Bocconcini alla Panna and Vietri 11.12.06

Yesterday, after I wrote all about the week before, in spite of the rain we decided to take a drive down to Paestum and Agropoli, about an hour south of Salerno. The roads were flooded in many places but not so bad we couldn't pass. We went to visit Nigel and pick up some of the things he had that we still needed for our apartment, some more pots and pans and other odds and ends. He had been sick earlier in the week and we didn't stay long. It was too rainy and gray to visit Paestum and its Greek temples (some of the best preserved outside Greece and Sicily they say) but we located them and will go back on a clear day.

The best part of the day was that on the way home we passed many shops selling fresh buffalo mozzarella!! We were hungry and got some bread and cheese to eat in the car and the man at the cheese shop called "Crisci" gave us a taste of one of his freshly made bocconcini - the round, fresh, absolutely incredible balls of mozzarella this area is famous for and we had to buy a bag of them to take home! His bread was crispy and delicious too and I also bought a bag of fresh pasta. We expect to eat well here!!! Hopefully we will be walking and climbing enough so that we don't turn into big round balls ourselves.

This morning I woke up early and left Bob sleeping to go off for a walk on my own. I did a little painting, sat and drank a cappuccino at the bar with the view of the emerald sea and wandered around Vietri, looking in some of the ceramica shops and just trying to get my bearings. It's very sweet. I am happy here. The walk up the hill from our apartment to Centro affords spectacular views of the Bay of Salerno and we look down on a green area that seems to be part park, part vineyard, part orchard, kind of wild and overgrown but clearly someone tends this garden. We have shared buon giorno's with a man trimming the vines and there are gates along the road to houses deep in the green. A great view of Vietri appears suddenly as you round another corner and it is this that I chose to sketch this morning. I started out with a sweater and my quilted vest and gradually stripped off the outer layers as the sun was warm and the temperatures climbing.

In centro it is warm or cool depending on whether you are in the piazza with the view and the sun on you or you are walking inside the town through the streets that twist and turn and the sun only reaches later in the day. It's an interesting tangle though and I really do think we will enjoy exploring it further.

Ci vediamo presto!
Rosemary e Robert