Living The High Life
Rossco was up with the birds, going for an early run this morning, which is a mean feat in this steep terrain. He had spotted a barber shop on his run, and booked himself in for a haircut and shave with an old-fashioned cut-throat razor; getting the full treatment, including a shampoo, a taming of a few wild eyebrow hairs and trimming of hair in all the other usual orifices. He felt like a new, (hairless) man.
Our hotel booking includes breakfast, which they deliver to your door at your specified time, to eat on your verandah (how cool is that?) All the verandahs are lined up next to one another, with some above and some below, so it’s quite funny to have everyone out eating together at once; extremely hard not to practice the age-old tradition of the evesdrop. Downstairs, by chance, two Texan couples are staying next to one another. They just cain’t believe how much they have in common, including taste in music it seems. As we munched on Corn Flakes and hot hard boiled eggs we were treated to a southern sing-a-long, featuring Cody Johnson’s ‘Diamond In My Pocket’:
Gonna take her on a midnight ride
Down them backroads winding up at Kickapoo Creek
Dancin' and singin' to some good ol' boys like me…
Somehow this foot-tappin’, belt-grabbin’, boot-kickin’ tune didn’t seem quite right here on a picturesque hill in Italy. You can take the man out of Texas…
After brekky (and all that talk about rattlesnakes) we headed down the hill towards the beach, browsing in the cute little clothes and hand-painted ceramics shops along the way. Italians really love you to pay for everything in cash, preferring you go to get cash out at an ATM rather than use a card. If you do pull out a card they look visibly disappointed as they retrieve the EFTPOS machine from the bottom drawer and blow the dust off it.
There is only one road into Positano and one road out and really no footpath to speak of. Cars bigger than Mr Bean’s, struggle to squeeze past restaurants and shops, (not to mention traffic coming the other way), pushing pedestrians to the margins, forced to take refuge between parked cars or to nestle, backs-to-the-wall into a bush. Sitting at a table in an outside restaurant, you have to keep your wits about you and your body parts in check. There’s every chance a dangling toe or outstretched arm might be taken off; lost for good. It’s tight! It’s also steep - the descent down to sea level offering magnificent panoramic views over the very photogenic, gorgeous town.
The beachfront was a hive of activity today - full of restaurants with big pots of bright, colourful flowers everywhere and comfy seating areas on the sand. We had a coffee on the beach with some complimentary chips thrown in - how good- and then wandered over past the boats to the next beach, where we took the plunge and hired ourselves some matching beach chairs and an umbrella. Every restaurant along the strip is defined by their different coloured chairs and waiters circulate to bring you food and drinks while you‘re on the sand. Our restaurant was Puppetos. Reading and soaking up the view, it was lunchtime before we knew it and our waiter -on first name basis with Rossco - brought down a little table to wedge between our banana chairs, for our food. I had gnocchi and Ross ordered squid…again! (If he keeps this up, he’s seriously going to start growing tentacles).
The sand is very black here, which I wasn’t expecting and the shoreline is littered generously with sizeable grey stones, making it more than a little challenging to exit the water elegantly. You virtually have to crawl out on hands and knees, slipping and sliding all over the shop, keeping a good grip on your cossie as you roll around in the shallows trying to get a footing. Ross was wincing as he tip-toed across the hot rocks, his sensitive tootsies not coping too well, while intimidatingly, young Italian studs with cool hairstyles and gold chains just waltzed across the rocks without a care in the world. The black sand did heat up quite substantially so, not wanting to take any chances this time, my thongs remained firmly on my feet.
The walk back up, probably on a par with Vesuvius for gradient but offering a lot more shade, was sweaty business indeed. We showered and ate tonight at another cute roadside restaurant, run by a mum and her sons. The moon was full and bright and as the sky turned a pretty shade of pink, we asked our waiter if he’d mind taking a photo for us. Saying it was his second job after all, he happily obliged and his brother Johnny even popped in to join us. There was a full menu, including the intriguing: “Crazy Water-Based Amber Slice”. The boys’ mum took our order and when I enquired what sauce was on the “Grilled Chicken” she looked offended. “What do you mean? It’s grilled chicken. It needs no sauce, just olive oil”. She kissed her fingers and after tasting her incredible, sauceless, simple chicken, I kissed mine. It was perfecto! We even sampled some authentic Positano limoncello (thanks for the tip Baiba and Caroline) - ice cold and delicious - before retiring to our room to watch Eurovision.
