Avoiding Limoncello, an Amalfi weekend
Mrs Stuffy (a woman for whom the phrase 'impulse shopping' implies way too much planning) was tempted by an offer from trip-advisor.com to buy us a long weekend on the Amalfi coast.
It's the start of the season, she got accommodation, flights and car hire for a very silly price and cunningly avoided any potential criticism by giving the trip to me last Yuletide as a Christmas present, she wasn't aware that I'd been there before in a past life but no worries, it is a very pretty part of the world and we both needed to relax for a few days.
The only concern we had was that so soon after her Marathon effort she might find hobbling up and down the picturesque but near vertical streets of cliffside villages a little demanding but the trip was booked and we needed a break.
Inevitably there are always a few tiny niggles that surface around any trip that Her ladyship and I take, on this occasion an email advising us of a change of transfer airport was the first intimation of "not having read the small print" syndrome, transfer airport? On a weekend trip, to Italy? (It appears that this is quite common practice for the splendid folk at Alitalia according to my amico Marco, who has a lovely, rentable trulli in Puglia and consequently spends much of his life in transit lounges throughout Il Bella Italia.)
So, we were no longer to change planes In Milan but in Rome, which delivered an interesting journey profile best summed up as:
- Get up at 4 am, chuckle at Sophie driving us to Heathrow in pyjamas, robe and slippers,
- Join the biggest queue in the world as Alitalia's IT chaps were three days into a " no I don't know why the online check-in system doesn't do anything" state of play,
- Fly to Rome 70 minutes, sit around in Rome airport for two and a half hours,
- Belatedly discover that the gate is 30 minutes panicky hobbling away (some 20 minutes before the flight is due to leave)
- Hobble and panic (respectively) for 30 minutes, then wait on a bus for an unexplained 30 minutes,
- Get on the plane, take off, attain cruising height in 10 minutes, start to descend.
- Find the rental car
- Realise that it's thirty years since I drove in Italy and that the Italian motorist's killer instinct and total lack of regard for life, limb or property is a something that atrophies without daily use.
We escaped from Napoli with our lives and headed into the hills, the drive was long, the views spectacular, the enemy (everyone else) relentless and despite our Amalfi hotel not being in Amalfi, or even very near Amalfi some 2 hours after touching down I was wrapped around a bottle of vino and had pretty much stopped shaking.
We dined in the hotel, la Conca Azzura which is a very pleasant building invisible from the serpentine road, situated about halfway twixt Positano and Amalfi beneath a ceramic showroom and gelato shop which (we discovered next morning, after a delightful sun-kissed terrazzo breakfast) was a regular st
op for busloads of elderly Germans and English on tour buses, offering free toilet facilities in return for 30 minutes browsing the knick-knacks and Limoncello. There's a lot of fun to be glean
ed from watching two waiters trying to marshal 6 huge buses into parking spaces suitable for about 5 fiat 500s on the edge of a cliffside road where every other driver believes himself to be Fangio reincarnate. Still traumatised by spending day-one of our break effectively in transit, I opted not to spend the whole day trying to park the hire car and we hopped on a bus and clung to it, white-knuckled all the way to Sorrento.
Mostly when she and I do touristing we're much happier just ambling around with a very vague sense of objective, enjoying the sights, scoffing at all the other tourists doing exactly the same thing and generating endless riffs on the "that looks nice" - "no it isn't, don't buy it!" scenario. We had a kind of plan that involved avoiding the Limoncello stores and taking the ferry to Capri but through some masterful backstreet navigation ended up in the wrong port so, bowing to serendipity, we settled down for an enjoyable lunch and a glass or two before heading back up the cobbled lanes and onto the bus for Positano. Yet another picturesque town, apparently just flung onto the cliffs, I'd l
ove to sit in on a town planning meeting where every decision must consider all three dimensions and the fact that pretty much everyone has a sea view.
