where prisoners were lowered into the dungeon. There’s a short, very creepy, staircase down into the cold, damp dungeon.

Here there is a small room, very disgusting smelling. Supposedly, this is the actual column where St. Peter was chained during his imprisonment. You could touch it if you wanted, but I didn’t.

I did not like the mood in here at all…go figure it’s basically a torture chamber. I was very happy when Jose had finished his photos and we could leave. Sad place. On the wall upstairs was a list of some of the prisoners and how they died. Again, sad.

After that lovely fun family adventure, we were pretty much done for the afternoon. Here is another funny sign to lighten the mood.

We did not go back to Palatine Hill or make it to Capital Hill, but I am very happy with what we accomplished today. Plus, we have to leave somethings for our next trip to Rome!

We came back to the B&B for a quick lunch and then a nap. We stopped at Osteria Mario, which was very close to our place. Jose had ricotta and spinach ravioli with a sage butter sauce and parmiggiano reggiano cheese. This was exquisite!

I had my one of my favorite dishes, veal saltimbocca all romano! It was also very delish.

We also had bruschetta with very tasty tomatoes.

After the nap, I worked on the blog for about two hours prepping photos and writing. Then it was time for dinner! We went back to Maccheroni and sat outside this time. We had another Caprese salad, oh so good! The tomatoes are delicious here and the mozzarella (no worries…not from Naples!) was sublime.

I had canniloni (sp?) filled with meat and covered with a tomato/creamy cheese sauce. DELISH!

Jose had fettuccine alla bolognese. It was also very good.

We finally got to try their tiramisu and it was excellent.

Then as if we hadn’t eaten enough food, we took a walk around the neighborhood and ended up at a famous gelataria called Giolotti and had a cone of chocolate and caramel and fresh whipped cream. OH SOOO GOOD!

That’s a wrap for tonite. We are leaving extremely early tomorrow for Pompeii (via Naples) and should be back in time to pack, buy some last minute gifts and eat dinner! and gelato! Oh there’s a time change tomorrow/tonight (Saturday/Sunday) so it’s REALLY late!

Seriously, that’s what a street vendor/scam artist asked me the first night we were wandering around Rome. “Can I have your finger” and he was holding a yellow and green string. Freak!! I said no, very nicely and he asked again, so I said NO and shook my head. “Please pretty lady”; this time I said NOOOO and he growled “meeeoooooooow”. Nice, huh? We had this encounter at the Piazza Novana, which is just a few blocks from our B&B. I had no idea when we booked this place how conveniently located it is. We are in the best location of the city. The Pantheon and Trevi fountain are like 10-20 minutes away – walking. The Vatican City and the ancient Roma sights are less than 10 mins by taxi. We’re very lucky.

We have amazing restaurants within one-three blocks and our host, Francesco couldn’t be more gracious. He let us use his own washing machine, drying rack, and modem while we were here. He goes to his own apartment in the late afternoon/evening, so there’s no one else using the Internet.

We have a great breakfast every morning (minus the Rainbath, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and razor, of course!)

He even left us breakfast goodies for the day we are leaving early to go to Pompeii. After we leave, I’ll post the contact information in case anyone is looking for a place to stay in Rome. Here is the view from our street and inside the building entrance.

I’ll say that while all the food we’ve had in Italy has been good to excellent, Rome has the best food we’ve eaten. (I don’t count that horrible McDonald’s incident at all) The first night we were here, we stopped at placed callled Novana Notte, near the Piazza Novana.  We each had a pizza.

We shared some incredible Tiramisu — wow was it good and cheap — less than 22 euros for the entire meal.

Jose also sampled some grappa, which was nasty (in my opinion).

Then we went on a night walk to the Pantheon – these are night pictures (and it was raining) so I apologize for the poor quality. The sad part is that we probably won’t get to see these sites during the day because we are so busy, so this is it.

(This is an open ceiling in the center of the Pantheon) –

On the way back, we stopped at a little store

to buy some snacks, including CRIK CROK crisps and a coca-cola. YUM.

The next morning we moved rooms (into a bigger room that wasn’t available last night) did our laundry and planned the day. We were going to Vatican City to see St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum (Sistine Chapel, specifically). Here’s Jose outside Vatican City.

The top of the buildings were covered with statues, which we assume are Popes of the past.


Today the weather was just beautiful. It was clear and sunny and just warm enough. We even got a bit of sunburn! When we arrived at Vatican City it was around 11 and the line was almost circling St. Peter’s Square. To our relief (Uffizi Gallery flashback!!!) the line moved very quickly.

