So I left my hotel in Amalfi at around 7 thinking I would get take-away seafood risotto and just eat it on the waterfront.
As usual, what I want and what Italy wants me to have, are two different things.
I wandered into the Piazza Duomo thinking I’d go up the back streets. On the steps of the duomo were a beautiful Italian couple just married. I couldn’t help but take a photo:
Too gorgeous for words eh? Continuing on up the back streets in search of my take-away seafood risotto got me nowhere. I almost caved and got a prawn cocktail and a bruschetta, but no, I needed take-away seafood risotto. I can be stubborn when I want to be.
I walked along the waterfront and spied some steps going down into a back alley. There was a trattoria sign so it looked promising. Yes, it opened up into a kind of small piazza with lots of restaurants. I asked one of them if it did seafood risotto. It did – ‘fisherman style’. Take-aways were not an option.
I don’t know why I always assume everything is chopped up into tiny pieces. I should have been warned by the ‘fisherman style’ description, that it was not going to be elegant eating. One day I’ll learn. Forty-five minutes later this arrived.
So much for take-away seafood risotto chopped up in small perfect pieces in a plastic container.
After de-shelling my way through this lot I figured what the heck, I’ll have desert too. And that was even better; a small, round cake with ricotta and pears. Kind of like a cheesecake but not as sweet. I didn’t take a photo because I ate it too quickly. Divine.
Then the band started playing.
Nearly two hours after arriving I left.
The moral of the story is, never go looking for a quick meal in Italy. You’ll find yourself eating things you never thought you’d eat, and having a much better time than you expected to have.
And staying in a better place than you thought as well. This the foyer of my art-deco type hotel which has each room named for one of the planets. I’m in ‘Neptune’:
And this is where you have to post what you want for breakfast:
Then it appears the next morning in front of you. Just like magic.
