Travelfood

For many travelers to Italy, Rome is the first destination and the eternal city offers traffic chaos, ruins and Catholic churches. Rome is surely perfect for many, but for me the most interesting Italy are the small towns. From Rome it is easy to do a daytrip for example to beautiful Orvieto, which offers magnificent views from its hilltop situation. I always get a small feeling of disappointment in Rome and also during our latest trip the most interesting parts were found south of Rome. 

We travelled to Naples by train and immediately outside the train station we stumbled into the biggest piles of garbage we have seen anywhere in the center of a city. The tourist center was cleaner and filled with beautiful baroque buildings. The Spanish quarters of the city were especially exciting, with densely built high buildings with laundry hanging over and shadowing the narrow streets. From the ugly Naples harbor we travelled by hydrofoil to Capri, which also was a slight disappointment. From Capri we continued on to Sorrento, where we stayed a bit longer.

The Italian Riviera is often connected to celebrities, luxury and prosperity and we were able to see traces of all of that although they are surely just a shadow from the golden 60s. Celebrities clearly spend their time in private villas on the hillside and we could see hints of that luxury between cypresses peeping from the bus window. From Sorrento you are able to use a day-pass for buses along the coast and you can change buses anywhere you like on your way to Amalfi or Positano. The buses usually get crowded by tourists already on their departure from Sorrento so it feels a bit awkward to sit, while entering locals need to stand along the trip. The bus trip continues along the coast so that there is a steep fall to the sea on one side of the bus and a mountain wall on the other side. Buses meet on the narrow streets in sharp corners and tourists close their eyes. When the bus approaches Positano, situated far below the road, it is clear that something unique awaits down the hill. The small streets around the Positano hill with the white and pastel colored villas in between make the set look like a giant wedding cake. And the waves of that clear blue Mediterranean lick the base of that wedding cake! O sole mio!

Italy is world famous for its food. Pizza, spaghetti, gnocchi, air dried prosciutto ham, caprese salad, minestrone soup, risotto – all the best delicacies seem to originate from Italy. One of the highlights from our trip was surely the October seasonal fish dorado with its delicious white meat with lemon butter. For dessert we had cannoli – a ricotta and cherry filled wafer.

It can be taken for granted that I will return to this rich tourist country with several blog writings.

Europe, food, Italian Riviera, Italy, Naples, Rome, travel, travel experiences