This morning we finished laundry at the apartment and got ready for our second leg of the trip: the small town of Minori on the Amalfi coast. We chose Minori since it has beach versus rocks (better for the kids,) it’s not as vertical (better for the Grandparents,) and not a tourist destination (better for Paul and I!)

We walked with our luggage to a taxi stand to get to the Rome train station. Caught our train with 5 minutes to spare and relaxed for the 2 hour air conditioned ride to Salerno which passed Mt. Vesuvius. Big D was excited about his first train ride and seeing a real volcano. Spoke with Grandpa Eddie briefly from the train to wish him a happy birthday, but the tunnels prevented us from talking for too long. Paul had previously arranged a driver to bring the six of us and our luggage to Minori, so we followed the Amalfi coast drive past Vietri Sul Mare, Cetara, and Maiori, winding, winding, winding. Our driver Tony was from Minori but spoke excellent english. Turns out his brother owns several restaurants in the MGM Grand and in Washington D.C and he visits the US yearly. Tony doesn’t like the hectic pace of life in the U.S. and has stayed close to home unlike his enterprising sibling.

After a stroll around downtown Minori (approx 2 blocks) and a visit to the local basilica which was huge and beautiful, we had a quick gelato break and then threw on our bathing suits for a dip in the Mediterranean. So warm, and the kids had a blast. The pebbly beach didn’t phase them at all.

Food report: Dinner tonight was at il Giardiniello, a popular restaurant in Minori. We started with a seafood salad of octopus, calamari, baby shrimp, mussels, and clams, plus an order of insalate caprese, and an order of stuffed anchovies (fresh anchovies that were breaded and stuffed with mozzarella….so light, not fishy or salty at all when you avoid the canning process and eat fresh.) For entrees, Paul and I enjoyed baked dunderi, a dumpling style pasta unique to Minori that Paul and I had seen on an episode of David Rocco’s Amalfi Getaway,) Miss M had pizza margarita, Grandma had a white fish that tasted fishy, Papa ordered some type of red meat with cheese on it, and D had ravioli stuffed with smoked mozzarella and topped with a light sauce of roasted tomatoes. He didn’t go for the ravioli and instead had 3 dinner rolls and 3 pieces of bruschetta. Oh well. In addition to the delicious Marissa Cuomo wine Paul had selected (Belmont readers: the Vintages owners have brought in this particular wine maker to the store recently), we enjoyed some limoncello and an orange and anise beverage made in Cetera.

After dinner we strolled over to Sal De Riso bar and pastry shop which is known throughout the Amalfi coast for its confections. I was anxious to try the pear and ricotta torte which is a signature dish (naively didn’t expect rum in it but it was soooo soooo good), Paul and Grandma had a bacio al limone, a kind of lemon cake, and the kids enjoyed more gelato.

Side story:
Besides the three families we saw on the flight from Boston, we continue to see people we know Italy.
In Rome, we also saw a former teacher from Mt. Pleasant High School (Grandma co-worker) who is also someone Papa played basketball with. He was finishing up a mufti-week vacation with his family, and we ran into him strolling with his daughter in the Campo dei Fiori.
And, tonight we got together with a colleague of Grandmas (assistant to the principal at the middle school) whose daughter is getting married in Amalfi on Saturday. She was meeting her extended family for dinner at the same restaurant in Minori, so we had arranged to meet up with her late in the evening. Our table ended up being seated right next to their party of 16 so we scratched the late night plans and relaxed at the restaurant chatting with the group, which included four boys all under the age of eight. One in particular was quite smitten with Miss M who wanted nothing to do with him, and the other boys were really into the iPhone games that we were using to keep D occupied.