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Gia's Italian Kitchen's Podcast
Episode 3.27 - Returning from Italy- our review of Amalfi
We are back from Italy, and want to share all of the good nuggets with you!
Nona and I have been recording some podcasts about our trip, with great info about the cities we visited, the transportation that we took, and of course the FOOD. Today, let's talk about the Amalfi Coast and nearby towns.
We visited several cities on and around the Amalfi Coast (Naples, Salerno, Amalfi town, Positano, and Herculaneum), then headed to Sicily (Catania, Taormina, Acireale, Aci Trezza, and Mt. Etna). What a fabulous trip with so much to share with you!
I have also been posting several 60-second videos of our travels, so please check those out.
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nonna yes, we went to italy again good evening, good afternoon good evening kind of right is good afternoon, early evening, because when we were there and it was like and when you want? To say goodnight, it's Buenasera, yes.
Speaker 1:But when it was like 3, 4 o'clock, they were saying that we shouldn't say Buenasera yet.
Speaker 2:We should say there's another.
Speaker 1:What did they say to say.
Speaker 2:An afternoon one. It's different, quite different.
Speaker 1:Salve.
Speaker 2:Salve. Salve Was basically good afternoon kind of or hello, hello, hello, ciao, ciao, salve, yeah, okay, right, salve is, I think, more, more formal than ciao.
Speaker 1:Okay, but it's weird that ciao can be hello or goodbye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, a lot of things are that way in Italian.
Speaker 1:So anyway. So we went to Italy again.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was wonderful.
Speaker 1:And this time. But we went where we'd not been before. So we went to the Amalfi Coast and we went to Sicily, because we had never been to either, or I had never been to either.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:And we were just tourists this time, Like we didn't see any family. We didn't look for any apartamentos.
Speaker 2:We didn't go to any cemeteries. We didn't.
Speaker 1:We didn't go to any cemeteries. I didn't think about that. Cemeteries, we didn't. We didn't go to any cemeteries, I didn't think about that. We just were tourists. Um so we did the first week we were in amalfi, we did naples and salerno and amalfi town, and then positano and herculaneum and herculaneum. Um so what were your initial thoughts? You've been to that area before. I have, I've been to Pompeii and Naples, but not um all those other towns. So, um, like what? What do you? What was your? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:What are my thoughts about? Those are, yeah, all right, like how was, how was the trip? I've been to Herculaneum and I've been to Positano like 40 years ago.
Speaker 1:You went to Herculaneum 40 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, okay, with my parents, okay, and your dad, okay, and we went to we also went to Venice, and we did northern Italy, and then we went, came south and did Herculaneum, and that's when we stayed in Positano for a whole week, okay, and one of our day trips was going to Herculaneum, right, right, and it was very different 40 years ago because there weren't nearly nearly as many people oh my gosh yeah, it was. I don't think Positano had really been discovered by tourists yet, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:And I mean, there were people there, obviously, but not crowds like we saw.
Speaker 1:It was crazy when we were there.
Speaker 2:It was very crazy.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was literally a herd of elephants walking up some of those streets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, it was literally a herd of elephants walking up some of those streets. Yeah, and the beach that we went to in Positano I didn't remember being so rocky.
Speaker 1:Well, that was probably one takeaway that I had for the whole trip was the Amalfi cities and Sicily. All the beaches were rocky there was no sand and I get that there's. You know you're near volcanoes, you like. Amalfi is a cliff town and but sicily is not a cliff so there was sand when we went to the beach in Positano 40 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I can remember walking down the steps and we would go to the beach and I would have remembered if we couldn't walk without shoes, which we did, and it was so flippin hot we couldn't walk with shoes, so it was rocky and hot so we, like all, had to have shoes on this time to walk on the beach it was weird.
Speaker 2:And Positano I think I told you before Positano was so remote that it only got water. Oh, that's right, On Sunday nights. For the hotel, a big barge would come in and service the hotels, and our hotel would get water every Sunday night. So if you had used up all your water supply and you needed to use the bathroom, You're talking drinking toilets, or both I'm talking toilets, toilets okay, because they would use other water, think for drinking their bottled water okay, um, but for to go to the bathroom, and so if you're, if the water was all gone, you would go to.
