Advertisement
Published: August 16th 2023
Edit Blog Post
We head out on a critical early morning mission. We‘d like to have at least some idea what we’re ordering at dinner tonight before it lands on the table so we’re in urgent need of some more reading glasses. We left home with five pairs, and we’re now down to one … that’s assuming we don’t count the pair that’s only got one arm. We know where another pair is; they’re not very far from our apartment, and if we wander a few metres down the alleyway we can even see them. Unfortunately seeing them and being able to touch them are, in this case, two very different things. As I think I might have mentioned earlier, they fell off Issy’s face through a grate in a gutter as she was trying to pay the taxi driver when we got here. The grate’s in the middle of a very busy pedestrian thoroughfare, and we were getting some slightly strange looks yesterday from the hordes of people having to dodge around us as we got down on our hands and knees trying to reach them through the bars. We eventually gave up on that idea and moved on instead to trying to
remove the grate. I’m sure they don’t concrete these things in back home. Anyway, they ask people here to report “suspicious behaviour”, so we eventually decided to give up and leave before the seemingly inevitable happened and the Carabinieri turned up and hauled us off to spend the rest of our lives in an Italian dungeon.
As we suspected earlier it seems we’ve landed here in the middle of the Feast of the Madonna della Madía, and if we had any doubts these have been put to rest by the earth shattering blasts of cannon fire that have been going off all day, seemingly at random times …. well we assume it was cannon fire, and if it’s not and the country’s under attack … well everyone here’s looking remarkably calm.
I wander up into the town’s massive main square Piazza Vittoriosa Emmanuel II which is awash with festive lights. They’re arranged in a series of arches that lead to a stage draped in red with a picture of the icon on it …. well I assume it’s a picture. There doesn’t seem to be anyone guarding it, which would seem just slightly lax if it was in
fact the real thing. Still, we have seen washing hanging on clothes horses out in the street with no one guarding them, so maybe that’s just the way of things here. On the other hand there was a guard keeping watch over the Santa María Amalfitana church when I was there yesterday. It looked like it had just been looted; there wasn’t a decoration anywhere to be seen. So he’d either been sent to guard nothing, which didn’t seem to make a lot of sense, or he’d been doing a really bad job.
My English cousin Barbie’s arriving here tonight to spend a few days with us and we’ve arranged to meet her for dinner in Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi near the port. It’s great to catch up with her again. And if we needed any further reminders about the feast they arrive mid-meal in the form of ear-splittingly loud fireworks. But even that’s not enough to distract us from the sinister looking presence of a fifty-something gent slumped menacingly in a large chair by the restaurant's entrance. It’s well past sunset, but not in his world; he’s wearing sunglasses, and he’s smoking a large cigar. He’s keeping a watchful
eye over proceedings, and I’m starting to get the distinct feeling that it might be in all our best interests if we didn’t forget to leave a large tip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0398s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb