OUR FINAL NIGHT After weeks and weeks of the kind of planning it takes for two couples to reach consensus in travel plans, we reached Italy for our two week tour of the Sorrentine peninsula, the Amalfi coast and a full week in Calabria spent grazing on meats, cheeses, olives and breads under the blazing southern sun atop the 16th Century converted convent overlooking the Mediterranean that housed our three bedroom villa. An inexpensive decadence mitigated by damp stone walls and voracious mosquitoes. And here, in this final destination, if we stood on the balconies of our adjoining rooms overlooking the street -- and craned our necks left -- we could watch the clouds passing over the sleeping cone of Vesuvius as the sun set toward our homes back in Chicago. We sighed at the overwhelming beauty - waved to one another and took memorable photos of each other as those passing clouds passed less and began to build and darken, growing more dramatic and more certain in their threatening toward rain. Our "Final Night in Southern Italy" dinner plans had been arranged by the concierge. A very special place he assured us that specialized in local seafood and an expansive wine list. We showered and sequestered the remaining guest sized Hotel Britannique emblazoned bars of soap into our luggage. And by the time we reached the street, a cold, damp and very persistent drizzle had begun. We convinced ourselves it was more of a mist really, and one we were certain we could endure on this, our "Final Night in Southern Italy." We had decided to leave the hotel early, to stroll the darkening streets of Naples - this beautiful and beautifully filthy city on this gorgeous bay. To drink in as much final night "local color" as we could. A few streets away from the hotel we peer into a warm and inviting looking trattoria. It looks like something right out of central casting. Lacy curtains, red-checked tablecloths - and - (perhaps my memory has added this detail) - old Chianti bottles in wicker baskets with candles stuck in... We take a cursory glance at the menu - noting they've got a special on clams for the evening - we make a few muttered and - ah, here's the operative word: “non-committal” - a few muttered and non-committal suggestions that we ditch our current plans and enter this ever so charming-looking establishment. Perhaps it'll have the same magical aura as the outdoor terrace beside the water fountain in the deserted city square back in Tropea where I enjoyed a stunning zuppe di pesce and was soon surrounded by dozens of mangy and hungry cats. Maybe we'll be treated to excellent suggestions on what to order from a nearby table by the just-this-edge of completely nuts village regular who bought us a bottle of wine near the close of our meal in one of the most amazing restaurant settings ever - situated atop a high hill in the town of Sant’ Agata sui Due Golfi - St. Agatha of the two gulfs - the Bay of Naples to the north and the bay of Sorrento to the south both clearly visible in the moonlight from our table. Maybe. But, we'll never know. Instead, we dithered. The sky grew darker, the clouds continued to lower and we, incapable of doing anything but - continued on our way. Each of us could feel the warm beckoning of the charming trattoria fade into whimpers as we plodded forward - soldiering on to this concierge-recommended restaurant nagged with the feeling that maybe we hadn't gotten the best information. That maybe we weren't clear enough in expressing our collective desires to enjoy our "Final Night in Southern Italy" in a pleasant and authentic and expensive yet affordable restaurant to the concierge. We marched to an increasingly uncertain beat with our collective "Final Night in Southern Italy" eggs in a single basket swinging it to and fro hoping we'd not be making omelets... or a frittata ... or something. This is what happens. You've spent the day doing what it is you do on any particular day, and you're tooling around. You start feeling hungry and you think, "Hm. I sure could go for something to eat. Where should I go?" So, you walk and you think, "I just want something quick, I think." And so you walk and you pass several places that look perhaps too full or too dirty or too I've-had-that-too-often and you promise yourself you'll walk maybe another block and you find you've walked two or three and still nothing really appeals and by now you're practically fainting with hunger and you opt for a bag of something or a bar of something else at the 7-11 washed down with an overly sweet cold beverage. It's incredibly unsatisfying and leads to self-loathing and gas. This scenario can be played out with a friend or - for added agita - your mate. Your partner in crime. Your snoring bedfellow. Neither of you will be able to decide on a place equally palatable to both of you and torn between trying to appease one another and getting your own way, you'll end up in some place where both of you are resentful of the other - one for choosing and one for acquiescing to such a mediocre dining choice. Silently chewing you will think, "This is not happiness. This is just sustenance." The argument later about something seemingly unrelated will be just that - seemingly unrelated. We had argued several times before and during this trip. Foreign travel is not nearly ever without its moments of rattle banging infantile pouting. Usually after hours of glazed-eyed aimless wandering through museum antiquities and absolute certainty that you have most definitely strayed beyond the confines of your tourist map with no known means of getting back to that square with that statue - you remember the one! The one that's got that bus station thing! With the thing! That thing! Yes, yes you do remember!! There is photographic evidence of these breakdowns in usually civil behavior. All stiff poses and forced smiles. Each, arms akimbo - elbows keeping the distance - safe from the snapping jaws of travel recrimination. The sighs of "just take the fucking picture already" nearly audible from the print's shiny surfaces. Scrawled captions written in photo albums, "Mr. Crabby at Crankypants Cathedral." All of this is, by its very nature, exacerbated exponentially when traveling in tandem with another couple. Fluctuating loyalties in the realm of relationship solidarity make it all just that much more fun. After a full day of bone-tiring sightseeing, each couple will head for bed where the day’s minor irritations and petty offences will be cataloged and either supported or refuted (shocking!) by each respective mate. Seasoned travelers the four of us, we could feel each other's certain uncertainty but were powerless to do anything about