It is confusing tho, because this is just the line to get into the Basilica, NOT the Vatican Museum with the Sistine Chapel. For that, you have to leave the Vatican City, walk around the wall and enter on the other side which is a 15 minute walk. However, there are few to no signs that give you any information at all. (Our biggest beef with Italy is that there is a lot to see, but you never know exactly WHAT you are looking at! — more on that when we visit the ancient Rome sights)

We were not supposed to take a lot of flash pictures, plus the Basilica was humongous, so the pictures came out a bit dark. Here I am with Michelangelo’s Pieta, which is near the front of the Basilica.

Jose and a friend.

Here’s Jose with the state of St. Peter. You are supposed to rub his toe for a blessing or good luck. The entire foot is worn down, you can see how flat it is from millions of hands.



We also got to go on a tour of the Vatican Crypt where the popes are interred. Again, you weren’t supposed to take photos, but I am sure you can find some on flickr. The differences in coffins, (are they called sarcophagi?) were incredible. Some were very plain and others were extremely ornate and decorative. It was a bit aweing (even for non-Catholics).

How the Sistine Chapel Almost Killed Us!
After we left the Basilica, we walked all the way around to the Vatican Museum. I really wanted to see the Sistine Chapel and the painted ceilings. We thought we’d be able to get right into the museum and scoot over to the Sistine Chapel, pop in, pop out and move on with our day. That was not exactly what happened. Instead of a short thirty minute escapade, the quest to find the Sistine Chapel took almost two hours and involved about forty museum rooms (galleries) fifteen sets of stairs (both up and down) and more hallways than I could count.

Somewhere in the Vatican Museum someone is laughing. LOUDLY.

We started our trek by walking through a lovely garden, but what is this thing?

The Vatican’s answer to the Bean?

From here, we started following signs to the Cappella Sistina (Sistine Chapel for non-Italians) We walked through some impressive hallways, but after a while it was visual overload…way too many things to look at.

The colors in this fresco are incredible. They are doing a lot of restoration of the frescoes (plaster paintings on walls and ceilings, not canvas – so they require a different approach to restoration) and they look incredible. Again, we were able to take as many non-flash photos as we wanted.

Each time we exited a room, we were greeted with another sign saying “Cappella Sistina —>, but you’d find another set of stairs, or a hallway or in some cases about thirteen art galleries to walk through. After a while you start believing that the chapel doesn’t exist.

Finally, we arrived at the chapel and it’s filled with at least 1000 people. All looking up. Tell me this isn’t a pickpocket’s dream? I swear inside this room there was the same sign we’ve seen in all the other rooms saying cameras without flash are allowed. So I took some pictures of the famous Hand of God painting, but they I heard someone yelling “No photographa per favore!!!” so I won’t post it here. Again, try flickr and search for Sistine Chapel. I’m sure you’ll find something.

Free at last! We were making our way outside. They had this incredibly cool ramp that gradually turned into a staircase as it looped down.  Look carefully at the picture and you can see the steps getting closer together and deeper.

and the funny sign of the day:
Ok it’s been way too long since we’ved talked about food! So here is what we had for lunch (back at Novana Notte) Jose had another pizza, this one Diavola– pepperoni (which was really salami) and red pepper flakes.

I had penne alla pomodora with my beloved basil.

Then it was time for a much needed nap after a walk back through Piazza Novana.

This fountain was under construction while we were here, but it’s featured in the movie Angels and Demons.

After the nap, we went for another night walk and ended up back at the Trevi Fountain. Here are some pics from there.

It’s hard to tell from this picture, but the fountain is carved out of the building. It’s incredible. The water from the fountain runs underground for about a mile or so to the Piazza Novana and comes out of the fountain there. (see above)

We ended our night by having a late dinner at another recommended restaurant called Maccheroni. It was just around our corner, which was nice. I wasn’t crazy about the service we had, our waiter was extremely busy, rushed and borderline rude, but the food was fantastic.

This is the best mozzarella we’ve had…look at that lovely Caprese salad!

Jose had a specialty pasta dish, amatriciana, with bacon white wine and and tomato sauce. It was excellent.

I had the Roman special of pasta alla carbonara. This was wonderful; I’d never had it before, I think the eggs always scared me. It was soo incredibly filling.

I don’t know how Italians manage to eat all their portions (antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti, dolce and the coffee?? and people say Americans eat a lot??) I could only manage about one-fourth of the plate, but it was delicious.

We usually don’t have secondi piatti, but we did tonite. I had meatballs and they were so good. They had just the right texture, sometimes meatballs are mushy or rubbery, but these were very very good.

