A string walks into a bar, climbs up on a barstool and orders a beer. The bartender, a bit perplexed looks at him and says, “you’re a string. Get out of here. We don’t serve strings in here.”
Angrily, the string leaves the bar and in an effort to disguise himself twists himself up and tousles one end. He walks back into the bar, climbs up a barstool and in a different voice announces, “barkeep, I’ll have a beer.”
The bartender cocks his head and ponders for a moment, then opines, “hey, aren’t you that string I just kicked out of here?” To which the string replies, “oh, no, I’m afraid not.” Continue reading Knoticle
OK, here’s what I think. At least a few readers/followers have been thinking to themselves, “so Bill and Suzy have been having an interesting time in the Gulf of Naples. They’ve visited some fascinating islands (Capri and Ischia), eaten a bunch of great food, drank even more great wine, swam, shopped, and enjoyed themselves. But I thought they were going to Ischia to sail. What gives?”
Ischia. How many people have even heard the name? And how many have visited? Its next door neighbor Capri has captured the imagination of the international jet set. They and their wannabe hangers on jam Capri port, fill its restaurants and make the island a daytripper’s paradise. But Ischia? Poor and undiscovered (or underdiscovered) Ischia is not poor at all. It is the real deal. 
It’s always so hard to say goodbye. To let go. It is even harder when you are saying goodbye to Capri. 
After four days in Capri we arrive in Ischia, Capri’s larger but less well known neighbor. There’s plenty of ferry traffic from Capri to Ischia but we have to search a bit to find ferries going the other way. It’s worth it though. We arrive on Ischia Saturday afternoon for a return visit to the Mezzatorre hotel, the luxe hotel we discovered last year and which will be our home for the next week as we begin our week long scuola di vela sailing school on island. 
“You are people that want to learn about other cultures, that enjoy meeting people and getting to know about them and where they come from, who are curious to see more than what you can see from a tour bus.”
Islanders face hardships and deprivations, no doubt, but their forced separation from their fellow man, their isolation from the world at large is generally a source of happiness. The circle of sea that surrounds their home may deny them some creature comforts but it also frees their minds and souls from many of the distractions that plague and frustrate their mainland brethren. They are isolated (is it any coincidence that the word island in Italian is isola) from the larger world not in the sense that a prisoner in solitary confinement is isolated from the privileges of community, but more like a beneficiary of a quarantine, protected from the scourge of some hostile malady.
That sense of wellbeing, of island joy, is evident in abundance here on Capri just as it has been during our visits to the not too distant islands of Ischia and Ponza. We had visited Capri before, on separate day trips from the mainland and had never before observed this island sensibility, seeing Capri instead as a bustling, cosmopolitan, commercial place, an island version of the mainland rat race, just with better scenery. Our vision of this island has changed on this trip and changed for the better. Why?
When you see your world from the outside looking in, as you can only do when your world is circumscribed as an island is, it ceases to be so large, so complex, so threatening. Your world is manageable – there are only so many people to deal with, your choices of where to live, where to eat, what to do are not limitless but limited. And if, as it is here on Capri, you can enjoy not just the basic creature comforts of life but life’s abundance that is available on the mainland, this limitation is not a deprivation, it is a yet another gift. And perhaps that is why island life can be so enjoyable.
We began our visit to Capri in earnest yesterday with a circumnavigation of the island in barca con marinaio. Despite the clear blue skies at breakfast, there was a little reluctance to commit to the trip due to forecasts for rain (indeed the weather station was reporting that it was raining and thundering as we took our first breakfast under hazy blue skies), but our captain assured us that the weather would be fine and that the Blue Grotto, Capri’s most famous tourist site, reachable by boat and one of the objectives of our journey, was open. And so at a little before 11:00am we set sail from the marina grande in our gozzo, the traditional wide wooden boats that have been plying the waters around the island for ages. Our capitano – Davide – was genial, professional and spoke good English and our barca sparkling, stable and comfortable, with big cushions covering the ample bow area. This was definitely a barca for lounging.
so enjoying the cool, clean water, our jetlag and, more importantly, the stress of the civilized world rinsing away from our ever more relaxing bodies. Returning to the boat, we continued on past private villas perched on jagged cliffs, tiny settlements painted in pastel shades, shimmering in the reflection of the sea and past beach club after beach club.
tempest. We made a run for our final destination, the Bagni de Tiberio beach club, bypassing what had promised to be the highlight of our voyage, a visit to the Blue Grotto. But a few hours later, as we opened yet another bottle of Fiano and washed down some beautifully grilled pezzogna, we realized that when you’re on an island it doesn’t matter if you get from A to D by way of B and C. When you’re on the sea there is always tomorrow and just being is a reward in itself.
Cheese and lemons are a few of the iconic elements in the Campania lifestyle and culture and we were exposed to them in abundance yesterday. Arriving in Rome on an overnight flight we made a mad dash south to Naples with our colleagues Wendy and Corrado to catch our hydrofoil to the island of Capri. Corrado, whose speedy driving has earned him the nickname “la freccia rossa” after the high speed train that we considered taking before he offered up a lift, is known to many of you for his monthly “
Less than an hour after saying goodbye to Wendy and Corrado we arrived on the island of Capri by hydrofoil, together with a hundred or so other mainlanders seeking a sunny, carefree couple of days. On our arrival the port was mobbed with our shipmates and other holidaymakers but within twenty minutes or so a procession of open air taxis had whisked most of them away to their hotels, as was the case with us. By midafternoon Rome and our overnight flight had faded into history and Capri and our four days at the Excelsior Parco Hotel lay ahead of us. We were welcomed to the tidy charming hotel by an even tidier and more welcoming staff, found our friends Pete and Nancy and before long were sitting in the hotel’s tidy and welcoming dining room where 
the Excelsior’s concierge, Viviana was introducing us to the wines of Campania. For over three hours we sipped sparking wine, Fiano, Greco di Tufo and Falanghina whites that are an inextricable part of the Campania lifestyle, and spicy Taurasi red. Throughout Viviana provided interesting insights about the wine and food of Campania. We finished our wine tasting with the national beverage of Campania – limoncello. And then it was off to dinner. Because why not?
Despite a enveloping fog of jet lag closing in on us, we powered through dinner at the nearby Paolina restaurant, an enchanting outdoor setting under a canopy of lemon trees atmospherically lit by strings of lights, with attentive staff buzzing about filling wine glasses, chatting and joking with diners. Paolina’s is a light, carefree atmosphere, tables jammed with beautiful people eating beautiful food from beautiful dishes. It doesn’t hurt that the weather is perfect for al fresco dining and for the couple of hours that we spent there it is hard to deny the overwhelming sense that life in that little eight foot strip of
this vast universe – a zone between simple slab flooring and lemon crowned canopy – yes life itself is pretty perfect. Cheese, tomatoes, lemons and fish, complemented by goodly amounts of our good friend Fiano put a perfect cap on a perfectly lovely first day in Italy. It is good to be back.
An uneventful flight from Charlotte to Rome marks our summer 2014 return to Italy. The beginning of our summer odyssey of sun and islands, the countryside and world class jazz and finally a long overdue reunion with one of our first Italian friends who now resides, of all places, in France. Strap on your seatbelt, make sure your tray table is in its full, upright position and get ready to join us for five weeks as we dolce vita our way through the land where the term was invented.