Their Big Fat Italian Wedding or how the locals get married on the Amalfi Coast

As the bride in her long cream dress and the  attired groom  in his spanking new suit walked back down the aisle, ladies held platefuls of flower petals mingling mimosa, bougainvillea, roses and orange blossom with the rice and young men hid handfuls of sugar coated almonds in tight fists and coat pockets waiting to be hurled at the newly wed couple. The trepidation of the newly married was tangible and as they reached the door they raised their arms to protect themselves from the energetic launch of confetti candy. A traditional prerogative of Italian guests, it was a ritual which signaled the beginning of the Festa part of the wedding party  and boy do Italians know how to throw a wedding.
It was a winter wedding. The only free time that Positano locals have to get married and take a honeymoon in. Strictly out of season, Positanesi  leave the brighter months to admiring the board walk foreign brides found around every corner of town in the Amalfi Coast and instead take their wedding custom  further afield to the neighboring town of Praiano or St.Agata in Sorrento.
Definitely better value for money, Il Tramonto D’Oro Hotel  in Vettica di Praiano features heavily in the local’s choice for wedding venues. The name meaning Golden Sunset promises magical red skies all through late September to November and in February on a certain day, the sun sets right in the hole visible of the Capri Faraglione (Capri rock formations in the sea). And then, if there’s one thing Italians won’t do, that’s compromise on the taste buds, so when excellent food is thrown together with a magnificent view all the way to Capri for much less than what you would pay for a similar reception in Positano, you sure have the winning combination.
But don’t expect to be in and out in a few hours.  Food abounds at these weddings. For Italians, hospitality means mounds of food. Not counting the aperitifs and wedding cake at the reception I went to, there were 14 courses with seconds for whoever wanted it.
A sea themed wedding, my friend’s wedding featured dishes with whimsical names like ‘Abbraccio di Gamberone con speck’ (King prawns embraced in Italian bacon) Ventaglio di Frutta di Mare gratinati ( a fan of Seafood  toasted in breadcrumbs) or Cuore di Pasta fresca con ricotta e spinaci which really was heart shaped pasta ravioli filled with ricotta cheese and spinaci. Romantic names for truely great food.
Loud music, singing (not only on the part of the band) and dancing naturally help digest between delicious morsels as did the frequent visits to the spectacular terrace views for some sea air, glass of wine in hand.


The groom kept returning to the main table handing his father wedding gifts in envelopes that his guest would press upon him on their rounds of the tables. His father evidently hadn’t thought this part out and his pockets were soon stuffed full. The bride and groom even spent a good ten minutes with a bundle of ‘Scratch and win’ lottery tickets that a friend had given them as his quota of gift.

The hours flew by and eventually the reception which had started at 1pm drew into nightfall and the fireworks lit next to the hotel in Piazza San Gennaro signaled the drawing to a close of the reception.
Going back into the reception room after having had our dessert, well, actually three desserts, a waft of garlic hit my nostrils. The traditional ‘pasta aglio e olio’ was being served to finish the meal. After literally having eaten all day, I skipped this dish but the men all happily tucked in. The light sponge and Italian cream wedding cake followed and the wedding guests began to leave. It was 9pm. Which made an eight hour meal!

Brides from the Amalfi coast do all the arrangements themselves looking after details, wedding favours and decorations but many foreign brides booking far ahead manage to organize the events too without too many problems.
My recommendations are (they do a great job with less expenses):
Tramonto D’Oro for receptions. They also have a pool on the top terrace for summer events with buffet style catering.
Art, Color Fashion for hairdressers,
Aldo for flowers,
Bar Internazionale for the cake.
There are also a few blogs around from Amalfi Coast brides where you can get tips in or try sites like Trip advisor for discussions centering around weddings.
http://www.weddingblog.ie/category/real-bride-blogs/

http://amalficoastweddingabridesdiary.blogspot.com/

or see
Italofile for Susan Van Allen’s tips on Italian weddings.


What about you?  Have any of you married or had your honeymoon on the Coast?
If you have, share your experience and leave your tips on the good and bad services encountered in this post’s comments for future brides!

Contest Winners…

CONGRATULATIONS to the random generated number winners…

 

   (drum roll…) 

Bea

who won  Susan Van Allen’s ‘100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go’ book.

Please email me so that I can get your address! I’m sure that you’ll love it.

The runners up were:

Leanne in Italy who wins Travelers' Tales Italy- True Stories of Life on the Road  

Leanne incidentally, from Australia to Italy Blog just offered me an award -my ten favourite things on the Amalfi coast are coming up!

Breetsuts who wins Travelers' Tales Tuscany- True Stories   

She a talented photographer. Just look at her pretty blog!

Cathy who wins 30 Days in Italy- True Stories of Escape to the Good Life       

Cathy, another expat Australian in Italy has her  musings on life on the Chocolate Brick.