it. The rain began to increase, and as we neared the docks in this rabbit's warren of narrowing streets, our uncertainty grew. Had we missed the restaurant? What's the name of this street? Did you see that weird little chapel dedicated to the victims of the cholera epidemic? No. It's looking kind of dodgy around here, isn't it? Why isn't there anybody around here? I've got a bad feeling about this. "Thieves in Italy often work in groups or pairs. In most cases, one thief distracts a victim while an accomplice performs the robbery." "Groups of street urchins are known to poke tourists with newspapers or pieces of cardboard to divert their attention so that another street urchin can pickpocket them." "In one particular routine, one thief throws trash or garbage at the victim; a second thief assists the victim in cleaning up the mess; and the third discreetly takes the victim's belongings." Having seen goats nimbly gamboling up gorgeous Amalfi coast cliffsides strewn with a nearly unimaginable amount of refuse, we applaud the resourcefulness of garbage throwing street urchins for using what is apparently one of Italy's more plentiful natural resources. But on these twisting, many of them dead-ending-not-on-the-map side streets, we're more wary than wise-assed. And the rain has decidedly veered into the territory of umbrella required. We somehow end up in a shoe store on Via Cervantes where Beth tries on shoes. Phil tries to help her indecision and Edward and I promise to return once we've checked out the inviting-looking shop just across the way. It just so happens to be one of Naples's most famous purveyors of chocolate: Gay-Odin. It's all blue and gold and filigree and Victorian hoo-ha and it looks warm and dry. We remember from the guidebooks we've read that it was a favorite of Oscar Wilde's. We also recall that their most famous treat is The Vesuvio. A bitter chocolate volcano filled with chocolate ganache. We'd wanted to visit Gay-Odin anyhow and stumbling upon it, while lost on our way to a concierge-recommended restaurant on this "Our Final Night in Southern Italy," was like magic. The shop is small and loud and crowded and brightly lit. Customers in fluid Italian bark out orders for the shop's well-known array of croccanti and cioccolatini. The cases filled with dozens and dozens of variously shaped chocolate delights shoves us down a deep dark hole of paralyzing indecision. We discover we are somehow struck with an inability to do much but stand there. Like idiots. We want The Vesuvio. But, we cannot remember that we want The Vesuvio. The customers in coats carrying their oversized bags jostle and whisper, "Scusi, scusi per favore." We want the Vesuvio. We want it but we cannot remember. One of Gay-Odin's no-nonsense nonnas fixes her laser beam customer service eyes on us and demands to know what it is we want from Naples's most famous chocolate shop. We want the Vesuvio. We want it but we cannot remember. And, in a panic we point toward a shelf where an oblong box among many others like it sits. All dark blue and covered with florid gold scrolls and scribblings. We meekly point and the box is ribboned and bagged and handed to us in exchange for a few lire. We wanted the Vesuvio but we've ended up with a milk chocolate log carved like a log. It's a log. Back on the Via Cervantes, Phil and Beth wait under the dripping eaves. Beth has bought shoes. We march off again, we think, toward the recommended restaurant. The dampness and the darkness has nearly done us in and we're just about to give up and retrace our steps back to the warm and inviting and sweet-looking trattoria where we're certain a gypsy violinist would have serenaded our table with squawking renditions of those Italian Favorites that would have played on our parent's hi-fis in the days of hi-fis - when we see the restaurant's dimly lit sign. The restaurant is small and loud and crowded and brightly lit. The owner, the most unfriendly woman in all of Italy, grumbles that we are several minutes late. She feigns an inability to understand English or travelers' Italian when we try to explain, smiling ingratiatingly that we'd gotten a little lost on the dark streets. Our shoes and chocolates tattle on us. We drip rainwater on the hardwood floor as she leads us brusquely through the obstacle course of diners in chairs to a table with a profoundly small amount of real estate cramped up against a massive and looming hutch and demands that we decide immediately what we'd like to drink - bubbly or still. Do we just want to order the house special? Will we be having the fish? She wants to know and she wants to know yesterday. What the hell happened to sunny disposition Italia? Where is my friendly Tonino the owner of the gelateria in tourist-deserted Tropea? Where is Pizza Lady who joyously sprinkled extra hot pepper flakes on my sweet onion slices? Where is the sweet old fruit vendor who I'm pretty certain cheated me out of $20 when she sold me beautiful pears and explained to me, "Ficchi finito." Where are our joking limoncello distillers from Sorrento who explained to us that fennel is finoccio which translates roughly to "fag" using us as example? We are like mullets. Stunned into an inability to answer anything at all. The owner scowls and frumps back to her station. Cerebus at the gates. It's as if we are under some kind of spell. We scan the menu and try to communicate with one another just how much each of us might wish to order. We are profoundly incapable of deciding on any kind of wine. We've somehow forgotten the cardinal rule: always order the house wine in Italy. We dither. We meekly pass on antipasti. We don't order the house special. We pass on the main course. Somehow we all end up with wine and food before us. It's not what we want. We don't know what we want. This is the most unmemorable meal I have ever eaten in my entire life. If I had a gun to my head I could not tell you whether or not I even had a meal. I’m told we had pasta. Of some kind. There was no dessert. There was no coffee. Outside the rain was now coming down in buckets. We single filed under the eaves as we made our way back to the hotel. For months after our return home, that flaky milk chocolate log sat in our pantry. A flaky milk chocolate log from Gay-Odin that is apparently very tasty when crumbled into hot milk for hot cocoa. Who knew? It sat desolately at a Christmas party on a plate surrounded by nuts. It was barely picked at and then was returned to the pantry where it sat, and whitened, and was eventually discarded. On the Via Cervantes, Beth showed us her shoes. They looked stylish in the box. I'm not sure I ever saw her wearing them though. |