Vacation is over, and xpcdoojk is back. hee hee

[xpcdoojk]

Here is the much anticipated "into the grotto" storyline.:D :eek: ;)

jc

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Day fifteen, we woke to heaven on earth with not a cloud in the sky and very pleasant warm temperatures. Everyone at this point in time was low on underwear and clothing and we ran about 4 loads of laundry, and hung them to dry Italian style on the roof patio with a clothesline there for that purpose. From this the highest point at the Villa we could see the 8th century monastery directly above us built in a huge cave, in fact in quiet moments in the evening we could hear the monks rattling their knives and forks while eating dinner. The charm of our villa was exceptional. Some of the ladies started discussing going to visit the monastery, but they never made it. I picked a few ripe lemons and oranges while I was up there for additions to cocktails later. We made a quick run into Maiori to get a few things and returned in time to eat a most pleasant lunch. After lunch the temperatures were really climbing and had to be about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and I stated that at 1pm I was going down to the sea for a swim and who was going to join me. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The group of 4 of us, David, Shelby, Susie and I, grabbed a few beach towels, bottles of water, cameras, and our FRS radios and headed down the hill. Mitza who had never gone with anyone all the way down, went running down ahead of us today. I think she was really happy that we were with her all day. We left Gary in the villa with a radio in case we ran into trouble he could arrange our rescue. I am a very cautious adventurer. On the way down I, also, gathered up a couple of extra fence posts that I was going to use as a floatation safety device if anyone were to need a little extra floatation. Mr. Safety never takes a holiday. We reached the bottom of the cliff and the top of the rope ladder, and we planned our course of action. We would always have at least one person at the top of the rope ladder to help anyone needing help out of the water. The rope ladder although it looked like it had been successfully used for years was still an untested commodity for us. Then I looked in to see the best spot for a safe dive entry and asked for confirmation that there were no rocks in that spot and then I followed by Shelby dove in. The water was cool, but warmer than the pool I would guess it was about 76 to 78 degrees. After just a couple of moments it was very tolerable, and we swam to the back of the cove and into the entrance to the “grotto”. Wow! The opening was about twenty-five feet wide and about 15 feet tall and about 25 feet deep. At the deepest recess there was a waterfall splashing on a rock ledge less than a foot above the mean water level. Large waves would climb over this ledge and mingle in the waterfall. The water below the ledge was about five feet deep. You could stand there until another wave would come and you would have to bob up to remain above water. The water from the waterfall, fresh water, was slightly warmer than the seawater. Making the little pool that formed on the ledge most comfortable. The opening at the top and the subsequent tunnel formed by the water is big enough for an adult to climb up through, but it looks a little slick and a fifteen to twenty foot drop on granite doesn’t sound to appealing so neither of us attempted to climb out of the hole. I am wishing I had a mask on because the water is very clear and there are a few small fish around. We finally swim out of the grotto and head back about 100 feet to the ledge with the rope ladder. Climbing the ladder is a little hard on the toes as the arch of the foot is on the rope the toes are against the cliff. A couple of rungs up I reach out to David and he lifts me up the last couple of steps onto the cliff. Mission accomplished to great joy! Shelby and I now sit on the cliff as Susie and David took a turn. Shelby took a great picture of them having a kiss under the waterfall in the grotto, very nice. We played in our little grotto wonderland until about 3:45 when the sun started to get low enough that the temperatures began to drop a little and we were out of bottled water and snacks, and most of all it was approaching cocktail time and none of us wanted to miss out on our share. We began the climb. It was not getting any easier either, and my skin was covered with microscopic salt crystals which was really chapping against the belt on my fanny belt, and wearing a shirt just wasn’t pleasant. We finally get to the pool, which has a separate toilet and showers and that is a very handy feature. I did use the toilet, but I figured the pool was a better choice than the shower. So I gave my wife a peck and dove into the pool. Whoa, that was cold! Especially, after getting really heated up walking up the side of the cliff. A couple of minutes in the pool before deciding it was not going to warm up enough to make it a satisfactory experience and out to towel off and to bring our clan together for cocktail hour. [/font][/size]

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Thank's for the latest installment. We'll be waiting here on pins and needles for the next one.[/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[xpcdoojk]

Mel is visiting my vacation thread! It is so nice to know that Mel cares about my holidays! ;) :D :D

jc

[nosnobunny]

It must make you feel all warm and fuzzy to know that you're cared about so much. :p

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

I am terrified thinking I will see a conversion van with stickers covering it saying things like get Disney out of Disney or Heck no we won't pay for JRs, or What no free ice cream!