Speaker 2:You just go find an empty room where people weren't there and you'd use that bathroom so you could flush the toilet.
Speaker 1:That's lovely yeah, that was actually an unexpected piece of sicily, was that, um? And I don't know if it's because it's an island? I don't know, because when we were in venice this was not the case, and I would think this would totally be the case in venice with the the plumbing, but in sicily you had to put your toilet paper in the garbage can.
Speaker 2:You couldn't put it. Where did you experience that? What?
Speaker 1:Everywhere in Sicily, every restaurant we went to, the house we stayed at did not tell us to do that.
Speaker 2:Right Every restaurant.
Speaker 1:there was a sign saying and then there was a garbage can in every stall to put your toilet paper, did you?
Speaker 2:not do that. I probably didn't use the bathroom. I just went to see what you did. I don't think I did because I don't remember that. Yes, I mean, that's how it is on the boat.
Speaker 1:Right, I know, that's what was so weird yeah. Yes, there were signs everywhere saying don't put toilet paper in the toilets. Yeah, we were saying don't put toilet paper in the toilets.
Speaker 2:yeah, in sicily, not in the mainland, not in amalfi, just in sicily. Yeah, except in our house.
Speaker 1:We, obviously we were kind of in a bougie house. So I don't know how that's either.
Speaker 2:It seems weird like either the pipes can take the toilet paper or they can't, so I don't I don't know what the deal was, but anyway well, our bougie house was probably built not in the 1500s or 1700s, or and maybe just had better pipes, maybe when a lot of buildings were built that's probably true, and that's probably true, yeah, yeah because a lot of those restaurants were in the cliffs and they were probably just older buildings.
Speaker 1:That's true, yeah, okay, that's fair, okay, okay. So week one we go to Naples and then we had a fun few days in Naples, yeah, in Herculaneum. So how would you? I know Herculaneum is much different than Pompeii. How would you compare those two? They're very different, even though they were both destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in the same year, 79 AD, which is insane. And these buildings, some of them, are still standing. But how would you describe which is insane?
Speaker 2:and these buildings. Some of them are still standing, but how would you describe well? I think one of the differences would be um the um, how large they are. Purgulani was quite was smaller because it was more of a resort town right with the bougie went right for vacation yeah, whereas pompeii people it was a town.
Speaker 1:It was a town.
Speaker 2:People lived there yeah, and so there were, you know, like 20 000 people there at that time and in herculaneum not nearly that many, um, so that's one difference. Another difference would be it was interesting to see that Herculaneum was on the water before Vesuvius erupted and was Pompeii was a little bit more inland, so it wasn't quite on the water but they had much different.
Speaker 1:sorry I'm. We're also cooking while we're talking, so we're making some Calabrian chili oil over here, so I'm cutting and rootsing my hands. So we've got some olive oil, some shallots, some garlic, and then we're going to add red pepper flakes, oregano, rosemary, salt, sugar and dried porcini mushrooms and some colatura, which is anchovy extract, which I've never heard of this before, but now I know what it is and make this ridiculous Delicious.
Speaker 2:And make this ridiculous Delicious.
Speaker 1:Collaboration chili oil to put on salmon, shrimp, chicken, steak, steak. I mean it is ridiculous. Like anything, roasted vegetables, I put it in no-no beans. Oh, oh, that would be good. It's just ridiculous. So that's what we're doing. So we're making a little noise here while we're talking, but anyway, okay. So we're making a little noise here while we're talking, but anyway, um, okay. So the the, the way that mount vesuvius um erupted and the direction and the impact that it had on pompeii and herculaneum were different right because of the direction and the just, lava went here.
Speaker 2:Lava didn't go here right, right, and they had more sludge, I think in uh herculaneum well, herculaneum had the sludge?
Speaker 1:yeah, because it had, and this was my understanding, but because it had the ash, the hot air came this way and the ash came this way, and then the ocean air and that created the sludge right versus pompeii, literally just got covered and demolished and everyone just got incinerated and all the buildings got just destroyed in the bodies and completely covered.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean everybody got covered, but they got covered different in a different way. Yeah, so then in herculaneum they got got sludged, so they really got more preserved, because what we saw after they've excavated this were buildings that were more complete than in Pompeii that and and the frescoes and the tiles the beautiful.