A lazy afternoon of browsing Limoncello, clothes and shoe shops, a glass of beer or several, some stunning ice cream, a glass of wine, some coffee, and a lot of very fine art galleries with some lovely, and v.expensive, paintings and some really arresting sculpture, it's rare for me to wish I was very rich but a good gallery does sometimes bring on the "ooh, I wish I could just buy that" moment. So, enough art-driven frustration and back to the beachfront restaurants, just great for people watching and with each glass I could gradually feel the stress levels of the preceding months subsiding just a little.
We caught the last bus back to the hotel and, there's something very restful about sleeping by the sea, off to a dreamworld of bikinis, bold brush strokes, bronzes and wild strawberry ice cream.
Sunday was more of the same but this time in Amalfi, heaving with reverential residents and irreverent visitors, an imposing cathedral and a enormous choice of places to buy Limoncello. The bustling square, a series of espressos, yet another terrific pizza and a delightful day of avoiding any sense of urgency and enjoying the chilling and each other.
Those of you who've (unlike us), made it to Capri may have enjoyed the tours of the blue cave, imagine our delight on discovering, not 20 yards from our hotel entrance a lift, dropping 50 metres to sea level and the world famous "Grotta Di Smerelda" (emerald grotto).
Here's how it works, there's a sea cave, discovered by a fisherman
many years ago and the light coming into the cave from outside, through the water, makes the water a very pretty shade of green, and you pay 5 euros and get into a small boat, which takes you on a tour of the cave, an area nearly the size of a tennis court, while the grizzled Charon in the stern points out various bits of rock that look nothing like anything, until you're happy to tip him another 5 euros just to get away.
So that was nice...
Our last evening we decided to eat in the hotel and I ordered my dinner in keeping with my ongoing campaign to keep trying things I think I don't like in the hope that my taste buds may have matured (or degraded) to the point where I can enjoy them.
So, the chef's fish special, I was a little discomfited to find four lumps of piscine produce, a slab of swordfish, edible but bland, pretty much an entire squid, too intimidating and too much like trying to ingest a malevolent shoe, a thing made entirely of fishbones and a sea bream that had seen better days. I've had more delightful meals, but it was nice to watch Mrs Stuffy enjoying my discomfiture.
Returning to the UK on the Monday was less painful than our journey out, I'd got my head around the Italian approach to driving and managed to overtake many vehicles on the route to Naples, one or two I could actually see that it was safe to do so.
Our flight was timely and our transfer (at Milan this time) made at a run. Back to Heathrow and to business as usual, but a pleasant break, a bit of winding down, and some nice memories of a beautiful place, spoiled, inevitably, as always, by people like us, tourists.
Ciao
Movie reviews, Two (too many?) for the price of none, Source Code and Hanna
It's been pointed out by one of the blogerati (thanks to a super-injunction I'm not allowed to tell you it was Isabel, click here for her views on food, life, Singapore, and food) that I've become a little over-reliant on film reviews to fill these pages and I have to admit there's more than a trace of truth in that pithy observation.
To be honest I've been a bit busy business-wise and a weekly trip with my lovely lady to cinema-ville is one of the few breaks I've been enjoying, but, the point is well made and duly noted.
Her Ladyship and I were in sunny Italy last week and I'll jot down some thoughts on that trip this weekend. Here's a question, why do we jot things down but write things up?
In the meantime may I offer a couple of write-ups of a couple of excellent films?
I may? oh thank you...
Source Code - It's Groundhog Day, with explosions
If there's one thing , recently, that convinces me of the splendid diversity of the human race it's the expressions of my beloved wife and our three chums after a showing of Duncan Jones time-traveling thriller Source Code, without exception they were wearing "what was that all about?" faces whereas I was delighted to explore the possibilities, ramifications, consequences and unresolved anomalies inherent in this thoughtful "Groundhog day on steroids" movie.