Sometimes being noticed is scary!:D :p ;)

[mellow]

Still reading - and enjoying! Never mind the detractors, some people have no sense of adventure. And, no, I will not name names. ;)

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[quote name='xpcdoojk']Mel is visiting my vacation thread! It is so nice to know that Mel cares about my holidays! ;) :D :D

jc[/QUOTE]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Yep, being a celebrity can have it's upsides![/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[celtic selke]

What the heck are we all going to do when this is over?
When are you going on vacation again?
I don't even care where---it could probably be to the Corn Palace in SD and you could make it appealing.
And anyone that has been there knows what a challenge that would be.

cs

[abridalmaven]

Ok where is the rest, you are slacking JC! hey no more whining, get on with it!:p ;)

[FrankiRN]

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=darkorchid]What day are we on now??? Oh, day 15, I see it now.[/color][/size][/font]

[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=darkorchid]I'm leaving for my next cruise next Friday. You guys aren't going to want one of these novels out of me are ya? Cause I sure don't have the way with words that JC does :eek: .[/color][/size][/font]

[nosnobunny]

Take lots of notes Franki. There will be a quiz. :D

Jc can we expect the next chapter by lunch please? I need something to read. ;)

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

OK Beth, I don't want to keep an important bureaucrat from being bored, so without further ado is the birthday dinner for Sue.;) :D

jc

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]I forgot to mention one of the things that Susie and Kathy picked up on our errand run in the morning was a bouquet of flowers from a cute little flower shop. In Maiori most of the shopkeepers speak almost no English. So the ladies spotted the little flower shop and start talking to the woman in the shop, and they pick out a beautiful collection of flowers. They explained it was for buon compleano for an amiga (happy birthday for a friend). The lady spent 10 minutes arranging their flowers in a small vase and with a nice wrap and bow. The total charge was 6 euros. It would have cost $40 bucks at a flower shop in my town. It was lovely. Then on the drive back up the hill they translated the happy birthday song into Italian. During this drive my co-pilot Shelby was removed from duty and spent his time in the back seat with the digital video camera held out of the window to film our drive to and from the villa to town. Talk about an amazing thing to watch, when I saw it for the first time Saturday night I was amazed that we could drive on those roads the way we did. It is probably a good thing I never saw the view over the edge from the right side of the car.:D At lunch we had surprised Sue with the flowers and the Italian version of Happy Birthday. She was crying at the end of the song. Women get so emotional! [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The evening arrived and everyone put on their nicest clothes and we loaded up the cars and went to Capo d’Orso. The restaurant is basically on the other side of our cove up high on the slope. It is situated in such a way that the restaurant is built on multiple levels in a valley between the section with the road and another peak before the land falls into the sea. At night the restaurant has lights highlighting this other peak, which is covered with fir trees and other local vegetation. It is very lovely to look at. When we walked in we thought that this room was the restaurant, but I think it is only for banquets. They led us thru this beautiful dining room and out onto a deck. Down a couple of flights of stairs then into an octagonal room surrounded with glass showcasing the Amalfi coast. Spectacular. Because it is built on a cliff it reminded me of a very modern ski restaurant, as the building was cantilevered over the cliff. If the food is as good as the architecture we are going to be in for a treat. It is about 8pm and we are the only people in the restaurant. I am starting to feel badly for the business operators having to deal with us crazy Americans. It is my turn to buy the wine, so I ask for the wine list. Honestly, I have never seen a better list, and I have eaten at many Wine Spectator rated restaurants. The list was the size of Life magazine from my childhood. It was printed on very fine heavy weight glossy paper. There were about 50 pages of wine. There were the best wines from every wine region that I am familiar with. This was the first restaurant in Italy that I had seen wines offered from Napa, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Sonoma, New Zealand, and of course the expected European offerings. It was simply an amazing list. I narrowed my reading to the Amarone section, and they had some phenomenal offerings that I have never had. Of course, there is a reason why I hadn’t had them, as they cost about 300 to 500 euros. I spotted a personal favorite, although a year older than I can get here, and I ordered a couple of bottles of Speri 97. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]Pio was the sommelier, and he took the entire process of decanting to a level I had never witnessed. He had time because we were his only table. I will give a brief description of the decanting. First he got the Riedel glasses and the candle and the beautiful crystal decanter ready. Then after removing the cork and sharing it with me he explained that as with all Amarones the wine needed to breath before it would be ready to consume. He then decanted a tiny amount of the wine and coated my glass with this wine. By coating the glass, I mean he slowly rotated the glass on its side and covered the entire inside of the glass with the wine. He explained that this would help me taste the wine, as it would be after it had breathed. I tasted the Amarone, and it was wonderful. (A little tiny wine primer on Amarone. Amarone is the high end of the Valpocella wine that you get at a restaurant like the Olive Garden. The difference is the way the grapes are processed. Normally, wine is made from fresh picked and crushed grapes, and from the resulting juice. This process is different for Amarone. They let the grapes dry to raisins for a couple of months, which concentrates the sugars, and then they press the raisins. From this high sugar juice they make a very dry red wine, of exceptionally high alcohol content. With high sugar in the juice you get either sweet wine or lots of alcohol.) After my approval he repeated the process with all of our glasses and poured a small amount in each, after he had decanted the entire bottle over the flame of the candle. He didn’t put a lot in each glass because he still wanted it to breath. He then gave each of us our glass and we toasted to Sue’s birthday. I made sure that we didn’t get her crying again by not allowing any more buon compleano singing. [/font][/size]

