Difficult to describe day one. To quote Jim “if you have another day this good during your trip, I need to hear about it”.
After a lovely breakfast, we rolled our bags down to the ferry, purchased tickets for the hydrofoil to Procida and into the Sailitalia office. Left baggage, had a lovely lunch alone the shore, then headed in and out of little markets. In such a civilized way, all stores closed between about 1:30 and 5 (not useful for our timing, though!). We bought what we could, met up with Settimio (our captain) and walked out to the boat. We walked around the rows of sailboats, and turned a corner, as the boats got larger and larger. We were playing with the big dogs! I saw our boat, the Musa, and (of course) burst into tears. I couldn’t believe it! Planning for over a year, and here I was, preparing to board a beautiful, BIG catamaran to cruise around Italy with people I love. Sucking the marrow!
I ran around to pick my cabin, we unloaded, received our onboarding chat, then out we went. Just a short, motorized ride – during which Jim and Carolyn showed us some couples yoga:
over to the island of Ischia (which has a rich history) for our evening dinner reservations at a family-run restaurant that Carolyn read about in the New York Times. Took a big taxi up the winding, volcanic hills and entered a large, rambling building. Table for otto, per favore, and we’ll have the mixed antipasto and the island specialty of rabbit for our secundo, or main course. Well, the plates just kept on coming until we were laughing at the selection. Here’s a pic before they all arrived:
We enjoyed it all, being very smart to ask other opinions about which items were worthy and which not. Hah! Sated, including imbibing locally made dry white wine, Sylvia (one of the 9 siblings who run the restaurants along with their parents. Brother Augustus was our chef) asked if we’d like to see something special. She read me like an open book, being suspicious of what she was “selling”, but she took us into an old volcanic cave, sat us around a table, and proceeded to share the history of Ischia, its economy, and the wineries and dedication to serving food with an identity:
We walked through a bit of the cave tunnels, sampled the homemade herb liquor, and gave us each small jars of their own jellies. Hugs and much gratitude, we walked our feeling blessed by our wonderful experience.
And as if that weren’t enough, we take the taxi back down the long and winding road, and suddenly hear a beautiful operatic tenor and see that the bandstand is lit up, with full orchestra of all ages, and performers. Are you kidding me? Yes, I started crying again and we were all shaking our heads at each other. Behind the stand was the sea. We stood and listened, then found seats. The still life:
and the real thing:
I wandered back to the Musa before it was over, and stood on the stern of the boat and listened and smiled. What a lucky girl! Listening to the voices floating over the sea, rocking on our beautiful temporary home, THIS is why I chose Italy. And, waking up and drinking coffee to this view:
I don’t know next time I’ll be able to post. Headed out to sea to jump in the beautiful azure waters, around Capri and anchoring in the bay of Positano tonight. Come back to visit and see how we are!