Greetings -
So, let’s dart back to last Friday evening and Saturday. After the Isle of Capri visit, Marlene and I had dinner around the corner from our apartment at a restaurant in the front courtyard of a hotel. The hotel is the largest in Positano and was originally a 12th-century Benedictine monastery. Since it was the last evening in Positano we celebrated with dinner photos. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but the food photos weren’t necessarily my idea. There’s a nice photo of Marlene with margarita in hand. It was the second evening in a row where Marlene asked for a margarita. That falls into the category of asking people to do something they can’t do, never a good idea. Anyway, it tasted something like a margarita. I had lamb chops and Marz had shrimp and asparagus pasta. You’ve heard it before, but the array of culinary options and the quality of said options is far superior in Italy versus France.
Turning to pizza -------- there’s a photo of the inside of Pizzeria da Franca. On Saturday we elected to hire a van to take us to Sorrento rather than chance taking the crowded bus. Hey, we took it coming, so we had the experience. We had lots of time, five hours until our train in Naples, so we asked the driver if there was a good place to eat in Sorrento, a tourist town of 20,000? He said there was a great pizza restaurant just a short walk from the train station. Oh baby! I’m not going to say Pizzeria da Franca has the best pizza we had on the trip, but it is a great place to go and have pizza. We got there at 1:00 pm, still a little early for lunch, and we got the last table. When we left, there was a line outside waiting to get in. The pizzas were served on thin wax paper on a tin tray (round pizza and rectangular tin tray). Thin, charred, great tomato sauce and superior cheese! We watched the locals approach their experience. Very interesting. The typical table had wine and beer, then ordered regular-sized round pizzas (mostly one per person). At the same time came a large tin tray with long strips of aged-ham (sorry I still don’t know the names of the endless types of ham here in Europe) and another tray with about six juicy mozzarella balls. As that was being consumed, at least at the table next to us, came a rectangular pizza cut into squares. That pizza was about three-feet long. Of course, it brought a discussion of Imo’s Pizza. Marlene said Imo’s is the best pizza she’s ever had. My view is that Imo’s is great, but I don’t feel you can really put Imo’s into a pizza competition, because to a purist it really isn’t pizza. Imo’s is something different and you are not really comparing apples to apples. Anyway, next time you are in Sorrento, Italy be sure to stop by Pizzeria da Franca and admire the appetites of the local folks.
Through the rain we walked to the nearby train station and you get a photo of the train that makes the 1-hour plus journey to Naples with 21-stops. Just as the doors were closing to depart, a local trio of musicians jumped on and started performing to fill a tin can. Only in Europe. We arrived in Naples, visited the McDonalds at the Naples train station and jumped on the deluxe high-speed train to Rome (you can count on a McDonald’s inside major train stations or across the street, and, in some cases, both).
When we arrived in Rome Marlene was very sick and we all became sick when we checked into the Hotel California, where we had a room for four priced at just over 300 U.S. dollars. Well, you could hardly move in the room, as there was a queen bed with a portable twin bed placed adjacent on either side. There was no English television and the tram went by right under our window (cling, cling, cling went the trolley). It was such a wonderful experience I decided to hit the road and go for a tram ride to see even more of Rome. I asked for companionship and had no takers. So, I jumped on the Tram Linea #14, which went by our hotel and turned around (end of the line) two blocks away at the train station. Walking over to the tram stop I took a photo of a building right across from the tram stop and the train station. And, you see the main Rome train station, which is an old station with an extensive modern façade. They did what a few other stations have done and built out the front of the station, adding shops and restaurants, to say nothing of space.
Get ready for the Rome tram ride.
The Wilsons