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[size=3]I do hate the way we are limited to 10,000 characters in a post.... fyi the rest to follow.:D [/size]

[xpcdoojk]

Here is the rest of this section and the end of day 15.

jc;)

[size=3][font=Times New Roman]The waiter was a cute little guy and I have forgotten his name, but the ladies just loved him. He, obviously, had sized us up as a very promising tip, and he poured the charm on in the way that Italian men have. He didn’t offer us menus, and instead he started talking about the fruits of the sea right below the restaurant, and he said if it was ok with us he would bring us a meal based on the local catch. He then brought out a silver tray that had a live sea urchin, a large live shrimp, a live cuttlefish (similar to a squid), and a live clam that was in a tubular that looked like a certain male sexual organ (which recoiled when touched). He said that the dinner would encompass all of these items and more. Is this ok with us? We being stupid tourists, of course, say it sounds delightful! I am thinking to myself that this is going to be an expensive dinner to have this level of service and the house dream meal. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]I will shorten the story about the meal so that the story takes less than the three hours that the meal occupied. In the end it consisted of 6 courses each with a separate plate and utensils, that contained all of the items previously listed plus a lamb dish, and a fresh fish dish that was sautéed. The sea urchin was the most unusual item in the group. I couldn’t figure out how you would eat a sea urchin. It was in a risotto with the clams, and the waiter at the table added the sea urchin as a topping to each person’s individual serving of risotto. The sea urchin was split open and the tiny strips of rust colored meat with the texture of liver was placed on top. The taste was salty and very subtle. The risotto was extremely yummy, but I am very fond of risotto. The cuttlefish was, also, sautéed and then stuffed with zucchini and caramelized onions. It was my least favorite course, but it was mostly because of the texture and the look of these tubes of golden whole cuttlefish, which are a tad, too squid like looking for a weak stomach. Then they started the dessert portions, with a peach sorbet that tasted like no sorbet I have ever eaten. It was creamy and tasted like a fresh ripe peach; in fact it was the single best bowl of ice cream I have ever eaten in my whole life. It was amazing, and I am not a big peach eater. Then we had a decadent chocolate soufflé. Then we had coffee and I thought we were done, but then they brought out a cheese tray, and then before the bill a round of handmade Italian chocolates that was a selection from a light milk chocolate to the darkest dark bitter chocolate that was actually graded on the packaging in the degree of darkness. Then they brought each of the ladies a gift box that included a sampling of 9 of these chocolates. Then we received the bill. Considering the service, the extraordinary food, and the four bottles of above average cost wine the bill wasn’t too bad. It came to 900euros before tip for eight people. Considering the euro is worth about 25% more than the dollar at this time the meal came to more than $150 per person. My earlier concern that this restaurant was only going to have us for the evening was, also, wrong. By the time we left the dining room was almost completely full. Obviously, the locals eat late, because it was over three hours after we arrived and some folks had just arrived. I have left out several things that made the evening even more special, such as the fireworks that were shot from both of the towns of Amalfi and Maiori that evening, that we could see clearly from our table. These towns were about ten and five miles away and the reflections and colors on the water separating us and our considerable height above the sea level made for simply amazing moments. As silly American tourists our group adores fireworks, and when the towns would shoot their celebratory shots we each would rush outside on the verandah, and ooh and ah about them. All in all if Sue has ever had a special birthday dinner that was more perfect than this she is a very blessed woman. [/font][/size]

