Tutti i Santi Ognissnati

Tonight we are holed up in an Agriturismo (farm-stay) in Campofilone, Le Marche. There is a thunderstorm raging outside, stretching its vast electric fingers of far out across the Adriatic. The rain has been heavy; sporadically we have to mop the tiles by the door to stop it from creeping into the bedroom.

We’ll head out in about an hour to hopefully find some dinner. The majority of our afternoon was spent driving along the coast road searching in vain for an open Supermarket. We couldn’t figure out why they were shut. We now know enough Italian to know the days of the week, times, open/closed etc and all signs (literally) suggested they should be open. Hungry and confused, we wondered whether they just have extreme lunch breaks locally. A “normal” lunch break for Italy is midday to four-ish, the stores close up shop- most inconvenient!

As it turns out, when we returned from our fruitless hunt, today is a national public holiday. All Saints Day or Tutti i Santi Ognissnati in Italian. Why didn’t anybody tell us? Hang on, they probably did, we just didn’t know what they were rattlin’ on about. Today is also the first of the new season, making the storm very befitting.

On Saturday we left the West Coast and the region of Campania and drove north east to the East Coast and Le Marche. We started out early (painfully), to avoid the traffic and to cram in a four hour stopover in Pompeii before the five hour drive.

Pompeii was magical; it was like someone picked us up, shrunk us down and matrix-ed us into Age of Empires or Civilization. Not wanting to tackle the crowds we didn’t join a recommended tour group but chose to semi-wing it. Map and iphone in hand we had a wonderful morning adventuring through the roman ruins. Roman history, Pompeii included, falls into the category of things I don’t seem to know enough about. I am hungry for information!

The city is so well preserved by the volcanic ash that it isn’t at all difficult to imagine it in all of its glory. There are still many layers unexcavated, we even saw archaeologists on active digs at the site; one scrubbing down a clay vase in a city fountain. Fascinating.

A note to the squeamish: stop reading now.

Before leaving Atrani we ferried and walked our way to a few other destinations; Capri, Positano and Amalfi. In Positano we had a wonderful meal at a beachside seafood restaurant. One of us ordered the squid ink risotto, jet black, gloriously flavoured with Parmagiano and threaded with squid meat, it was devilishly good. Frighteningly though, it had a similar effect on ones digestive system, that eating too much beetroot at a summer BBQ might.