Off With Its Head!

There was really only one last adventure to be had in Firenze before departure. Something I had heard about, wanted to do, but had never gotten around to.  Visiting the buchette di vino, the wine windows.  Created back in the 1600s during the bubonic plague they allowed the wine merchants to continue to sell wine with minimal customer contact.  These days we use sheets of plexiglass but back then they created a little window through which you can order and receive a glass.  

There used to be hundreds of them but many have now been closed up.  Still we found plenty, certainly more than we needed in one night.   Our situation was not improved by the windows closing for an hour before reopening at 7:30 for dinner. What else was there to do but have a couple of glasses of wine in a bar while we waited for the windows to reopen?

Luckily after the window tour we staggered to a fantastic and sobering dinner at Aroma of Indian just around the corner from our BnB on Via Sant'Antonino, 39/R.   We asked for spicy and that was a good thing.  It was wonderfully flavored, still very mild by American standards.  I abstained from even beer during the meal which was a wise long term choice for me.  

Leaving Firenze we did a brief tour of the Cinque Terre.  I was very happy to discover things had not changed.  For the third year in a row the very best croissant al cioccolato of the entire trip can still be found at Bar O’netto right on the main street of Riomaggiore. It is perfect, crusty and buttery, and has to be one of the best of my life.  So many places take a plain croissant and shoot a squirt of Nutella in it.  The ones who care at least warm up the Nutella but it still is only adequate.  Acceptable in a pinch, but the real thing, chocolate cooked in, is at Bar O’netto and I look forward to it every year.  The barista in the morning is also an interesting fellow.  The music tends to be eighties and nineties heavy metal to which, as the mood strikes him, he whistles along quite expertly.  The joy of whistled AC/DC first thing in the morning is unexpected. 

She won’t be happy I am going to tell this story but what are friends for?  We went to Manarola for dinner and The Seamstress ordered a pasta with prawns.  Lots of stuff in Italy arrives at the table in an unvarnished, natural state. This was a good example. The timing was bad because we had just finished discussing how horrified we were at how some places serve fish.  You get an entire cooked fish showing up at your table.  Moments later her plate arrived with three large whole prawns on top of the pasta.  Their long antenna drooping off the side and beady little eyes staring up at her.  Her first comment was on the order of “how the fuck am I supposed to eat these things?” I asked, “Technically or morally?”  When she answered, I responded “Google, how to eat prawns?” and relaxation washed over her face as she whipped out her phone.  A couple of videos later she was chopping their heads off.  Well, I guess it wasn’t a moral issue holding her back.   Two years ago I had one of the best pastas of my life at this restaurant.  It had rock crab on top but the crabs were partially shelled.  There was not the same level of barbarism involved in that meal.

The next day I was up at six and we were heading to the train station.  We were on our way to the island of Ischia.  We popped for some pricier high speed trains and got a couple of really lucky connections. I mean, I say lucky because no matter how much I plan stuff it never goes totally smooth.  But with her at the wheel we were able to knock an eight hour travel day down to six.  We were on Ischia because when first talking we were thinking it would be a cooking trip.  Our goal was to do at least a class a week.  But those were my tasks to plan and …well, you know. 

She had on her list to visit the island of Capri but when I did some checking into it, BnBs and really everything, even in the off season, was very pricey.  Around that same time I had found that a chef I had taken a class from the previous year was in the process of moving to Ischia, a larger island to the north of Capri.  Island, check.  Cooking class, check.  Perfect!

Getting there involved taking trains to Napoli, then a ferry out to the island.  There is always a problem when you cross from government to private infrastructure.  Not limited to Italy, America has the same situation. The subways link perfectly to the intracity rail systems.  There are signs that guide you between the two government entities seamlessly.  But going to the privately run ferry system, not so much.  I am sure it has to do with the government not being able to show any favoritism.  The subway dumps you out into a free-for-all of ferries and cruise ships with no guidance at all.  Dragging luggage (next year I swear to pack lighter) is never a good way to find a specific thing in something the scale of a bunch of ferry systems.  There appears to be three different companies providing service at the three different docks located quite a distance apart.  Tickets must be purchased and gates found.  It never goes smooth.  Throw in the foreign language element and it is that much harder.  We first went to the cruse ship area and realizing our mistake I shifted into my method of asking someone for directions every hundred yards or so.

I know we made the wrong choice going over.  We were on a small, passenger only, ferry with sealed up windows and no air.  I hated it. I don’t have particular claustrophobia issues the way I have known friends in the past to have.  It isn’t small spaces I don’t like, but put me in somewhere there is no fresh air and I suffer aggravation.  Eventually it ended.  The BnB was beautiful and had a really pretty view of the castle on the tip of the island.  Easily the prettiest view of the trip.

This is a few days where I don’t have my typical varied restaurant review.  There was really only one place open on our side of the island. Called Restorante Pirozzi on via Seminario 51, I ate three meals there.  They did alright with pizza, I thought it a little over sauced and the crust too tender.  Not chewy enough.  But their pasta, and particularly the spaghetti pomodoro, was amazing!  Just a simple dish of pasta, olive oil and roasted plum tomatoes but it tasted so fresh and flavorful it was exactly the meal I was looking for.

So a beautiful view of the castle but sadly the one major tourist attraction on our side of the island was closed for maintenance.  Part of off season travel is this fact.  It is the time these places rebuild.  Just like the walking trail between the towns of the Cinque Terre.  In three years it has never been open.  The other thing, our cooking class cancelled.  Oh well, maybe next year.

This was a first for me.  The airbnb owner sent me the WhatsApp number of a taxi driver.  Literally everyone here is on WhatsApp.  When the ferry was about to arrive I texted her and a few minutes later she was there to pick us up.  Then told me if I needed to go anywhere during my stay to contact her directly.  This was a new experience.  One that I didn’t take advantage of during the stay but contacted her the night before departure to arrange pickup the next morning.  Then in the morning, she wrote to me saying the ferry I wanted to take back was unlikely operating due to the wind.  Again, I had never had such a proactive engagement with a cabbie.  She picked us up earlier to get us onto a different ferry.  She walked with me to the ticket window and with her Italian made sure I got the correct ticket.  I had already told her the problem I had with the previous ferry so she got me on a different one.  This one a larger, vehicle/passenger ferry with an open deck.  I was able to pace around in the open air.  A vast improvement! 

This was the parting of the ways for The Seamstress and I.  She was off to Napoli to meet up with a British friend for a couple of days before her flight home from Rome. I decided to visit one of the mountain towns.  We toasted our excellent adventure over a last dish of pasta.  Our own personal Last Supper.