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[size=3][font=Times New Roman]For anyone wanting to see pictures of this amazing restaurants; I have included these links. The first tells a little story of the founder of the restaurant and the second is their personal web page. [/font][/size]

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[url="http://www.ecostieramalfitana.it/capodorso/indexing.htm"][font=Times New Roman][size=3][color=#800080]http://www.ecostieramalfitana.it/capodorso/indexing.htm[/color][/size][/font][/url]

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]Or this site[/size][/font]

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]http://capodorso.org/[/size][/font]

[mammallama]

Lovely! Thanks so much for sharing. If I never get there, at least I can go there viacriously through your wonderful renditions. [img]http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/11/11_2_100.gif[/img]

[celtic selke]

Good grief, now I am hungry. Wonder if the local deli can whip up anything like that. Sigh------
And the restaurant is fabulous.

cs

[nosnobunny]

It sounds and looks lovely. The cuttlefish wouldn't be on my favourite list either. :eek:

Beth

[xpcdoojk]

This cuttlefish was much better than the cuttlefish Shelby had in Venice, from which the ink which squids and cuttlefish both possess made Shelby's tongue completely black. It was actually very mild and if it had been cut up so that you didn't see the little cuttlefish that you had previously viewed alived it would have been better. I wouldn't probably order it as a main course, but could as an appetizer. It seemed that anytime you ordered the mixed grill or the fried fish you got shrimp and calamari throughout italy. So obviously those are the most abundant fish there.

I would encourage anyone interested in seeing this restaurant that you go to the bottom address while the writing is all in Italian the virtual tour shows 360 degree views of various places in the restaurant, including the the ala carte restaurant in which we had our amazing meal, and the wine cellar. I would kill for a copy of their wine list. I wished someone in my group would have the cajones to steal one on the way out the door!

jc

[mammallama]

What a stunning view of the sunset! Breathtaking!

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[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Gee whiz........ now that double whooper I had for lunch seems sort of cheap. Thanks alot![/color][/size][/font][/i]

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[wallie5446]

[quote name='stretch'][i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Gee whiz........ now that double whooper I had for lunch seems sort of cheap. Thanks alot![/color][/size][/font][/i]

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Ditto here ! After coming back from the fish heads & rice Chineeeeese Buffet:rolleyes:

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[quote name='wallie5446']Ditto here ! After coming back from the fish heads & rice Chineeeeese Buffet:rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
[i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Sounds real yummy!! Better than the greasy roadkill from tex/mex place downtown. Hmm, maybe tomorrow![/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[wallie5446]

[quote name='stretch'][i][font=Comic Sans MS][size=4][color=darkred]Sounds real yummy!! Better than the greasy roadkill from tex/mex place downtown. Hmm, maybe tomorrow![/color][/size][/font][/i]
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[b]Sounds like dinner time toooooo meeeeeeeee![/b]

[nosnobunny]

It makes my homemade chili look real cheap. :D

Beth

[hstrybuf]

The meal itself was quite an experience, and I was just reading about it! PB&J can't hold a candle to that!

[abridalmaven]

Hey, I just made Italian meatball soup...but ok it was not gourmet.:eek: