We woke up around 9am, and headed down to the restaurant to grab breakfast in the hotel, and we didn’t have a clue what was in store for us. We were in for a treat.
Our breakfast was a selection of pretty much any kind of pastry one could ask for. My favorite was the peach filled croissants. Christines was some kind of cream-cheese cake. We also had salami and ham with cheese, and then we found out the chef would cook up eggs for us, so I ordered two eggs, sunny-side up. Christine ordered two over-medium. The eggs we were served had to be farm fresh and straight out of a chicken. The yolks were a wonderful shade of orange, and they tasted amazing. We also had our choice of pineapple juice, blood-orange juice and coffees. I had all three!
After breakfast, we walked down to the Fionello beach… the little one on the western side of the town. It was a hell of a walk down to the beach, but well worth it.
Christine even got in and swam, and we took a few rocks to take back to Texas as momentos.
We met a couple from Romania on the beach, and took their photos for them, and they took ours. Their names were Marius and Nina. Marius was in the real estate business in Romania and Nina was a general manager for the Hard Rock chain… her last “project” was opening the Hard Rock in Bucharest… and she’s on vacation for a month before finding out where her next assignment will be. Talk about a fun sounding job!
After spending time on the small beach, we walked over to the large beach (they’re connected by a walkway and more steps) to grab lunch at one of the beachside restaurants. A little priscutto, caprese salad and some wine, and we were sated. Then it was off on a shopping tour of central Positano. We shopped in all of the shops that were open, and bought a few knick knacks and gifts for folks back home, before taking the bus up to our hotel.
To give you a feel for how far up/down the hotel was from the beach, see this next photo. Our hotel is the little white bulding at the top of all the other buildings:
Pretty far hike!
We checked with the front desk, to make sure we had reservations at La Tagliata, up in Montepertuso, and we were assured that we did… and that they opened around 6:30 or 7:00, so we went to our room, and put our stuff away.
We bought a bottle of wine, and some water, and took the 3:20 bus up to Montepertuso from our hotel, except it wasn’t the bus up to Montepertuso… that one didn’t leave until 5:20. Hmmmm. We were put out that we’d be missing the sunset from up there, which was one of our goals for our trip. We ended up doing a little more shopping in the city center, then taking the 5:20 bus up to Montepertuso. Our friends got on the bus with us, and laughed that we were sitting there. It was kind of funny, now that I think about it.
We took the 30 minute ride up the mountains, and enjoyed the views of the seaside and the rose and orange colored skies and seas. And you should have seen the look on Christine’s face as we turned corners and skirted precariously close to the ende of the road, while the oncoming traffic stopped and backed up many time to give the bus the right-of-way on the tiny road up to Montepertuso.
When we arrived at La Tagliata, we knocked on the door, which was oddly closed, which seemed out-of-place to us. We were sure we weren’t that early.
When the proprieter opened the door, she said (in Italian) that they were closed for the night. So, disappointed, we all four decided to walk down to the town of Montepertuso, to see if we could find another restaurant open (the bus only comes by once every 20-30 minutes or so, so waiting wasn’t really an option).
It was dark and the air was crisp with a slight breeze every now and then. We decided to open our bottle of wine, for the walk down the hill… which was an adventure in itself: the cork broke, my cork puller wasn’t much use, so we eventually took a branch off a tree, to poke what was left of the cork into the bottle. It worked, and we enjoyed a light almost bubbly bottle of local white wine on the walk down the hill.
About half way to Montepertuso, I realized that maybe La Tagliata wasn’t actually closed for the night… but just wasn’t open yet, and that we’d misunderstood. So we turned around, and treked back up the hill.
After getting the owner’s attention again, and asking in Italian (gotta love the trusty iPhone translator software we had) she told us “Kochina Finito!” which we all understood as “our kitchen is finished”.
So we walked all the way back to town again… and finished off the rest of the wine 😉
In Monte Perturso (which was about a 15 minute or 20 minute walk down the hill from La Tagliata) we asked a local boy where we could find a restuarant… and he pointed to the Ristorante Il Ritrovo. So we all agreed to eat there.
At dinner, our waiter’s name was “Roger”. I asked him if that was the English version of his name, and if so, how to say it in Italian… he laughed and said “I don’t know, I’m from Brazil” which we all got a chuckle out of.
Dinner was amazing. Lots of meats, tomatoes, and cheese, great wine and good company. The owner and chef came out to visit us a few times, and as we’d seen at other places, the locals started showing up for dinner around 8:00, whereas we’d eaten starting at 6:30 or so…
We took the bus back to our hotel, and went to bed.