Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Goodbye Capri, hello Roma

@brittarnhild

Time has run fast these days on Capri, and they have been filled to the brim with an exciting program. Now the last day is here and we have to say goodbye to the most amazing apartment we have been staying in, and where we hardy have had time to be. After breakfast I walk around shooting photos.

As I have already in a previous post, we are a group of 14 old friends enjoying Capri these days. Some had to leave early this morning, to move on, some will stay the day. Terje and I will catch a boat over to Napoli in a few hours. Just time enough for a cappuccino on the piazza and a visit to Capri Anfora where they have a colourful collection of ceramics decorated with lemons. Of course a souvenir had to come with me home.

Over at Napoli harbour we took a taxi to the train station, and then a train up to Roma.
Here I am, crocheting on a granny square blanket which is following me all through Italy these weeks. If you follow me on @brittarnhildskreativeverden on instagram, you'll know all about it.

We still had "most of the day" to spend when we arrived in Roma. We walked down to Il Rosary, a B&B monastery where we always stay when we are in Rome. Left our luggage there and walked out out into the eternal city.

First stop, cappuccino in one of the cafés near Pantheon.

Then over to Piazza Navona, ending up having dinner in one of the backstreets of the piazza.

 

Grotta Azzurra and the most funny image

@brittarnhild

"You can't go to Capri without visiting Grotta Azurra" We were told this again and again, and today, finally, was the day to go there. We were up early and found our way down to the harbour where we had tickets for one of these boats taking you and a tour around the island, with a stop at the cave, first thing. There we had to queue before we eventually could board a small rowing boat, just three or four people in each boat.

The entrance to the cave is just a narrow hole and we all had to lay flat down in the boat while getting in, and, well, you can see I did as I was told, flat on my back, which looks so funny on the photo of me taken by my friend from where she sat up in the big boat :-)

     

Here you can see more closely what it was like to get into the grotto.

And here we are inside.
The light on the photo is just what it looked like. No flash used.
We were told that the light actually came from the daylight and the sun outside, reflected though the small opening and the sea.

The grotto was magic, but so was the rest of the boat tour as well.

Here we are reaching the famous cliffs, Faraglioni di Capri. We sailed though the whole, and Terje and I did exactly as the captain told us, we kissed when we sailed though.

Back on the island, an ice-cream speciality, lemon flavoured, served in a lemon skin boat.

 

A whole day in flower paradise

@brittarnhild

A day of hiking the hills of Capri.
Along Via Arco Naturale.

And believe me, if you care about flowers at all, a day like this is a day in paradise, from start till end.

     

     

Some of the plants were familiar, others were unknown to me. The one more beautiful than the other.

We hiked steep stairs, we stopped for something to drink, we continued to hike. The view was spectacular. Somewhere along the way we passed Villa Malaparte, we climbed more steps. We had lunch and then continued to walk. We came to an abandoned house, almost like a castle and all 14 of us stopped, sharing a dream of buying the house and its garden, restoring it, meeting here for stays for years to come. Then we continued the hike.......

10 kilometers of steep hiking, and still we had not had enough.

There is a beautiful garden I want you to see, one of us said, and off we went.

You see, with just less than four days on Capri, we are in a hurry to see it all.

 

Capri, here we come

@brittarnhild

Up before the sun (at least that's what it felt like), walk down to the bus station, bus from Terracina to Monte San Biaggio, train from there to Napoli, taxi from the train station to the harbour, boat out to Capri, funicular steep up to Capri town, walking to the hotel, leave our suitcases, walk back to Capri town, bus up to Anna Capri, walking up to Villa San Michele.......

and finally time for lunch. Puh!
(by the way, somehow this beautiful menu fell from the table and found its was to my bag. I have absolutely no idea how that happened!)

I have read Axel Munthe´s book about Villa San Michele and was really looking forward to this visit. Which was great (except that I had to spend a long time at the toilet after lunch.......probably due to not much sleep during the night)

We are in Capri with a group of old friends, 14 all in all.
Here is a view from Villa San Michele down to the harbour.

After lunch and a walk in the garden/park, it was of course time to see the inside of the villa.
Here is Axel Munthe´s desk.


Or may be this is the desk?
I must confess, I am not sure.

Not far from Villa San Michele you can take a chair lift up on Monte Solar, the highest point on the island, 600 meters above sea level. Wow, this chair lift looks great, I thought when I sat down. Then, about halfway up, I kind of panicked. It really felt so unsafe, so high up, nothing to buckle me up.......

There is no way I can take this chair lift down again, I told Terje. But somehow I managed to gather all my courage, and here you see me, a picture shot by Terje, holding on the best I could.

Here is a photo from the top of Monte Solario

 

Just one day in Terracina

@brittarnhild

Terracina is a seaside town in Latina, south of Roma. We have friends who have an apartment there, and have been able to visit many times over the years. This time we have just one day, and so many things we wanted to do....... Well, no doubt, the first thing on our list, after breakfast, was to have coffee over at Ingrid and Angelo´s Caffe del Duomo.

Then some walking around and some shopping,

before heading down to the beach for lunch, and then a swim and som sunbathing.

Later, much later, our friends took us to a newly opened restaurant, Al Giardino.Under the lemon trees.

Our table was set inside a grotto. 

One day is not enough of course, but tomorrow we continue our Italia adventure. Terracina, we'll be back!

 

A dinner, a water taxi and then goodbye Venezia

@brittarnhild

Last night Mauro and Barbara invited us for dinner.