And yes, we managed to squeeze in dessert! They were out of tiramisu when we ordered dessert so I asked the waiter for a recommendation. He suggested the ricotta and chocolate torte. Jose made the funniest face saying “ew ricotta in dessert” but I told him its common to use it in desserts. So we gave it a try. Again, it was soooo good! The chocolate chunks were perfect.

Tomorrow, I’ll post the blog entry for the ancient Rome sights…we took almost 300 pictures so I need to dig through them. We are also traveling to Pompeii on Sunday, so I’ll do my best to get these up before we head home on Monday.
Ciao!

Our day today started of with rain and disappointment — the Blue Grotto was closed due to bad weather. The good news was that we could go back to the room and plan our day better while waiting out the rain. Here are some pics of our room. It was recently redone, very simple and clean. The tile in the bathroom was very nice. The only problem (and it was a small one) was that the walls were paper thin and you could hear a lot of noise 24 hours a day. We had a terrace with a lovely view, but it was raining most of the time we were in Capri so we didn’t get a chance to use it.

We stopped at a bakery and bought some pignoli (pine nuts) and lemon cookies to eat at the top of the mountain. (I also had a lemon gelato for second breakfast!)

We got on the bus to Anacapri and once there, we bought tickets for the chairlift to Monte Solare, the highest point on the island.

The sky had cleared, but there was still a bit of haze and fog. The chairlift is a single person ride – 12 minutes to the top. It works just like a ski lift, you jump on and then jump off at the end. They have a 150 seats so if there’s a line, it moves quickly. We didn’t have a line so we were able to get going right away. The ride up the mountain is beautiful and peaceful. I took a few pictures of gardens and interesting things. (in the summer months there is an abundance of lost shoes along the way – I didn’t see any today)

Do you notice that Jose is riding the lift with the safety bar up instead of down?  He thought it was supposed to stay that way because the guy didn’t flip it down all the way when he hopped on.  Yikes!!

Here are a few pictures of the views from the top. You can see both cities (Capri and Anacapri) and the Faraglioni Rocks, a symbol of Capri. (Our pics aren’t that clear, so here are some nicer ones)

Last summer, I saw a Food Network special about Giada deLaurentis going to Capri. This pretty much fueled this portion of our trip. The island looked lovely and the food looked incredible. She visited a restaurant her family ate at whenever they were in Capri and she demonstrated how to make the signature caprese ravioli. So of course we had to have lunch there!  When we got to La Capannina, we were the only people eating at the time, but that meant we had everyone in the place at our disposal. The main waiter was so polite and friendly. He came to talk to us about the weather and apologized for the cold. He mentioned that this Easter was colder than last Christmas!
We had a delicious antipasti of fried mozzerella and zucchini – yum

Ravioli alla Caprese – so far, this is my favorite thing I’ve eaten in Italy. It was so fresh, simple and flavorful. delizioso!

tagliatelle alla bolognese

After lunch, we walked through Capri-town and just window shopped and had more gelato!

Look at these lemons?!?

Capri made limoncello – Jose had some at lunch and it was more lemony than the one he had in Florence, but still quite kick-y

Doors all over Capri are marked with these doorbells –

It was now about 2 o’clock and that meant –time for a nap!!! So we went back to the inn and took a short nap. We were going to visit the gardens of Tiberus Augustus that are quite lovely, but they weren’t open when we stopped by. We’ll try again later.

After our nap, we went for another walk to the gardens and they were still closed, it was raining again though, so we probably wouldn’t have gotten nice pictures anyway. We walked through town again, stopping at the bakery for more lemon cookies! Here are some pictures taken at the end of the town, where the funicolare drops you off. The sun was starting to set.

Ettore, the inn keeper, gave us a dinner recommendation for a place called Pulalli. It was upstairs above the main square (see the staircase in the upper left…right up one more flight)

We had a terrific dinner, again, the only people in the place. — but none of the surrounding places had a lot of people eating either.  Maybe we were early; either that, or the Caprian, Caprese people are vampires and don’t eat food!
Jose had risotto with seafood and it was very tasty.

I had pennette with eggplant, tomatoes and mozzarella – wow this was good!

For our secondi piatti, Jose had veal with a balsamic reduction (I was concerned about this because he doesn’t really like vinegar {seriously — I KNOW) and it was a vinegar sauce, but it was also excellent. It had shavings of parmiggiano reggiano cheese and rocket lettuce (all the rage in Italy, apparently)

I had chicken limone (again, famous for the lemons!!) and it was very very good.  We also had potato croquettes, which were INCREDIBLE. They were so light and fluffy and tasted very good. I think my grandma used to make these, but I am not sure — Mom or Dad or Val can anyone confirm? I asked the waiter how they were made and he said with boiled potatoes, then mashed with pieces of proscuitto and mozzarello and then breaded and lightly fried. These were like pillows of tasty-ness. I would really like one now.

well, I guess I’ll sign off and dream of potatoes —not the first time I’ve done that, btw Traveling to Roma tomorrow and we’ll update when we get there.

