Unlikely Words

Europe, I’ve noticed, doesn’t quite get the idea of a shower. Oh, sure, they come close. They’ll put, for instance, a detachable shower head on a post in the tub. What they haven’t figured out yet (and maybe this is actually more complicated than I think) is the idea of some kind of water-containment apparatus to prevent the soaking of the entire bathroom when showering. The shower curtain, I think, is an invention that really ought to make the move east across the Atlantic.

After waking up and taking two very messy showers, Rachel and I headed upstairs to check out the free “continental” breakfast. We wandered out to the terrace where people seemed to be eating and were eventually seated at a table for four, where we were shortly joined by a very nice couple from Fresno. They were spending a month in Italy and had apparently rented a car and just driven down the coast yesterday, looking for a place to stay. They found this place after being handed a phonebook in a local bar. These people are much braver than we.

Breakfast consisted of bread, coffee, croissants, bread, orange juice, rolls, and bread.

After carbo-loading, we spent a few minutes in our room enjoying something we hadn’t had the chance to do since we left the US: sitting quietly in air conditioning. Then we changed and walked down to the pool.

The hotel, as I think I mentioned, is built into the cliffs overlooking the Bay of Salerno, between Amalfi and Positano. The lobby and terrace level is actually the fourth floor, and we were on the first floor, which meant that we were the closest to the pool, which was built on, essentially, a shelf many tens of meters below the hotel. There was a lift from the hotel down to the level of the pool, but we decided to take the more scenic steps. There were a lot of them.

The pool itself is gorgeous. It’s a salt-water pool, which makes floating a piece of cake. The deck itself also overlooks the bay; it’s clean and spacious, the lounge chairs are reasonably comfortable, and the pool staff is gracious and helpful. The attendants walk around dignified and straight-backed in their swimsuits and “Hotel Belvedere” t-shirts, handing out towels, carrying drinks and lunch, and clearing away trays. It’s a sinfully relaxing experience.

We decided to go for the full experience and ordered lunch poolside. (The food is prepared upstairs in the hotel restaurant and lowered down to the pool in, I kid you not, a basket on a pulley.) The attendant took my order and taught me how to say our room number in Italian, and then we had this conversation:

“You are American? Or English?”
“American.”
“From New York?”
“No, from… well, from near Boston.”
“Good!”
(Maybe he hates the Yankees too?)

Rachel and I split a prosciutto e mozzarella sandwich and an insalata caprese. It was spectacular.

The rest of the guests at the pool were mostly older, and mostly British. We became “hi” friends with several very nice retired English couples. One gentleman called the entire pool over to the railing in the afternoon to point out a school of dolphins frolicking about 200m offshore.

After soaking up as much sun and salt-water as seemed prudent, we went back upstairs to our room to rinse off. I got to relax and enjoy one of my favorite sensations in the world: getting out of a hot shower on a hot summer day after an afternoon at the pool and drying off in a clean, air-conditioned hotel room. Nothing could be finer. Rachel sat out on our room’s terrace and knit.

At about 7:00 we went upstairs to have a drink at the bar. We asked the bartender (our new best friend) to recommend something delicious and Italian for us to try, and he brought us two Negronis, which were, in fact, both delicious and Italian.

Then we went in for dinner. (The maitre d’ at the hotel restaurant, by the way, was amazing. I watched him charmingly explain the day’s menu in at least three different languages.) The restaurant serves a prix fixe menu from which one can choose a first course and a second. Rachel ordered pasta with tomatoes, clams, and garlic and gold sea breem in white wine sauce. I had a misto mare (mixed seafood: clams, mussels, octopus) and a beef steak with mozzarella cheese. All were fabulous. For dessert, Rachel had gelato and I ate an apple tart. We also drank most of a bottle of wine; ingeniously, they saved the third of a bottle we didn’t drink for us to finish at dinner tomorrow. Brilliant!

After dinner we each had a glass of limoncello at the bar. Limoncello is apparently the local specialty, so we’d been looking forward to trying it. I didn’t love it; I’m sorry, but it tasted exactly like a lemon lollipop. We sat and watched a few minutes of the Italy vs Ukraine World Cup football game, but felt we should give up our seats to some actual Italians who wanted to watch. I was actually pretty fascinated by the halftime commercials. Apparently, Italy is just now getting episodes of “Commander In Chief,” except here they call it “La Donna alla Casa Biancha.”

Tomorrow, if we’re really brave, we might actually leave the grounds of the hotel.