 

Thank you to all who participated and to all your generous comments. I really appreciate the feedback!

‘100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go’ CONTEST!!!!

 

Susan Van Allen is taking the travel book industry by storm.

Her new book 100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go  full of beguiling tales and magical places as seen from a feminine perspective,  add richness to any trip to Italy. The practical information combined with intriguing details are a must have for those who are hunting for the hidden gems d’Italia. 

See for yourselves….

 

 

 

 

The following is an extract from her book on “Positano – Amalfi Coast :

Thanks to Pasitea an irresistible nymph who  lured in Poseidon, the dreamy seaside village of Positano was discovered. It has six beaches to choose from. There’s the large, busy Spiaggia Grande, where you can watch handsome fisherman glide in and out. A short walk away is the quieter Fornillo beach, where you can enjoy drinks on the porch of Il Pupetto.

But for the feel of discovering your own private hideaway and a delicious lunch, head to Arienzo. It’s a small cove bordered with giant rocks, with views of fishing boats bobbing along the horizon, ferries headed for Capri and, in the distance, the Li Galli islands. Legend says these islands were once mermaids whom Ulysses turned to stone so they’d stop trying to seduce him off his course.

I’m not talking great sand. It’s volcanic and coarse with lots of black pebbles. But like almost everything you touch around here, Positano’s black pebbles have a story behind them. If you find one with a hole in it, it means the BVM passed through it, and it’s blessed. You’ll see many Positanesi wearing necklaces of these black pebbles.

The sand situation means you should bring along beach shoes and rent an umbrella and lounge chair. Then get totally comfy, lie back and get lulled by the lapping of the calm water.

 

Melody, an American who’s lived in Positano for years tipped me off that Ada’s gnocchi at Arienzo is famous in these parts. As you approach the beach you’ll see Ada, a fifty-some-thing-year-old signora with a radiant smile, bustling about in her walk-in-closet-sized kitchen.

The beach snack bar is set up on stilts, looking like something Thurston Howell III would have built on Gilligan’s Island, perched to take in the view with eight inviting tables. A blackboard lists the day’s specials, which along with Ada’s gnocchi may feature spaghetti with clams, Caprese salad, fish caught that morning and granita—flavored ices made from Positano lemons and whatever else is in season.

Around noon, locals start arriving on foot or pulling up on boats to enjoy Ada’s lunch. Her gnocchi is light and beautifully textured, served with a delicate tomato sauce. The house red is rich and lively. On a visit there one warm October day, for dessert Ada served me a plate of ripe figs picked from a nearby tree, and poured me a glass of home-made limoncello.

 

Even if you don’t find a pebble with a hole blown through it, at Arienzo Beach you’ll feel blessed.

Arienzo Beach: To get here you can catch a small boat from Spiaggia Grande or walk down a zigzag path of steps from the Arienzo bus stop.

•Golden Day: Arienzo Beach and Ada’s gnocchi for lunch. Stay at Maliosa di Arienzo (www.lamaliosa.it), a B&B nearby, with your private sea view terrace. Arrange for complimentary car service to Mediterraneo ristorante (www.ristorantimediterraneo.com) for a dinner of fantastic seafood and a Neapolitan guitar who strums classics.”

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Celebrating my Second Blog Anniversary,  I’m offering all of you an opportunity to win not only Susan Van Allen’s          

100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go book 

but am also drawing winners for another three travel titles

Travelers' Tales Italy- True Stories of Life on the Road

Travelers' Tales Tuscany- True Stories

30 Days in Italy- True Stories of Escape to the Good Life

All you need to do is leave a comment here (with your email address, if you are not a blogger), so that I can contact you if you win. This contest is open to everyone regardless of where you live.

I will be drawing the four winners on the 6th of June, so spread the word and get your friends to enter too!

Positano hiking– Teetering on the Brink of a Mountain

 

SANTA MARIA DEL CASTELLO
‘Get up you lot, we’re going mountain climbing!’
My sleepy family was coerced into getting out of bed at 9:00am on a school holiday and amidst grumbles and more importantly, cries of ‘where are we going to eat?’,  I managed to have everyone on the Montepertuso bus for 10:20.
Unlike my husband who had often visited Santa Maria Del Castello, a small village at the tip of the mountain, with his aunt and company armed full of homemade food and wine, we had only brought water for the dog.  An elderly lady (my taxi driver’s mother) kindly pointed out the right stairs to take on Via Corvo just above Chiesa Nuova and we set off under a beautiful cloudless blue sky in early April.
 

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The steps and paths were steep and twisting upon themselves so that we were weaving in a vertical direction up one side of the mountain. Scrawny plants of thyme crushed underfoot on the wilder trails and large rosemary bushes dotted the cliff faces ready to burst into flower.