Speaker 1:And, but the skeletons were completely and but the uh skeletons were completely, completely whole, that they'd excavated and like there they were on the what used to be the shore of waiting to be rescued, right, right, and whereas, pompeii, they were just incinerated and you had these, these shapes of bodies that were casted right but there's nobody like they were running right.
Speaker 2:But there's no body like they were running right.
Speaker 1:But the bodies are gone because they were all toasted right it was very different it was very. Herculaneum was very, very cool and I think it gave more of an image of how they used to live, because more of the buildings- were intact. The colors the like. It just gave you more of an image of what it used to be yeah, I thought.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I thought it was amazing yes, and it was. I think it was a little bit more modern than pompeii. You know, like they're in pompeii they had those like troughs going down all the streets, remember oh, like the sewer system, yeah, yeah where they didn't have that in they were more advanced and they were more advanced.
Speaker 1:They had they had high engineering so they had. That was cool thing. That was peter's favorite part. I think they had the wine bar yeah, yeah, that was very cool so they had these like l-shaped, looked like granite countertops and they had the big jugs underneath the holes and with probably food and wine. But then they had little divots in the granite that were the size of an actual piece of money at that time for different coins at the time right yes, and the the um owner could tell from the size and the sound of the coin if it was fake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in 79 AD, like that blows my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were very advanced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they had, you know, people underneath the wine bar with the ice. Mama means in this. You keep closing this on me the ice, I just walked over here and got my chair, um, almost like on a hamster wheel thing to create air conditioning to come up to the wine bar yes, that was very cool. That's crazy. Yeah, it was so cool, okay, so that was herculaneum, so that was Herculaneum, so that was just one day. So Naples is like a big, huge.
Speaker 2:It's a big, big city. It's like a big Chicago city City, right Hustle and bustle and very old, so it looks kind of parts of it are, lots of it were kind of dirty looking.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because the buildings are so old.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of. I thought there was quite a bit of trash. That was kind of unexpected, like all over the place on the sidewalks. I don't know, maybe it was garbage day, I don't know, but it was fun. I mean, we walked for miles and miles to find little shops and restaurants and museums and Duomos, so we did that for a couple days and then. So then we had to Amalfi, so we did Salerno, which was probably one of our. Really wouldn't you say that was one of our favorite towns. That was unexpected.
Speaker 2:yes unexpected and I didn't know what, because I know the place to go on the in the Amalfi Coast is to stay in Sorrento.
Speaker 1:Oh right.
Speaker 2:But Sorrento is like $900 a month in the hotel. A night, a night, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, but it's also on the far west coast and we just weren't staying there.
Speaker 2:No, and it was on the other side of the peninsula side it's on the other side of the island or the peninsula? Yes, and I thought where we stayed was a perfect place because you could able to take the train down from naples and um, then we could take the ferry over to amalfi and ferry over to posse posetano, and we were right on the bus route. We could go into town and there was a beach with sand. And there was a beach with sand. Yeah, yeah, that's right yeah, um yeah.
Speaker 1:We came back one night and sat on the beach and had had a drink and there was actually a soccer match that they had set up the whole thing like the very sideboards and everything right on the beach and it was beautiful and it was some competition because the tv station showed up and that was kind of yeah, that was neat, that was cool, it was cool but I mean, for me it was like, not, it wasn't touristy like all, like no, I mean when we got to sicily.
Speaker 1:Sicily was fine. I mean, there were towns that we went to that were touristy and crazy and busy, but Salerno was just a really nice town, a nice town.
Speaker 2:It was a very nice town and it wasn't crazy like. Naples and our apartment was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I thought I loved it and I, yeah, I loved Salerno.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it would be nice to find a place up north, further north, like in Salerno, right.
Speaker 1:That we could buy.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that would be like Salerno.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:So okay, so we go to we're going to rinse here again, okay. So then we take the ferry and we go to amalfi, which I think is one of the most iconic italian towns. From, like, an american's view. It's like this, this, uh, monaco type glamour.
