We left our Anniversary celebration Villa Collalto in Tuscany by express train from Firenze to Napoli on TrenItalia. There we were picked up Enzo a driver we hired through Positano Car Service, Via Cristoforo Colombo, 2 84017 Positano (Sa) Italy www.positanocarservice.com. We made a brief stop at Luiselle Moda Positano, (www.luisellemodapositano.com), Piano di Sorrento, a fashion design house just seven kilometers from Positano on the main road between Sorrento and Positano. Karen had arranged for many of the outfits she wore at our celebration to be made for her and sent to Villa Collalto so we would not need to ship to the US and carry them back for the events. Anna Maria is the owner and primary designer who met us upon our arrival. While Karen had purchased items from them over the years this was the first time we visited the factory, having visited the Sorrento store previously or purchasing by email. Not only did Karen purchase several outfits and items, but Anna Maria also had men’s shirts and in the course of three visits on this part of our trip, I came home with several linen shirts of unique colors and patterns that I will wear for work. Enzo delivered us directly to the closest point to our Positano cliffside apartment, Casa Della ‘Uovo or House of the Egg (71 Trara Genovo), which one of our group, Robin, found in a web search for Positano Villa Rentals.
When we arrived, porters were waiting for us to carry the heavy bags (Blu Porter Positano Tel: 089.811496). What surprised us was that they roped the bags together and carried two each over their shoulders and one in front of themselves. We were unprepared for how far down from the street the apartment was and how many stairs we needed to navigate. We resolved that porters would be carrying more bags up than they did coming down. This particular apartment has four bedrooms overlooking Positano and the sea, although only three couples decided to share this part of the trip. The apartment is filled with mostly Asian antiquities and artifacts and an eclectic array of Italian language books. One I would have been tempted to start reading on this trip was James Joyce’s Ulysses. But alas, my Italian is only rudimentary and that particular work is difficult to navigate, even in your native language. The best feature of the apartment is a large patio that overlooks the main beach of Positano, looking at it from behind the main cathedral.
Clementine is the housekeeper who comes in and cleans for us every day and will cook a dinner for us on our last night in the apartment. We pay for the ingredients which she buys fresh on the local markets, but most come from Delicatessen Positano Via Del Mulini, 5-11, 12-15, Positano, (SA) www.delicatessenpositano.com tel: 089.875489 who deliver directly to the apartment. More on this later.
On our first day, we arrived around five pm, and had pre-ordered groceries to include meats and cheeses and a few bottles of wine. With what we brought with us we found we were light on the white wines, but had enough red to carry most of our stay including Clementine’s dinner. We chose to nosh on the groceries we bought and decompress from the prior week’s celebration. That proved to be a wide-ranging discussion out on the patio. We had reservations for dinner at El Capitan, which is in Hotel Montmare and discovered when we walked to it that an elevator came down to our level less than a block from the apartment. The terrace of El Capitan overlooks the water and provides a different angle to the view even though so close to where we were staying. We each tried different dishes with seafood and pasta. Mine had salmon, razor clams and pasta. Since Karen and I both love razor clams, as we have found them in Spain and Chile, I thought this would be a great dish. I was disappointed in that the razor clams were nowhere to be found. When I asked the waiter about this, I was told the razor clams are in the pasta sauce. If they were, there were few of them and they were chopped so finely that neither the taste or the presence of them were discovered in my mouth. But I was the only one of our group to be disappointed by the meal, and even I thought it was well prepared and flavorful. It just didn’t meet my expectations. We paired the meal with a Falanghina white and an Aglianico blend from the Amalfi Coast area. Both complimented our choices. When we left, the staff presented each couple with a small bottle of Lemoncello, which we took back to the apartment to consume later.
No Comments