Amalfi adventure! Day 1: Chicago to Positano….

Whooo hooo!!! We’re off on another adventure! This time, Italy-bound to celebrate our 1yr wedding anniversary – and to punctuate the start of my new chapter in life, that of a post-working woman! While I’ve been to Sorrento a couple of times (a loooong time ago), Matt has never been so it felt like the perfect choice to take a few days of R&R and enjoy the spectacular scenery, food and…well, everything!

We splurged on bizness class seats from Chicago to Rome and were treated to a ride in the 787 Dreamliner. Its been a while since I last got on a big jet to cross the Atlantic (our puddle jumper to Edinburgh was surprisingly small and not luxe-y in the least!) so I was really looking forward to the experience. We’d made sure to get to the airport in plenty of time as all the news reports right now make it sound as if the airports are chaotic hell-holes with queues for days – but O’Hare was no more terrible than usual and we got through check-in and security quickly and easily and made our way to the Polaris lounge to wait for our flight.

Ahh… free champagne. Its just SUCH a civilized way to travel, dahlink. I always feel envious when I get the champagne pics from my friends as they are heading off on their travels – so this time, I got to share mine! After a couple hours hanging out, it was time to board – the 787 is plenty nice enough, but I did have a couple of First World quibbles. It did feel quite cramped with the aisles quite narrow. Also…. the lie flat beds were not as comfy as I recall – for one thing, United no longer supplies the mattress pad that you used to put on the top of your flat bed, so now you are sleeping directly on the seat cushions, with no sheets or padding. Now…. I have enough anatomical padding to make up for it.. but it didn’t feel as comfortable as before. So despite my best efforts, I wasn’t really able to sleep on the flight – also not helped by the Idiot Family in the row in front of us who had absolutely no awareness of anyone around them as they happily carried on their inane conversations at top volume. Seriously! STFU, people! Even after the dinner service and when the lights were off, the Mom still came from her seat to chat to her two ungroomed offspring (does no one in that family know what a hair brush is for??). I’d had it by that stage. My usual British strategy of loudly rolling my eyeballs in disdain and muttering to myself under my breath simply hadn’t cut the mustard, as it were, so I finally tapped into my inner American, popped up out of my seat and asked the Mom nicely-ish if she would keep her voice down as people are trying to sleep YOU SELFISH MOTHERF*CKER. Of course, that last bit was added by me in silent rage, but she seemed to get the message and quit her jabbering for at least a few minutes. Knowing that it would only be a temporary reprieve, I continued my silent campaign of retaliation with regular doses of crop-dusting in their general direction (that’s another word for fartin’, in case you didn’t know). Maybe a somewhat pointless act of protest, but it made me feel better. Better out than in, right?

Anyway, we landed in Rome without further incident and after a shockingly efficient transit through immigration and baggage claim (Italy can’t seem to keep a government going for longer than 12 months, but they’ve absolutely nailed the airport bureaucracy!), we met our driver Nico who was going to take us to Positano, courtesy of side trips to Herculaneum and a winery near Pompei for lunch. As I hadn’t really slept on the plane, sitting in a car for 3hrs felt like the least-effort transit plan – and it was actually very smooth and comfortable. After about 2hrs we arrived in Herculaneum to meet up with our private tour guide – an enthusiastic and suitably bookish young woman. She showed us the main sights of the site – basically think of a smaller, less crowded Pompei. Unlike Pompei which got covered with hot ash, Herculano got covered with lava so she was telling us the history of how and when the site was excavated and the amount of lava rock they had to cart away. Pretty incredible. And even cooler – most of the city is still buried and inaccessible because the modern city of Herculaneum was build right on top! I think my favorite parts of the city were the fast food shops where you could still see all the big round terracotta pots in place where the shop keeper would store the food for serving! The murals and frescoes were incredibly well preserved too – especially those in the spa baths. Its incredible this was somehow hacked out of being covered in lava without being damaged or destroyed – how did they do that??? I can barely peel an egg without gouging out great big lumps! Also, penises. Penises were everywhere. Apparently back in the good ole days of the Romans, penises were just your average run-of-the-mill good luck charm and fertility symbol and they were scattered everywhere! Above the door frames, carved into walls, little phallic statues standing to attention ready to wish you good fortune. It was really quite charming.

Our tour lasted about 90mins, by which time it was about 12pm, hot as Hades and time for our next stop – lunch at a Pompei winery! https://www.boscodemediciwinery.com/index.php/it/

We decided to skip the vineyard tour (too hot!) and instead just got on with the serious business of tasting some delicious wines and enjoying our first bites of authentic Italian feed. Neither disappointed. We had some delicious antipasti and cheese as a first course, then a simple pasta and red sauce to follow, finishing up with some delicious lemon cake. Our waiter/wine guide was a hoot – very personable and with a great gift of the gab. As we were both profoundly jetlagged and likely deeply dehydrated after yomping round the ancient ruins in blazing sunshine for 90mins, we were probably very easy to please by this point – just throw us some cold water and we’ll buy whatever you want. I think the wines were actually pretty good – with the notable exception of the one they brew up in terracotta jugs. I guess we’ll find out as we ended up ordering a case of red, so we’ll see! (I once bought a couch when I first moved to NYC on the same day I arrived and was deeply jetlagged. In the store it felt so comfortable – but when it arrived, it was the worst couch I’d ever sat on – it was terrible!!).

After lunch, finally on to Positano – this time taking the coastal road as we got closer to Positano, with all its cheerful sharp bends, sheer drop-offs and narrow lanes. After my last trip to Sorrento many years ago, I’d vowed never to do the Coast road drive again as it was absolutely terrifying – but it felt significantly less scary this time round. I think doing the drive in a private minivan vs a giant tour-bus made quite a difference – they have actually banned those giant buses now from that stretch of road, so the whole journey felt a lot less chaotic and dicey! Anyway, we reached our final destination without further ado – the entrance to our hotel (the Villa Mary B&B) was not accessible by the main road, so our driver had to drop us off at the bottom of a set of stairs, for us to then climb up and walk along a narrow side street (a sign of things to come!). I’m glad my suitcase was not too heavy! This town is definitely NOT for anyone with any type of mobility issues. We checked in all OK and then just collapsed on the bed for a long, long afternoon nap. Unfortunately we couldn’t figure out how to turn the air-conditioning on so we laid there and sweated for a few hours, but we managed to get a couple hours of rest in before it was time to head out for dinner. The restaurant was about 15mins walk from our hotel, situated in the Eden Roc hotel. Given that today is actually our 1yr wedding anniversary, I’d wanted to book somewhere special to celebrate the occasion. This place had gotten great reviews and I was under the impression that it also had a Michelin star.

It did not.

There was nothing wrong with it per se – but it was more Michigan star, than Michelin. I mean it was alright – but it just wasn’t what I’d been expecting, so that’s always going to be a bit of a disappointment. Our table wasn’t in a great location as it was right next to the stairs leading to the upper deck of the restaurant, so there were people coming and going past us the whole night. Plus our table was so close to the one next to us, I was almost in their laps and could hear every single word of their conversations and their birthday party celebration including an entire table full of kids. Again, nothing inherently wrong, but it wasn’t the intimate romantic dinner I’d been looking forward to! The food was OK but the wine expensive so by the end of the evening, we were ready to pack it in and call it a night. But, despite that, we’re here and Happy Anniversary to us!!