Unlike my lo
vely but linear companions I do like a movie that makes one think, that builds without long-winded explanatory dialogue, that demands the effort to work out what's happening. It's this aspect of building the story in my own mind which, I think, made me much more appreciative of this "solve the mystery in eight minutes, failed? try again!" tale than I was of Inception which despite some stunning cgi and action relied overmuch on the actors telling the audience what was going to happen, a good technique for a presentation, less involving for entertainment.
I like to be challenged and within Source Code I found myself repeatedly surprised that the sensible and logical assumptions I'd made were sensibly and logically overturned. There were some serious flaws in the story, if any of my readers can explain the original rationale for the bomb on the train (apart from the need to provide the core of the film) I'd genuinely appreciate it. The acting was effective, mature and believable, Jake Gyllenhall was a fine leading man and I'm going public with a 'bit of thing' for Vera Farmiga who was (to my mind) very sexy in "Up in the air" and doesn't become less so in a tight USAF uniform.
A haiku in eight minutes
Solve the mystery
Win the girl, save the people
You've only got eight min...
And here are some trenchant (hopefully) thoughts on Hanna
Diligent readers may recall my lack of enthusiasm for the relatively recently released Salt which attempted to "do a Bourne" with the lovely Angelina but failed. There are some similarities in this tale of a young girl, raised in the wilderness ( a real wilderness, not Slough) by Eric Bana and not meeting any other human being until unleashed to exact vengeance upon, inevitably, the CIA woman who killed her mum and monkeyed around with her DNA.
The film opens beautifully with a stunning Arctic scene and the filming and locations are superb throughout, transitions between scenes are through sunsets, the filming of the open spaces is excellent but the more intimate scenes are absolutely a feast for the eyes and ears, I was delighted with the Spanish fireside flamenco scene, a real joy.
This is a rare thing, a genuine thriller, one that thrills through the excellence of the story and the acting, it's powerful and involving and kept myself and Mrs Stuffy awake and intrigued throughout. There's a theme running through around Grimms fairy-tales and those of you who are "spotters of references" (yes I mean you Isabel and Mark) will delight in the number a
nd subtlety of the fairytales links and many references to (or thefts from) other films from Fifth Element, through Wizard of Oz to Gladiator.
So, the writing is great, the direction is clever, the cinematography stunning, what of the casting? Erik Bana is under-utilised but effective, Cate Blanchet and Tom Hollander make good baddies and the unfortunate English family with whom Hanna falls in play it very well but this, make no mistake is Siorse Ronan's film, she makes the vulnerability of the invulnerable huntress believable and sympathetic and for one so young and with such unusual looks will, I'm sure be very busy for some time to come.
If you're looking for a damn fine thriller, look no further.
A haiku for Hanna...
White snow, wild white hair, .
We willingly will the wild one
"whack the wicked witch"
She Ran, He Ran, They Ran ... a marathon effort from team Twelve Oaks
My lovely wife,(following the tragic helicopter accident which took her brother Ian from us) wanted to do something to thank the brave folk who make up the Mourne Mountain rescue team, they were first on the scene of the accident and are as courageous and caring a group of unpaid volunteers who regularly risk life and limb as one could ever hope to meet. Accordingly she decided to run the Belfast marathon to raise money for this great cause and pay a personal tribute to her much loved brother.
She was joined in this effort by Ian's widow Thandi and our chums Winston and Anna. Our dashing darling daughters, Sophie and ChaCha, along with Rhett, Daisy and Tatjana all signed up for a 3k fun run at the same time.
The commitment made, Mrs Stuffy spent some three months of training with Julian Goater, the ladies did the Reading half-marathon to warm up, Thandi put together a Justgiving site and many, many people including some of the loyal readership of this blog contributed generously to the more than £26k raised so far.
Those of you familiar with my own athletic prowess will not be at all surprised that I felt unable to compete but in fairness we can't all be heroes and some of us are genetically designed to be rubbish at running. It's a while since Mrs Stuffy and I went for a run together but she's never really got over the shock of seeing her soulmate on his knees crying like a breathless babe after 300 metres of moderate effort.