My husband’s childhood stories of  breaking into song with his uncles and aunt in the regular hiking excursions to this village as part of their Sunday entertainment, became less credible  as I stumbled on the loose stones under the hot sun.
How could someone sing and climb on a path so steep?  Would the vino have helped?
None-the–less, we kept up a steady pace and my family managed to chatter in allegria while plodding along. Every breathtaking turn was an opportunity to stop and take another photo of the cliffs falling all the way down to the sea.                            
‘Guarda che vista!’,  (look at those views!) became the leitmotiv of the walk.



Halfway there I couldn’t believe how high we’d come, nor how far we still had to go. But there was no turning back. My greatest concern was that returning down the roughly hewn steps would be even more difficult than going up.

Are we there already? Where is this place? 
My husband recounted that his primary school teacher in Positano came from Santa Maria del Castello on the mountain but somehow I imagine that she would have found herself a room in Positano for the week rather than do this trail every day. It’s true that crossing over the mountains by foot or mule was once common place in these parts but going up and down daily, rain or shine, while not impossible, would have been draining. 
 Punta Amalfitana
After an hour and a quarter of climbing, we finally rounded a bend,and came across the first houses in the village. A burst of cheering from a nearby field alerted us to a boys football match supervised by a priest and blocking our way were  Carabinieri (police) who had stopped a nervous young driver and were examining  his documents. It was a real country scene with burgeoning fertile vegetable gardens, flowering almonds and barking dogs but with the mod cons of cars going up and down a narrow two-way country lane just wide enough for one car at a time. As there was only one way to go, we turned right and followed the cars to the best trattoria and main attraction in town – Zi’ Pepe.

Santa Maria del Castello                                                                                                                Castel Sant’Angelo – view from the Trattoria

Naturally, Zi’ Pepe which had always been a rustic trattoria in Santa Maria Dell’ Castello had with the years, been refurbished into a large room but the food had remained as genuine as it had ever been. This is not the tourist style restaurant that you’ll find in Positano. I didn’t hear one word of English spoken the whole time that we were there. Even Italian was the second language as Neapolitan dialect flowed more freely than the wine. This is a real restaurant for Italians and they are not anxious to share it either.
We ordered antipasti for my two eldest sons (we are a family of six) from the Richard Gere lookalike waiter and he brought a abundant spread of fried tidbits (eggplant and potatoes croquettes, tiny arancini, fried stuffed olives) homemade salami, three types of prosciutto, fresh mozzarellas ( the mozzarella man was still there, talking to local diners), fried zucchini, roasted peppers, marinated anchovies, calamari salads… it seemed to be never ending. It was all too much even between the six of us, so our dog under the table got the treats we couldn’t eat.
It was difficult choosing first and second courses  not so much for the variety but for the guaranteed quality of the food at very modest prices of not more than 5 Euros a dish. Pasta con sugo di cinghiale (sauce made from wild boar) or porcini mushrooms was our pick followed by a parmigiana di carciofi because the artichokes were in season. It was all washed down with a good vino rosso di casa  (house red) at 3 Euros a bottle.  When Richard Gere offered coffee and Limoncello, I wisely declined thinking of the epic journey back to Positano ahead of us. Any more spirit and I’d be staggering back or sleeping it off.
Surprisingly, or rather, unsurprisingly, the restaurant was full of nattily dressed locals from Positano. Most had arrived by car but some friends had hiked up just before us  and were returning via Montepertuso. Our friend stopped to pick up his walking stick he’d left propped outside the trattoria, and we joined them rather than take the same trail down.
 
The Islands of Ischia and Procida
Our friends led us on a scenic path which dipped steeply into the valley at the throat of Positano only to rise sharply again on the other side of the mountain. Perched at the top before descending towards Montepertuso we were treated to a view of Ischia and Procida across the top of the mountain into the Gulf of Naples. This was a beautifully shaded walk in cool pine forests and under pencil slim cypress trees. Our tiny dog ran ahead trying to anticipate the path’s direction poking and prodding in every hole he came across.
 

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We rose so high at one point that I was sure that he’d taken the wrong turn somewhere. But the path started zigzagging all of a sudden, down, down, down through people’s picnic points, hunter-gathers of wild asparagus and bonfires grilling sausages for a belated Pasquetta (Easter) picnic. It wasn’t an easy path to come down through on account of the high steps full of loose stones. A twisted ankle would be a probable scenario and I had time to ruminate on how the hell I’d get down in the event of a misplaced foot. I also made a mental note to bring my hiking boots to Positano rather than just wear trainers.

The valley of Positano far below.


But we did make it down safely to Montepertuso Village roadside in Positano, level with the stairs that end at  La Selvatella bus stop. Already we had plans to come back next year at Easter because of the incredible feeling that teetering on the brink of that mountain had given us. We’d do it in the opposite direction next time and naturally stop by to be served by Richard Gere at Zi’ Pepes’ for our pit stop.