Speaker 2:That's what I think of when I think of amalfi, and I think I don't know if that's accurate, the whole Amalfi coast and, of course, Sorrento is like the most expensive of the major cities there, pulsing garlic with Sorrento, positano, amalfi, and then there were other littler towns which are nice to go to right, but those are the three main places. Amalfi and Positano were on the southern edge and Sorrento is on the northern edge right, okay, so had you been to Amalfi town before this trip? Um, you know, I don't remember, but we did day trips when we stayed in Positano, so you may have, but so we may have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did several day trips when we stayed in Positano, so you may have, but maybe not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did several day trips, okay, and one of the day trips I know was Herculaneum, and then, you know, we beached at Positano.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this trip, let's talk about this trip. So what was your reaction of Amalfi?
Speaker 2:this trip, okay well, I liked some of the things we did there. There seemed to be more to do in amalfi than in pocitano, wasn't there?
Speaker 1:I mean in pocitano, we walked a lot well, we walked a lot in both, I so but the paper, the paper making, was in amalfi. Yeah right and that was like at the top of the amalfi, there was like one street yeah, and you just kept walking up, up, up, up up and of course, as you got further up, people disappeared.
Speaker 1:Right, because the tourists are staying one. They don't want to walk that up because it's hotter than crap but and it's up a hill and all the shops and restaurants are more down right, but there was only the one street versus Positano was more spread out and you could kind of go up and over and up and over, and over and over and up and over and over and over.
Speaker 1:But it was still a lot of just shops and restaurants, shops and shops, yes, and the beach and the view, and you take your picture in the coast and it's beautiful in the water and blah, blah, blah. It was beautiful and it was beautiful, but then you're still like on a beach with rocks. So for beautiful and it was beautiful, but then you're still like on a beach with rocks, so for me that was kind of a bummer.
Speaker 2:Not that I want to lay on the beach, but you want to be able to walk into the water. I want to kind of walk on the beach yeah, that was, that was unexpected right, because I love to walk on the beach and like, yeah, when you go to outer banks or something, the beaches are beautiful. Well, and the beaches are much bigger, like these beaches at.
Speaker 1:Positano Animal Fee. They were very small, so right like it would take you five minutes to walk from edge to edge of where there's actually a place to place to walk, yeah that's not um, a cliff.
Speaker 1:Um, I mean, they were beautiful. They were beautiful, and the fairies over there were beautiful. Um, and we had great food. We had, you know, our limoncello spritz or Aperol spritz at lunch, and we had beautiful food. Um, you know, wonderful caprese salads and all the classic dishes. You know, gia had her, her gnocchi, and, and, um, I think we had caprese at least once a day. Somebody ordered it. Oh, yeah, oh, definitely but it was a lot of just shops and restaurants that well, you're right.
Speaker 2:When you go to Positano or Amalfi, you go to the shops. You go for the view and, of course, the dormos and you go for just to sit with your april spritz and soak it in and look at the ocean, look at the sea. Yeah, and that's what you do. I mean it's not a place. I mean you could obviously peter went running every day.
Speaker 1:I don't know, and we, we hiked and sweated our booties off and hiked up and up and up as much as we could in both of those towns just to like get some exercise, have an activity, um, and just yeah, just do something with that day so okay, so the duomo was it the duomo in amalfi that had the crypt underneath? It was that was one of the apostles, right. Because that was cool, because most of the Duomos I shouldn't say most, several of the Duomos you go in and it's just the Duomo and it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:And there's the side chapels. And there's people buried in there and lots of stories and beautiful, beautiful artifacts and artwork and altars, but the one in Amalfi had one of the apostles buried in the crypt below.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we spent like probably a long time there Close to two hours in that because it had the piazza inside.
Speaker 1:What was in the piazza? When we first walked in, remember there was that square. Were those just more crypts of other people?
Speaker 2:uh, probably what I think they were.
Speaker 1:There were other people and then we got to go downstairs. That was so I like that.
Speaker 2:That was amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was very neat and it was a gigantic oh, it was huge.
Speaker 2:It was huge, yeah, it was huge.