Nite!

Today we traveled to Capri via Rome and Naples. The train portions were fine, just busy and a lot of getting up and down to let people in the seats next to us. Rather uneventful. We didn’t have time for breakfast because we left Venice so early that we were literally starving when we got to Roma Termini. We had an hour before our next train left so we tried to find something to eat at the station. Both sit down restaurants were packed and the lines were long. That left only McDonalds. I know….but we had to eat something. Let me start off by saying that I truly love a well-made Big Mac. love love love. The (McDonald’s) food we had in Rome was not well-made. I’d go as far as saying if our McDonald’s tasted like the Rome McDonald’s, I’d never eat it again.

We got back on the train to Naples and arrived on time. Naples is not a clean or reasonably nice city. It looked seedy and scary and there were piles of trash all along the streets. People ignore red lights and walk where ever they want. The cab driver kept looking at me cringing in the back seat and saying “its ok, its ok, safe safe” as he weaved into oncoming traffic and aimed for pedestrians in the way. To be fair, he did give them a warning honk. I am fairly certain that for part of the ride to the harbor, we were on the wrong side of the road. The twenty five minutes we spent in Naples was more than enough. There is a HUGE castle just next to the main harbor that is quite impressive, but I can’t imagine wanting to stay around to take a tour. I know that sounds harsh, but Naples is not really tourist friendly.

We boarded the huge ferry to Capri (it held cars in the lower part) and climbed to the second level. There were about 200 seats up here. The weather was not pleasant, it was storming and the sea was choppy. The next hour was horrible. I won’t brag, but I do pretty well on boats, I like the water (just not the stinging, biting things living in the water) but this was a disaster. The boat was rocking up and down and side to side and we were having to hold on to our seats to stay in them. It felt like we were on a horse not a boat. You know it’s bad when a crew member falls down. The janitor fell over while changing the garbage bag. Now seriously, couldn’t he have chosen a better time than that to change a smelly rotting garbage can? People are rolling around in the aisle crying out for Jesus and this guy is wrestling with a damn garbage bag??? About 20 minutes into the ride, I started looking around for the bathroom, but I knew I would never make it. Eventually I calmed down enough and was only visibly nauseous (instead of visibly and audibly). Poor Jose never likes boats because he once took a school trip on a cruise during a tropical storm and spent more time in the bathroom than eating. If I had felt better, I would have taken a photo of him on this boat ride. Picture him leaning with his head pressed all the way back into the seat, sweating like a pig and crying for his mommie. Oh wait, that was me.

So after a long hour, we arrived in Capri! yip.e. I could have been in the Garden of Eden and cared less at this moment. Now I know how the Pilgrims felt when they landed at Plymouth Rock. After we were outside and sucked in huge gulps of air (and boat diesel) we started walking toward the funicolare (the tram up to Capri — no pics –sorry I was not yet together – check that link for now)

We got our tickets and waited in line for the funicolare to arrive. There was a huge white dog waiting near us. As the doors opened the dog followed Jose into the cabin and laid down underneath our seat. Cute.

Capri is lovely, but hilly. Thankfully, we didn’t have to walk too far to find our hotel. We got settled in — the room is very white and sterile, but that’s ok; the bathroom has really nice tiling.

We did not want to relive our last evening in Venice with no dinner, so we headed out right away to find somewhere to eat. We chose a restaurant based on the menu options. It was a bit fancier than we usually choose, but we weren’t sure how late the places were open. Dinner was an experience. I disliked the service — a few waiters descending on you at different times, pushing wine and food options and hovering too much. I was secretly hoping the food would not be that good. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t complain. The food was excellent! We had insalata Caprese (how could we not???) with the best tasting mozzarella! – Check out that shiny plate!

Jose had an amazing pasta with shrimp, no kidding the best tasting shrimp I have ever had. They were sweet and juicy and W.O.W. tasting.

I had ravioli with a lemon cream sauce that was delicious too. (Capri is known for their lemons – so I had to have lemon!)

We walked back through town and everything had closed for the night. It was still drizzling and cold, so we headed back to the room to update the blog and get to sleep early. Tomorrow, we are planning on going to the Blue Grotto if the weather is good, and the chairlift to Monte Solare in Anacapri.

Buona notte!