Italy 2009 - Day 5

Nocelle -- a tiny village overlooking Positano

The streets of Nocelle

Amazing lunch

The entrance to our beach

The stairway to the beach -- finally, the beach

Today, we rode our scooter to Nocelle -- a tiny village on top of the mountain overlooking Positano. By now, Brian's become quite amazing on the scooter, I must add. He handles the hairpin turns, small streets, large buses, and other traffic just like an Italian. Anyhow, unlike riding a scooter on the Amalfi Coast, Nocelle is very quiet and very sweet. There were stairs everywhere, so we didn't explore as much as we normally would have liked. (Have I mentioned how unbelievably hot Italy is?) We hopped back on the scooter and headed for Montepertuso, where we had an excellent lunch -- perhaps our favorite meal of the entire trip -- at Il Ritrovo. And let's just say, we didn't eat bad. Anywhere.

After our ride back down, we headed to the beach. As a man on a boat came around the corner, we suddenly saw a little head bobbing around in the water. I kid you not, it was the head of the cutest little Jack Russell terrier -- who was clearly, half fish. I mean, that dog swam forever, and even hung out in the water with the man as he clammed (yes, the man was clamming on the rocks around our beach). Anyhow, it was time to return our beloved scooter, so we had to leave. On the hike back to the house, as we were lugging groceries for dinner, a scooter drove by and honked. It was Pepe, who rented us the scooter -- with his entire family on his own scooter. Wife and two kids, to be exact. By the way, Pepe, is Giovanni, the house's caretaker's, cousin. I guess they have 50, but still, I love Italy.

That evening we spent a quit night at home. We picked up pasta, salad and meats to grill, had some nice wine, looked a photos of the kids on our iPods because we missed them, and were thankful that we didn't have to hike up the 300 stairs that evening after dinner.