Speaker 1:The crypt was huge the cathedral was huge um, and that's like and I actually posted one of these videos where we're, where we're sitting having our cafe and our croissants when we first got there, and those stairs- those iconic stairs, that's the stairs to the wall but that's like what it is yeah, those were beautiful yeah, it was beautiful. Um, and I think one of the other fun memories, especially for the kids was, was the gelato, because at amalfi that's where we had the gelato in the big lemon yes, with, like the big tree sprigs right out right, that was delicious and very cool and cool, although I have to say I really like the granita granita
Speaker 2:granita granita, yeah, in sicily yeah I really like that, almost better than the gelato I really did, because it wasn't as sweet, it wasn't as creamy, it was just really refreshing when it was so hot out well, the granita doesn't have any dairy in it. I know and I like that, so it's almost just like an Italian ice.
Speaker 1:Ice, yes, and the lemons are so sweet on their own.
Speaker 2:They don't add any sugar. They don't need any sugar, so it's just like ice and lemons. Yeah, and it was amazing. Yes, yeah, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:So then in Positano, Okay, so in, we did. Of course we enjoyed the cafe and the lemon or the Granada.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, I will be right back, be right back.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you got your book, I'm back.
Speaker 2:I got my little journal.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is my journal from Tuesday, june 24th, when we were in Amalfi. A day spent on Amalfi. Took a bus from our VRBO to catch a trajito, which is a ferry. Okay, had breakfast there quite different than our breakfast lots of fruit, tomatoes, jams and delicious lattes. Went to a paper making factory, saw how paper was made in the 1300s Original machines, and then I got to dunk the frame in and make the so I took a video of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, that was very cool. Yeah, that was super cool.
Speaker 2:Then we went to the Dormer of St Andrew.
Speaker 1:Okay, was he one of the 12 apostles? He wasn't, was he no. No, well, maybe he was. I think he was Andrew.
Speaker 2:James John, yes, he was. The whole church was beautiful. The first part was built in the 300s to 400s as a monastery, so that's another thing that we did. And then we went also went to the arsenal. Do you remember that? The maritime arsenal, the big tunnels?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, where there, there were three tunnels and they had one old rowing boat where they were building them in there right yeah, that was cool and they used them for racing in the 1700s and they had that big um, what's it called, the model, like a big model train set type thing, but it was a whole model of the coast and it was. Did they use that as kind of a strategic maritime? I think so like they were kind of a strategic maritime, I think so, like they were kind of mapping things out.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what they used. Yeah, I mean, they used those. Yes, because there were three of those big tunnels. We only were in one of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, they had two other ones which were not open, which we didn't go in the other ones.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, okay, and so that's basically what we did, besides going in and out of shops and things when we were in Amalfi.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we were in Amalfi and we're shopping, I know the kids were looking for leather right, we're all looking for like beautiful leather purses that don't cost a thousand dollars. Um, the clothing there's some very beautiful clothing. Then there's like these shops that literally there's 500 of them and they all have the same same things, same thing in the same town there's like literally 500 shops of these touristy things and they all have up and down the streets and it's weird that they all exist.
Speaker 2:But um, there's a lot of ceramics yeah, I see, and I thought they were more in pocitano well, I think pocitano was bigger.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was more spread out, but it just was a bigger town. It felt like well, yeah, he had so many shops with the same stuff oh yeah, exactly same thing, yeah, same shops, uh, but we stuff oh yeah, exactly Same thing, yeah, same shops. But we saw that everywhere, yeah. I mean in Naples every block had a shop with all the same crap in it. Sicily same thing, Like even when we were in Tiramina, like every couple blocks you would see another shop with the same touristy crap, right, like exactly the same stuff.
Speaker 1:So so that's, it's just it, a lot of it is a big tourist trap. It really was. I thought, yes, both of the, the whole amalfi coast, the whole sicily thing, especially tiramina, because you've got the white lotus there, which we'll talk about another time. But, um, the whole thing, like a lot of it is just a tourist. But you want they, they want you to buy things, which we did. We bought some stuff. Well, we didn't overload. Anyway, we really didn't overload.
Speaker 1:No, okay, so then in Amalfi, I mean, that was pretty much our day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was our day.
Speaker 1:I mean, it was a full day because we had breakfast, then we had lunch.