Any takers?

Positano tops it Twice!

Positano been twice honoured this week.
Thanks to Pat Eggleton from  Sicily Scene who also writes for Italy Magazine, I was interviewed in the new Blog of the Week  feature.
Italy Magazine.co.uk  is an online magazine with top Italian News stories and feature articles on anything Italian.  It always makes a great read.
Subscribe on Facebook  for updates.


Yesterday Ali Filmer from Romesecret blog informed me that
Bell’Avventura made it to the list of
the Top 10 Secret Italy Blogs  in blogs.com – the best in blogs .
Bell’Avventura comes into the category of Secret Amalfitana Coast blog.
You’ll find Secret Italy all the way from head to toe in a selection of blogs covering recipes, life and travel in Italy as the  Italians do it.
And do head over and read SuperAli’s  Romesecret. It’s witty, charming and full of hidden Rome!  Thank you Ali.

Sorrento revisited – Where Tourists don’t dare to tread…

Sorrento. Chaotic, loud, irreverent, as a local I’d only visit with a purpose and fight my way back home.  The pretty alley ways were full of tacky souvenir shops with handwritten signs assuring buyers of cheap wares made in Italy.  An occasional local with bags of vegetables battled their way through English crowds dressed in shorts and flip flops,  past an art shop selling prints of the Coastline and a 3-d picture of a crucified Christ who opened and closed his eyes as we moved.
I had long decided that Sorrento was not for me.  I’d come only for clothes shopping and was most relieved to get back to Positano. Especially because the Sita buses heading towards the Amalfi Coast in summer were nigh impossible to board because of the tourists. The poor devils left on the pavement in the sweltering sun would have to wait for the next bus in two hours time or get a taxi.  It was a nightmare for me every time.
 
But when I accompanied my daughter to her driving lessons this April, it was the shoulder season in Sorrento. The Easter crowds had just died down and as I strolled along the streets I spied a treasure just off Piazza Tasso.
Through the curtains of wisteria (you’ll sense a recurring theme here) a garden of Eden beckoned me into its forbidden grounds. It was the  Hotel Vittoria Excelsior.  A Grand Hotel overlooking the Bay of Naples, the private gardens of which the Porter graciously gave us permission to visit.


The stately Hotel had wisteria clad arbors running the length of its grounds. Secluded niches  housed in rose arbors gave promise of a sweet May flowering. I was awestruck as this was exactly what my dream garden in Positano should look like.
  


Following the pergola to the seaside, we admired the view of the volcano looming over a very short expanse of water and averted our eyes as clients from the hotel emerged wearing only plushy bathrobes from the hotel’s Spa and pool service.
 
My husband then decided to show me something very special and we zigzagged our way along the little streets until we were almost at the Belvedere over the Port. He suddenly took a sharp right turn through a doorway and inside was the most exquisite cloister ever. The  Cloister of San Francesco, just oozing romance, was all for us and a handful of French tourists.
Of course, there was wisteria here too.





Making our way back past the tacky souvenir shops in the pretty little alleyways as the sun became lower in the sky, we bought up on the false-real Italian scarves and trinkets and breathed in the relaxed tourist spirit that Sorrento had offered.
Oh, and I made a note to myself to send my father here to play cards next time he visited !

Desperate Housewives on Wisteria Lane – Eat your heart out!

 

In the impossibly bright days of early April, all superlatives felt meaningless against the glory of early Spring on the Coastline. Energizing and exhilarating,  the perfection and beauty of  the  Amalfi Coast  had me awestruck even after twenty four years here.

                          

My days would begin drowsily, the shutters thrown open to the early morning so as to not miss one second of the sea view from my room. My husband would spoil me with breakfast in bed with  the orange marmalade I’d made in February and small delectable slices of homemade Easter Pastiera or pieces of chocolate egg.

Slowly I’d breathe in the drifting perfume from the wisteria over our pergola mixed with the sweet scent of orange and lemon blossom and listen to the gentle waves lapping the shore. 

 

 

I counted my blessing because not only was I lucky enough to be here in my favorite time of the year but strolling through town was an immense pleasure.  The weather was perfect, I didn’t risk being run over by a jettison of cars and buses, and the piazza at the base of town was still trickling tourists rather than pouring them.

 

But best of all, I’ d caught Positano at it’s height of the wisteria season.

   From top to toe, the town was festooned in swags of  purple blossom. The pastel, white and ochre buildings were draped elegantly across terraces and balustrades and their dripping blooms would pour enticingly through the rustic pergolas.

 

Ancient trunks wove from who–knows-where in the tiny alleyways, to creep across shop faces and apartments.

    All the way down to the beach, shaded walks would draw the eye skyward, and the colors would rival with the clear blue skies and the yellow of the lemons.

 

It felt like paradise.  It was paradise.  I could tell…