Today we deemed as shopping day. 

We started at the Sarni AutoGrill which is basically a rest stop off the highway to get gas, but as we’ve encountered previously, the Italian AutoGrills are so much more than rest stops in the US. We bought a gift for a boy in the neighborhood, sweets, taralli, and had espresso. At the AutoGrill you can get a full meal, and it’s not fast food. It’s of a high quality. 

Next, a two-hour trip to IKEA on the outskirts of Naples with a view of Mt. Vesuvius. We bought a dresser, laundry baskets, bedding and much, much more. The wardrobe doesn’t fit in the car so we’ll look into buying it online for delivery at another time. Shopping in the IKEA maze is exhausting on its own, but navigating the store in Italian, with the metric system and Sunday crowds, was a lot.

Next, we picked up D at the train station in Caserta. He had a whirlwind 24 hour trip to Florence and had a blast. He brought us back gifts from Officina Profumeria Santa Maria Novella which was very generous and thoughtful.

And finally, we went to the La Reggia Designer Outlets, a maze of stores. We’ve been to La Reggia previously and knew we’d be able to get some basics at a higher quality than IKEA, but still didn’t find everything on our list. We were all too tired to shop for clothes and prioritized a few select stores.

Back in Pico by 6:30pm, we spent the rest of the night in the town square, as there was go-kart racing through the streets. Little kids and teens in full race car driver attire, zipping around a course defined by hay bales.

We watched the races for hours,  socializing with Marinella and her family and Tiziana as she tended to the crowds coming in and out of the bar. When D joined us in the square he wore his Mkhitarian jersey from when he played for InterMilan, and that made our friends very happy. “Inter Forever!” Marinella would chant and give a thumbs down to Napoli, while Tiziana would frown, as she and her husband Mimo are huge Napoli fans. We enjoyed the company of our new friends for almost 4 hours just relaxing both outside and inside the bar and meeting new people from the town.