So, the clan decamped to Belfast last weekend and enjoyed the hospitality of the Fitzwilliam hotel, it's been some 30 years since I was there and this modern and slightly trendy hotel was a far cry from the bullet-scarred Travel Lodge lookalike which was my home from home last time I ventured to the province.
Our dining experience on the night of our arrival was less than sparkling as we decided to visit a local eatery Bourbon and found ourselves split into two groups, variously, ignored, avoided, delayed and deceived and eventually fed around 10:30 some two and a half hours after our arrival. The front of house staff were distraught,well meaning and pretty much taking punches for the inability of the kitchen to do its job properly. The dining and hospitality experience throughout our stay in Northern Ireland is best summed up in a conversation her ladyship and I had around the apparent inability of the hotel waiters to cope with two tables both needing something at the same time, she observed that the staff were "very nice, very good" she was half right. Without exception, the people we met were really very nice, absolutely lovely and well meaning, however not good, poorly trained and badly managed seemed to be the norm.
The Team 
Race day dawned and a substantial but nervous breakfast for the assorted athletes, liberal intakes of ibuprofen, immodium, and porage promised an exciting time for all. Off to City Hall, (a stunning building by the way) and the massed start. Having bellowed the fantastic four off the start and then got the fun runners away it was hot-foot to the 6 mile mark to watch our gallant team crossing the river with a scant 20 miles to go.
Thandi was the first to appear, looking very comfortable and relaxed followed a little later by Anna and my lovely wife, looking for all the world as cool, calm and collected as they do on their weekly trots around Virginia Water. Winston, nursing some fairly significant injuries had set our expectation that he'd probably do no more than 6 or 7 miles but he certainly looked as if he had another mile or two in him as he passed us.
We were rejoined by the fun runners who'd trailed behind Rhett over the finish line after 35 minutes of effort and, according to plan we severally set off for the finish line, intending to be there to meet our heroes as they staggered in after (at best, we estimated) four and a half hours of sheer pluck and determination.
Well, Thandi spoilt that by hitting the finish line after an astonishing run of only 4:11 getting there some ten minutes before any of us were there to greet her. When the lithe, limber and lissome Mrs S loped across the line at 5:12 we'd all turned up and were thus able to give her the massive roar of applause she so richly deserved as she completed her first (and hopefully) last marathon.
I've never felt more proud of my wife as she completed the bravest, and possibly most foolish thing I've seen her do since she agreed to spend the rest of her life with me. Mrs Stuffy was a few minutes ahead of Anna who despite some recent injury niggles delivered a very credible performance and was followed (after a respectful pause) over the line by Winston, demonstrating that within the chest of the top class chef beats the heart of a man too flipping stubborn to give up.
I'm very proud, very proud of the five fun-runners and extraordinarily proud of her ladyship, Thandi, Anna and Win, all of them delivered an awesome performance for a great cause and a fitting tribute to a bright, bold and very special man. This is the last time I'll mention it but it's not too late to make a difference, put a couple of quid in memory of Ian on the just giving page - Click Here
Thank you.
op for busloads of elderly Germans and English on tour buses, offering free toilet facilities in return for 30 minutes browsing the knick-knacks and Limoncello. There's a lot of fun to be glean
ed from watching two waiters trying to marshal 6 huge buses into parking spaces suitable for about 5 fiat 500s on the edge of a cliffside road where every other driver believes himself to be Fangio reincarnate. Still traumatised by spending day-one of our break effectively in transit, I opted not to spend the whole day trying to park the hire car and we hopped on a bus and clung to it, white-knuckled all the way to Sorrento.
ove to sit in on a town planning meeting where every decision must consider all three dimensions and the fact that pretty much everyone has a sea view.
many years ago and the light coming into the cave from outside, through the water, makes the water a very pretty shade of green, and you pay 5 euros and get into a small boat, which takes you on a tour of the cave, an area nearly the size of a tennis court, while the grizzled Charon in the stern points out various bits of rock that look nothing like anything, until you're happy to tip him another 5 euros just to get away.