Mauro is a great chef, and it is always a highlight to be invited to share some of his meals. And it looks like he loves having me watching him cook, and I love watching of course.

This time the primi piatti was risotto with fresh asparagus.
Delicious

Today we've spent hours on the train. First from Venezia to Roma, then on a local train further south, ending up with our good friends in Terracina. We did have some challenges along the way though. There is a national transport strike in Italy today, which meant that there would be no boat/vaporetta from Murano to the train station. We had to book a water taxi, which is extremely expensive. 

I have had a secret dream for years tough, to travel the canals by water taxi, and today this dream came true :-)

Unfortunately the taxi took us too Santa Lucia station way too fast.......but then there was time for a cappuccino and some travel journal writing.

 

A Rose Garden like a Vivaldi concerto

@brittarnhild

The Venezia Biennale was our goal today. We decided to walk from Fondamente Nuove and bought some lunch along the way to eat in a park not far from the Biennale area. I have been to this park many times, but coming there today I realised I've never before been there exactly at this time of the year. The time of the roses.

The park, Giardini Marinaresia, is not far from the church and Ospedale della Pieta, where Vivaldi worked (and composed so much of his music). May be that's why walking around felt like walking inside Vivaldi´s Summer, from Four Season.

         

          

Vivaldi worked in the Ospedale for 30 years, and composed most of his major works while working there.The orphaned girls in the ospedale received a musical education, and the most talented among them stayed and became members of the Ospedale's renowned orchestra and choir.

The Four Seasons, Le Quattro Stagioni, was not composed while Vivaldi were at the Ospedale, but over the centuries it must have been played in the church hundreds of times, and some of the music finding its way out the church doors and over the rose park.

Can you imagine a better fertiliser?
I might start to play Vivaldi to my own roses to get a better growth.

Cappuccino, traghetto and secret gardens

@brittarnhild

In the beginning, when we started to visit Venezia, almost 20 years ago, we used to stay in an apartment in Cannaregio, a long way from  the tourist crowds. Ponte dei Tre Archi was not far from where we stayed, and I don't know how many pictures I have taken of this bridge and the surrounding houses.

Walking towards the next bridge, Ponte delle Guglie, you pass a tine little, though charmingly busy, fish market. Here you find a small café, and just as often as I have sketched the bridge, I've had cappuccino here. So we did again today. Two cappuccino, two small pastries , drinking the coffee slowly, slowly, enjoying the everyday life going on just in from of our eyes. Like watching a Fellini film on the spot.

To reach our next goal we needed to cross the canal, and the most charming way to do this is by a traghetto, a kind of big gondola, which take you from one side of the canal to the other for 2 euros. 

A traghetto is a kind of miniature ferry, rowed by two oarsmen. The boat takes up to ten passengers, and you can stand in the boat or just sit down if you find a placer to sit. The ride takes just a few minutes, but is well worth the money.

Reaching the other side of the canal, it took us just a few minutes to walk to our goal, Mauro´s studio. Good luck for us, new found Mauro there and had a long chat with him. He suggested a place where we could have lunch and then the told us about two great gardens in Venezia.

To say no to the possibility to visit a garden is no option of course, so we went to both of them.......something I will write about in my Norwegian blog.

 

The beach and the sea all by ourselves, almost

@brittarnhild

Nine years ago Terje and I visited the small island of Pellestrina, and have wanted to come back ever since. And today, finally, it happened.

To come to Pellestrina you go by vaporetta/boat to Lido, there you change to bus 11 which takes you to the island. You do have to take a very short ferry ride also, but you are still on the bus when you do.

The island is tiny and slim like a pencil, with the fishing boats and the village on one side, a lovely beach on the other.
Just like last time we strolled through the village and along the harbour, where a long line of fishing boats where resting peacefully. I guess they had all been out from the wee hours of the morning. After a while we came up to the restaurant where we had lunch last time. Most of the tables were empty. One of the waiters greeted us: "Do you have a reservation?" We looked at each other, no, we did not, but we could not see many people around the tables. "Sorry, we are full!" was the waiter´s reply.

Luckily we had passed another restaurant on our walk, where a woman was sitting outside, smiling very friendly to me. We walked back, the woman was still there and smiled even broader. We went in, and never regretted it.

A started to share, with polenta and baccala (trout).
And the my Venetian favourite, spaghetti vongole. Spiced with a little crocheting, haha (I bring my crocheting along every day, make at least one square of the granny square blanket and post pictures on my creative instagram account, @brittarnhildskreativedagbok 

After a long and delicious lunch it was time to relax, and of course the very best thing to do then was to walk the few meters over to the other side of the island, where we had miles and miles of beautiful, sandy beach all to ourselves.

 

Eating green

@brittarnhild

I have been eating green today.
First a white pizza with asparagus for lunch, then for dinner, when we sat outdoors on the fondamente along one of Murano´s canals tonight, I had tagliolini gratinati con scampi e asparagus.

It is asparagus time in Italy just now. Many villages have their own asparagus festivals and on the local restaurant menus you are almost sure to find one or more dishes with asparagus. 

The Italians are following the seasons in their kitchen. Eat what you find in nature just, now seems to be their motto. I love that, and I try, the best I can, to make it the motto of my kitchen as well. We all want to save the planet, don't we, and very often the steps we can and have to take are simple. Go out, find out what is growing around you just now, check if it is edible. Eat it!

It could be simple. Unfortunately it is not. It is so easy to go to the supermarket and buy what is at hand, what is on sale, forgetting to check where it comes from and what costs Mother Earth has to pay.

Let us make it simple, shall we?