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Published: October 24th 2013
A note to my loyal blog readers: This is my last entry--yay! About time, since we've been home for 2 weeks! I just want to tell you all that your encouragement and positive comments spurred me to carry on while on the trip, fighting with bad internet connections and too little free time in which to blog. Once home, I felt committed to finished up my take on our adventures for my own record/memories. I appreciate those of you who have continued to follow along, clicking through my ever increasing text and number of photo uploads! ;-) Cheers to La Bell'Italia--hope you all have your own adventures there someday that you'll share with me...
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It's hard to believe today was our last full day in Italy--and full doesn't begin to describe it! We rose at the crack of dawn for our pick up by van and driver at 7:30 AM, and the ever-accomodating Luigi our preparing an early breakfast for us so we could be ready by our pick-up time. Our driver arrived, and after a quick goodbye and thanks to Luigi, we were off to Salerno, a city back on the "mainland" and just south of the
Sorrentine peninsula. There we met up with SLO friends, Susan and Bud Dressler, who had come to Italy for a wedding in Ravello a few days earlier, but were now staying at a B & B in Salerno, before moving on to Rome and Sienna. We had made arrangements before leaving the US to meet up and spend a day visiting a buffalo mozzarella farm and the archaeological site, Paestum, both just south of Salerno. This had all been arranged by the owner of their B & B, whose father had been sent to collect us in Praiano and be our driver for the day. Since Pasquale didn't speak English, we were also joined by another employee of the B & B, a young Japanese woman named Kar-rou (phonetically, anyway), who spoke both English and Italian. Kar-rou is a self-confessed Italophile, and after visiting the country many times, she moved to Italy 4 years ago from Kobe, Japan. She was delightful and knowledgeable about the area, given that she also occasionally works locally as a tour guide/translator for Japanese tour groups.
Once we transferred our luggage from the minivan to the Dressler's room at the B & B, we
all climbed aboard and headed for the Vannulo Mozzarella Farm. The Vannulo farm was founded in 1988 (though the owner's grandfather had been raising buffalo here since the early 1900's) and in 1996 changed to fully organic methods, staking their claim as "the only organic buffalo farm in Italy". Now they have 300 adult buffaloes (this is the water buffalo, not North American buffalo), only three of which are male! Our tour guide took us into the huge, state of the art "barn", complete with second floor viewing walkway, where we soon headed. The process of feeding and milking the buffaloes is almost completely automatic, with only one human on duty at any given time. The cows are allowed to eat as much as they like in a feeding area, then when they feel like it they mosey on over to a gate, which reads the microchip in their necks, records data, and automatically opens. Next they enter the "spa" area--yep that's what I said... The theory is relaxed cows make better milk. There are mud beds on which they can hang out and automatic massagers that the cows can manipulate to rub where they choose. Every 7 hours they
are milked, which requires entry through another gate into an automatic milking device, after which they are funneled back into the eating area. The cow chooses to enter the milking area whenever she'd like, but if 7 hours hasn't passed, the gate reads the microchip and remains closed while another gate opens, guiding her back to the spa area until enough time has passed. Apparently, the animals are quite intelligent and have learned how to manipulate the system, occasionally requiring intervention by the human on duty.
After being entertained by this process for a while, we next headed over to the caseifico, or cheese making facility, where we watched a team of 4 guys making the mozzarella from the previous day's milk, completely by hand. They stop at noon each day, and make only enough for sale at the onsite store. Next up, tasting the finished product--yum! Then we were brought to the leather workshop where beautiful goods made of buffalo hide, handmade on the premises are displayed and sold. Our guide was quick to tell us that the hides from which they make their products are obtained from Tuscany, not from their own herd. (Whew!) Susan took a
shine to a cool travel purse that unfolds to a satchel/tote, and Bud bought a belt. While they were making their purchases, the rest of us retired to the yogheteria, where we indulged in a snack of buffalo milk gelato--excellent!
Onward to Paestum. Why did I have the erroneous impression that this site was merely a ruined temple or two? Clearly I hadn't done my homework, since it is actually an entire city, sort of a mini-Pompeii, with 3 temples still standing. Human habitation in the area dates back to the neolithic, but the ruins are those of a city established by Greeks in 7th C. BC, then taken over by the Romans 500 years later. The three dramatic temples on the site are of Greek origin, but were repurposed by the Romans for the worship of their pantheon. We spent several hours here, both in the museum and amongst the ruins, but were treated once again to a confusing audio guide and map system. The signage at the site left a lot to be desired, and although the museum was modern, with state of the art interactive displays, we were dismayed to find many of them not in
working order and light bulbs out everywhere. This just added to the confusion generated by the lack of any notation on the exhibit cases relating them to the audio guide. Or perhaps we were just "toured out", by this point, and couldn't absorb any more new information... Anyway, we may not have known exactly what we were looking at all the time, but the ruins were impressive and the temples so spectacular, almost like a quick trip to Greece!
After a quick lunch with our delightful and diverse group, we headed back to Salerno. We collected our luggage, said our goodbyes, then Pasquale dropped us off at the train station so we could catch our train to the Rome airport, where we'd be spending the night. We bought our tickets, located the correct track with over an hour to spare, then realized our train was already on the track and ready for boarding. This was a high speed train, with an interior like a spacious plane. We opted to wait out our departure inside the train in relative comfort, since we had the train to ourselves for most of that time. Finally we were off, and after taking on
The Milking Machine
...with computer screen readout of statistics of cow currently in machinemany more passengers in Naples, zipped through the Italian countryside, sometimes at speeds of 240 km/hour!
A mere two hours later, we exited in the Rome/Fiumicino airport and called our B & B for a pick up. After a bit of difficulty reaching the pick-up spot, we were cheered to see friendly Armando with a big enough vehicle for all our luggage--yay! Since he didn't speak too much English, he was delighted to find that we could follow him, more or less, if he spoke to us in Italian. He gave us a bit of travelogue about Fiumicino on the short ride to the Albis B & B, then he and his sweet wife, Roberta got us settled in our rooms in the little unit next to their house. Although it was late (well, not by Italian standards), we were looking forward to one last dinner in Italy. Armando recommended La Dolce Vita, a trattoria patronized mostly by locals, that was a short walk away. There we had a fixed price feast--3 large appetizers to share, followed by a plate of mixed fried fish, shellfish and vegetables, then the largest servings of pasta we'd had on the
trip--and that's saying a lot! We finally rolled out of there and back to the B & B. Then after some luggage repacking and manipulation to meet the airline's weight limit, had one last shot of limoncello to toast our great trip and headed for bed.
In the morning, Armando and Roberta prepared a huge breakfast feast for us before taking us to the airport, including Roberta's homemade tiramisu, which was the best I've ever tasted--seriously! Roberta even brought out some wrapped sandwiches for us to take with us on the plane, since as she said emphatically, "il cibo nell'aeroplano non e buono!" They were so kind, we wished we'd had more time to spend under their roof.
But this was typical of the hospitality we'd found almost everywhere on this trip, and we ended our trip reflecting very positively on the people, sights and culture of Southern Italy and on the diverse and enjoyable experiences we'd had the past 2 1/2 weeks. And best of all for me, it was great sharing it all with two very special people in my life. We had lots of laughs--and even better, we all are still speaking to each
other!
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