Speaker 2:I think we took the 6, 30, 6, 30 uh ferry to go home. Um, what did I say? He took the 6, 30 ferry to go home.
Speaker 1:We made dinner at the apartment that night.
Speaker 2:We had carbonara and a salad yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1:So we we had a home base in Salerno and we got an Airbnb and that was super fun. We had a full kitchen and three bedrooms and two baths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a very nice apartment. It was great, and then we could go to the little market and buy breakfast stuff, buy dinner stuff, and make some local dishes yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1:Get some wine and beer local stuff, that was fun, okay, so then Positano.
Speaker 2:Was Happy Birthday Kelly.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:That was my birthday.
Speaker 1:How lovely for me. That was my birthday day. Uh-huh, how lovely for me. So again, we arrived by ferry and I'm trying to think what does your journal say?
Speaker 2:My journal says today was our Positano day. Happy birthday, kelly. We took the bus to the ferry. Again a day of walking up and down down memories of being with my mom and dad coming came flooding into my head. It would have been wonderful to have them here with me today, could you?
Speaker 1:imagine if they were there with us. That would have been crazy to be walking because nono was papa fluent in italian. Yeah, my head's open.
Speaker 2:No, I mean yes, not his, not as fluent as nonini, because she grew up speaking italian. Okay, papa ini, probably, I mean he could speak italian, so he must have grown up speaking italian, but I don't think that would have been pretty great to have them with us.
Speaker 1:I know it would have been neat, because we're we're trying to speak Italian, we're I'm trying to not speak English, but I'm also trying to not speak Spanish. Right, but I don't really know much Italian yeah, it was a mess, I was a hot mess, I was trying, I was really trying.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it was good that we tried and yeah we'll even be better the next time we go, because we're all taking classes. Okay, so the next thing we walked up, up, up to a ceramic factory, only to find out it was just another store. Oh, that's right, do you remember?
Speaker 1:that yeah.
Speaker 2:You walked way, way up there.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's pretty far up. That was a big walk.
Speaker 2:Almost to the top.
Speaker 1:We just went a little bit further to get to the top, and I even looked that up on Google because there's a lot of ceramic stores and this one specifically said it was the factory and we get there and we hiked. That was high up.
Speaker 2:It was high, I mean, it wasn't a hike in the rocks, but hiking up up, up, up, up, up, up up. Yes, and it was again hotter than crapola and we get there and it's just another. And then it was ceramic store don't touch anything. Oh remember how horrible that guy was. Don't touch anything, oh crap. So we went and then we we walked down and went up to the other side of the town. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, we saw it, had a beautiful view, and came down and had and we ate lunch in that restaurant that was a lovely lunch that was a really a nice lunch that was like a one of the fancy lunches the white tablecloth, it was nice and long and but again we had the caprese and the octopus and the spritzes and I actually I think that's where one of the places j had the gnocchi and ernie had some pasta. I don't remember what I had, I think I had, um paninis.
Speaker 2:No, that wasn't panini day, no, we had, uh, I remember the caprese, and what else did we have? I can't remember, I didn't put it, oh so we had that was.
Speaker 1:that's one of the things Like he highlights food-wise was the buffalo mozzarella. Oh, the buffalo mozzarella Was so the mozzarella over there, like the regular mozzarella, was like, of course, way better than what you get here, right, what you get in the store, but then you get the buffalo, which is the buffalo mozzarella which is closer to to equate it to a like a um burrata that you can get here in the States.
Speaker 1:Yes, but it's in a ball, it's salty and creamy and you cut it open and it kind of oozes over, but it's, it's a mozzarella cheese, but it is very good, salty and creamy and silky. Oh my gosh, it was ridiculous. It was really good. It was so good. Yeah, but then at our hotel in Naples, they had it, Remember, yep, they had the caprese for breakfast and they had the buffalo.
Speaker 1:And I was like well, I got to eat this for breakfast. Now, that's right, because here it is, yeah, yeah now, that's right, because here it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that was so good so so good.
Speaker 1:Um, that was another thing that was interesting because their breakfasts like our hotel huge, oh my gosh, you could have whatever you wanted.
Speaker 2:They had cheeses, they had fruit, they had.
Speaker 1:But it's kind of reverse of america, like americans we have big dinners and over there they have a big breakfast, a huge lunch pasta is at lunch normally, and then their dinner is like a fish and a vegetable right, or a meat and a vegetable, maybe a piece of bread, but it's a light dinner but it's later. But they always eat so much later they do, but the dinner is not the huge dinner like it is in America, no, no. So breakfast to your point.
Speaker 2:breakfasts were big, big breakfast. I mean eggs, bacon, other kinds of meat.
Speaker 1:Well, I, think they did the bacon at the hotel because it was American. Well, maybe, yeah, I don't know. Is bacon an Italian thing thing?
Speaker 2:I don't think so they have they have pancetta, but they have um a bacon, a kind of bacon there but that's kind of like the prosciutto, not really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, but they had, you said, like breads and cheeses and jams and cakes, and cakes and croissants and and the lobster thing, the spot. Oh, what is that called? Is it Spagliatelle? Oh, I'd have to look it up. The, the lobster tail, that's the um, the pastry, and sometimes it's empty and sometimes it's filled the mascarpone or custard or or whatever they almost look like a croissant, right?
Speaker 2:Well, they look. The shape is a lobster tail though, yeah, but it tastes kind of like a croissant.
Speaker 1:And then there's like a sugar glaze on top. They're ridiculous. Like all of that's breakfast. Now you've got like you. Just there's no way you can eat oh my gosh, even sample everything you just you want to have like a two hour breakfast. Well, you eat. Then you need a nap. Yeah, right, you couldn't eat the rest of the day, okay, so pocitano.
Speaker 2:What else did we do there? Okay, so then we went um to the ceramic factory and then we walked up to the other side. Um, we had some gelato on the way down. We gelato every day every day, right um, and then we had the meal, then we went to the Duomo.
Speaker 1:Duomo.
Speaker 2:Duomo no.
Speaker 1:R no R.
Speaker 2:Duomo no R.
Speaker 1:Duomo.
Speaker 2:Duomo, duomo, duomo, ooh, duomo, duomo, duomo. There's no R.
Speaker 1:Ooh, ooh, duomo. It's not Duomo, it's D-U-O-M-O. It's not, it's no r, but it's not dwomo, dwomo, dwomo nana, now wait a minute.
Speaker 2:In Positano, it says, when we went there we couldn't go inside. Remember they had it cordoned off and we could just look from the back. We couldn't go inside into the domo. Yes, in Positano.
Speaker 1:Cetano what I'm trying to picture that.
Speaker 2:I remember that when he walked in we were so surprised because we couldn't go in we actually experienced that.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you're traveling over there, the siesta that is from typically it's from two to four, where shops close, things close up and we went to the castle. We tried to go to the castle in pocitano and that was closed. But they closed at noon at noon.
Speaker 2:So I was thinking we're going to get there.
Speaker 1:It's closed from 2 to 4. We're good, we're going to have lunch, we're going to go there, we're going to see the castle and they closed and we got in there and we got up the like not Juliet balcony, but we got up the stairs and did a little like one room, and then the lady was like we're closing 12 o'clock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, and we didn't have time to go back.
Speaker 1:No, because it's 4 o'clock. And by then you're hot and sweaty and we're ready to grab a drink and then get back on the boat.
Speaker 2:Well then, we went to the beach, we swam in the in the Mare.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 2:Torino, the Torino Sea. And then we went back to the apartment and we had lunch. We had the cheese, the salami bread and olives and, oh boy, that was our dinner that night, because we had had such a big lunch in Positano. So good, that was really good, yes.
Speaker 1:So good in Positano.
Speaker 2:So good, that was really good. Yes, and then remember, we bought that little thing of limoncello cake that we had. Oh, because it was my birthday, because it was your birthday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it was so fun. No, I, I loved it, um, but it was almost kind of like a check the box for me to go to the Amalfi Coast because it was beautiful. I mean, we got off the boat, you've got the views, you've got the beach and and it's. It's a beautiful experience, but but we didn't not do anything that would need another trip.
Speaker 2:Right, Because we went. We saw the beautiful views.
