We left Naples at 11.30, but had nothing planned for the morning, just packing and tidying so we wouldn't look like utter slobs when the hosts came to clean. The train was on time leaving, and pretty much on time arriving into Rome. It was a two-hour journey this time, not a superfast train like the first time, and it had 4 or 5 stops along the way.
Looking at the outskirts of Naples as we went through, it was interesting to see that even out there, where it was no longer so built up, and land should be less precious, there was still nothing but apartment blocks. Not tall ones, but squat, 5-6 floors, several apartments long. It could be that land alongside the rail tracks would be that kind of area, not your poshest neighbourhoods, but we didn't see any stand-alone houses for ages into the trip. Into the countryside, there were a few duplex or semi-detached-looking houses, but that was all for a long time. Maybe detached villas have always been, and still are, only for the aristocracy and the very rich.
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| View from train to Abruzzo |
We had an hour at Rome Termini station, then a 4-hour trip across Italy, to a town on the east coast called Pescara. There is nothing here in particular that we wanted to see, but it's the end of the train line, and tomorrow (yes I know, it's already today) we'll be heading north along the coast. Lonely Planet said the museum here is quite interesting, but otherwise this is an over-touristy beach town. It sounded a lot like Nha Trang, from the description. So not much to look forward to here, but I hoped the train journey would be picturesque.
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| View from train to Abruzzo |
It was. We are in a region called Abruzzo, which is very rural and has a lot of untouched land such as national parks, and there are still wolves in the forests! We saw a lot of paddocks with big round hay bales, but very few animals who would feed on it. We saw a herd of buffalo outside Rome (presumably for mozzarella), and a couple of paddocks of sheep, and a few horses. But for all the beef and lamb produced in this region, there are not many animals about. The scenery was nice, though - much of it was quite similar to bits of Canterbury and central Otago. There are several wind farms, too, which is good to see. And in with all these new world and new age impressions, there are lots of medieval towns sitting high on hillsides with their yellow stone walls and terracotta tile roofs. We wondered why they wouldn't build down by the rivers, to be where the water is, (as Stephen learned in Human Geography 101) but then we remembered this continent's warring past, and that everybody always had to keep a lookout for everyone else, so they had to build up high.
And finally we came into Pescara, 37 minutes late, so at about 6.30pm. The taxi to the B & B took about 10 minutes, and we met the host, Paola, and went up to our room. What a gorgeous room! Big room, marble floor, big Turkish rug over the sofa/chairs/table area, floor-to-ceiling windows with narrow double doors (but sadly the outer shutters seemed unopenable) and a compact yet elegant bathroom. (I don't think I told you about the tininess of the shower in the B & B in Rome: it was about 60cm square, and had two sliding sides, but obviously the slidey bits could only be half-width, less a bit for edges and margins, so there were two 25cm gaps meeting at a right-angle, so the hypotenuse of that meant that there was about a 35cm gap through which to enter the shower, which was raised about 20cm up off the floor, which is quite a step up or down when you're going sideways and are wet and slippery.) (The Airbnb shower in Naples was HUUUUGE! The two half-swing doors opened inwards, and then you walked to the shower-head, and beyond that hung the towels, well out of the way of any spray. It was fantastic.)
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B & B room in Pescara
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After we had dumped our bags and settled in, we went out for a walk to look for dinner. Paola had told us that there were a lot of eating places only a block or two away. Some would be closed, being no longer the summer high season and early in the week, but still there should be plenty open. We walked and found the area, a few blocks of the town's Centro Storico (Historic Centre), and although the first few 6 or 8 places we saw were all bars rather than restaurants, we made it through to the restaurant area. We looked at a lot of menus posted outside, and they were cheap and interesting. I was expecting seafood, being close to the sea, and other parts of this province being famous for seafood restaurants, but in fact there were several tasty-sounding lamb and beef dishes on the menus. Then Stephen found a restaurant with a dozen or so Michelin stickers on the window, with an interesting and reasonably-priced menu posted outside. The lights were on, but when we tried the door it was locked. We looked again: dinner would be served from 8.00pm. It was now 7.40. We decided to go for a walk, and as we walked we realized that the Italian thing to do would be to have an aperitif while waiting. So we went around the blocks till we found a bar that seemed welcoming, and we both had a prosecco-and-melon drink to pass the time. We were sitting outside, but there wasn't much people-watching to do.
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| Pre-dinner drinks in Pescara |
A little after 8, we finished our drinks and headed down the street to Taverna 58, the Michelin restaurant. Looking for it in this or last years Michelin list, we couldn't find it, but even just a mention in the book was enough. We had a meal in Japan last year at a Michelin-mentioned eatery, and it was fantastic. We went in and asked if they could take us without a booking, and the man looked doubtfully at the fairly full page of reservations. "Aaaahhhhhh.... si." We were in!
The starters we ordered were: lamb with crispy-grilled cheese; and escargot with fines herbes. Both were yum. Why don't we have lamb with cheese in NZ? We're good at both, and apparently they go together very well. Then our main courses were both spaghetti with mushrooms and truffles. To be honest, I was a little disappointed here. The mushrooms were porcini, and they're a very strong, one-note flavor, and I didn't really get to taste the truffle. Also, the texture of the home-made spaghetti was not unlike some VNese noodles that I don't particularly like. That's just personal taste, but really, the main was a bit ordinary. Then dessert: Stephen had a cherry ice-cream, and I ordered a hot zabaglione. For this they brought a copper gas-burner to the table, and then a big copper bowl with the egg and marsala mixture in, and the waiter whisked it over the flame at the table. It took a couple of minutes, after which he poured the frothy yellow dessert into a glass. Throughout the meal, we had been enjoying a 16 Euro bottle of organic red wine. We realized after the first glass that we had overcommitted ourselves by ordering a whole bottle, but for an evening like this, a half-bottle didn't seem enough. We manfully drank on, and managed to finish the bottle. But for an evening like this, ordering the cheapest, or even the second-cheapest wine on the menu, seemed churlish. Before the meal, we'd been given an appetizer, that I didn't catch what it was, and after dessert we were given a choice of a cherry or some other kind of liqueur. We had one of each. And we also got hand-made chocolates. All up, the meal and wine cost 76 Euros (= 2 million dong; $88USD; $121AUD or $132NZD).
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| Cooking dessert at the table |
And that, dear reader is why I couldn't write last night. But what a great reason! I'm hardly sorry at all. We drank a lot of water before bed, and we were both awake many times through the night to drink more water (and pee it away again) and we are pretty well today, thank you for asking. So what's happening today? Well, you'll just have to wait for today to find out. Or the next time we get wi-fi. I don't know when that will be.
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| Appetiser |
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| Starter |
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| Main course, with truffles being grated |
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| Zabaglione |
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