Saturday 9 Sunday 10 November 2024

A very comfortable BnB we have here, for sure. The landlady took our washing last night and returned it all neatly folded this morning. Breakfast of bacon and eggs is cooked and we move slowly doing admin stuff during the morning. The coffee machine actually delivers good coffee. A home cooked lemon and pea risotto tonight.

Sunday, we took the ferry to Amalfi via Positano and back, in brilliant sunshine and clear, deep blue skies. For the off season, there are still a few tourists about. Our ferry was full, including Brits and Japanese groups with that little flag on a stick!

Positano is relatively small and packed with accommodation, narrow streets and lots of up market shops, some of which were open. The beach is black volcanic sand and very small. One can only wonder what this place must be like in the summer - YUK!

Next stop is Amalfi. This is just as picturesque but without the shops. Despite excellent research, Google was again out of date. Our chosen restaurant was closed. The next was full. The last one was open but with poor food and a grumpy waiter.

Time for a summary of the food scene in southern Italy. As my old Italian teacher said, the people from the south are ‘bruti.’ Well, they freely admit, they are from peasant stock and make no apology for their peasant cuisine.

It’s one dimensional. Lots of bread used in recipes and very few pasta types and the ubiquitous tomato sauce, usually not that good. Not a problem if the cooking is executed nicely. But in our meals out, the usually served scialatelli pasta is warm, under cooked (no, not al dente. White in the middle=undercooked) and gluggy.

The famous Neapolitan ragu is a teaspoon of meat. If you are lucky. Six small clams are their answer to seafood (that’s plural you know) pasta. As previously noted, the pizza is pretty crappy. The base so floppy that the topping falls off as the slice droops.

We did have two exceptions. In Monopli, we had a selection of small dishes at a laneway restaurant that was up to Melbourne’s Italian standard and in Ceglie Missapicca, our local bar produced two small tartines with beautiful prosciutto and mortadella topping. The rest, as I said, very average. Except, I just remembered - the cannoli and gelati are to die for! Can you live on their excellent vino and cannoli?

Excellent risotto with a good Rosato


Obviously, they don't eat them here.
Positano beach.
Lovely beach side bar. Not too many tourists and good Negronis.

Comments

  1. Jo11 November 2024 at 18:11

    Yes, you can definitely survive on wine and cannolis

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  Sunday 24 and Monday 25 November 2024 A big couple of travel days on the train from Nice to Paris which was a comfortable six hours on the TGV. Our Paris station, Gare de Lyon was a taxi ride to our overnight two star hotel within walking distance of Gare de Nord, because we are departing there on the Eurostar to London tomorrow.  This was another good train trip at just under 300 kph and 2.5 hours. Alyssa was waiting for us at St Pancras and we had a long and lovely lunch in Searcys Brasserie and Champagne Bar, a very nice and well presented restaurant within the station. Very reasonable bill at the end – until you realise it’s in pounds! The train to London Bridge, then to Marden in Kent was seamless and Johnny collected us for the 20 minute drive to Kilndown, where we will be house sitting with Truffle the naughty dog for a couple of weeks. It has been interesting to reflect on the various train journeys we have taken throughout Italy and France. One of the great advant...
Read more
Image
  Monday 30 th September to Friday 4 th October 2024 A travel day today with a speedy taxi to Madrid Aeroporto and a faultless check in to both Emirates for Andrew and Iberian for Flashy. The Madrid to Oporto trip is 45 minutes and it’s a small jet. And there’s always someone isn’t there? Clearly, all the big cabin bags go in the hold. They take them off you before you board, even at the steps to the plane. Well, here’s this dickhead and his stupid wife refusing to give up their huge “cabin bags” at the foot of the stairs in the hot Spanish sun. Luckily, the hosties were having none of it and they eventually went grumbling up the stairs with their other “cabin bags”. They barely fitted in the overheads. Idiots. The Exe Almada hotel in Porto is very well located in the old city and once arrived, a simple dinner in the restaurant across the road was the go. There were probably 80 pax on the first floor and down stairs with me, were another three single diners. A few backpacks and...
Read more
Image
  Thursday 14 November 2024 We found a wonderful little café today for breakfast with the locals. The cruise ship Americans with the little bloke with the flag on the stick – he gets around, eh? They went elsewhere. Excellent cappuccino, cannolo and ham and cheese roll.  Then a painful hobble around the outside walls of San Gimignano ended with a coffee and the purchase of a shirt in the local market. By this time, it was almost lunch and our mate Kevin, from La Chaine des Rotisseurs in Cairns, now living half the year in Florence, arrived to collect us.  We are now back in three layers and puffer jackets because despite the clear blue sky, the temperature is in single figures and the wind and shadows are, how shall I put this?   Very bloody cold! Lunch was at Bottega Torciano, a 10 minute drive down the road. It specialises in Florentine steak. That is a 1.5 kg T-bone, cooked rare. We shared this and had some healthy grilled vegetables and potatoes – about three...
Read more