Speaker 1:I mean, we hiked probably more than most tourists walk around both of those towns, oh yeah, oh yeah, we found like the paper museum is hidden way, way up in the cliff. We found that.
Speaker 2:If you didn't read about it, you'd never know it was there, because there were really no signs.
Speaker 1:I feel like we did everything in both of those towns that we could have done, other than if we wanted to just go back and, you know, have a lovely lunch and soaking it in and have your apparel spritz and like, lay on the beach. But it kind of depends on what you want for a vacation. That's not my idea of a vacation, so I or you could do that. Any place on the beach you could do that anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing that I I'm curious about is the east coast. You know we've been down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I want to go to barry because that's on the east coast of the boot and there's a lot of towns on the east coast all the way up and down the coast that we could go to. We haven't looked at.
Speaker 2:We've done Venice, but we haven't done anything anything south of there, no and I think there might be a lot of places that we would be pleasantly surprised at. That would be on the sea. Yeah, that, um, we could. That wouldn't be so touristy yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So what's your conclusion of the Amalfi Coast?
Speaker 2:the conclusion it's way different from when I was there 40 years ago. There's so many more people and it was so much busier. And, of course, when I went I believe we went it was in the summer, because we were both I think your dad must have been teaching it was the summer, because that was when one of the teachers babysat, babysat, mrs Redpath yeah, mrs Redpath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was hot. I remember being hot when I went and we went to Florence. I remember being and I loved Florence doing. What we didn't get to see were gardens. Like you couldn't go to up north. I mean, even when we were there last time we went to some gardens, remember yeah with cat and Matt and Fennel. Yeah, I mean there is nothing like that.
Speaker 1:Well, cuz it's all cliffs, yeah right, at least on the Amalfi. Yes, and mat and fennel, yeah, I mean there is nothing like that. Well, because it's all cliffs? Yeah Right, at least on the.
Speaker 2:Amalfi, yes, and I missed that the beauty of those gardens and the flowers and the mazes that you see up north.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for someone who's never been to Amalfi, would you say they should go?
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's beautiful and it's different.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful, it's different. I would go in September or May.
Speaker 1:Those are probably the two best months that we have found to go to Italy really anywhere, because it's not hotter than crap, yes, and it's less busy.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And unless you're, unless you want to just lay on the beach, because if you want to lay on the beach, go in the summer and lay on the beach, but if you want to actually like, walk around and not sweat through your clothes on a daily basis yeah.
Speaker 2:May or September would be would be much better to go if you can, if you can do it yeah um, even october is nice, yeah, but then it's just tough because you've got, if it depends on kids schedules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or if you're a teacher and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:So it's, it depends on your situation so if you're retired and you have no schedule and you can go whenever you want to.
Speaker 1:Hey. Or if you can work remotely and your laptop works from Italy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm trying for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that would be so cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, it was a fabulous trip. So that was week one. So we will talk about week two in Sicily in our next episode.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Thanks, Nonna oh you're welcome I love talking about this and just like reminiscing it's so fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really was fun.
Speaker 1:And we're going to go back and probably go back north again, though, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, I would prefer to go back north. Yeah, okay, yeah, I don't know. I don't know that many places in in the boot and on that east coast I'd have, we'd have to. We have to research the cities on the east coast to see where we want to go. Yeah, there's one. I was, um, was it in, maybe? When I was doing a bab, my babble class, they talked about a town, materna, I believe that might be the name of it, or close to it. That's in the southern part of the boot, that I think it's in Calabria, but around there, okay, so it's farther. It's more in the middle of the boot. It's not on the shore either side, okay, but that's supposed to be a really neat place to go. But I would like to go on the east coast and find some towns to visit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agree, agree, okay, so we need to finish our Calabrian, speaking of Calabria, calabrian chili oil.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because we've simmered our olive oil with shallots and garlic and we have our dry spices over here, so we need to kind of pull this together and then we're going to have this amazing the mushrooms we need to.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we need to do the porcini mushrooms. So we bought dried portini mushrooms and we're going to put those in the Cuisinart and turn them into a powder and then add them to the, to the dry spices, and then we'll combine it with the olive oil and shallot. So we're going to finish that and we'll talk to you next time and we'll talk about Sicily. Yay, buonanotte.