Italy--Day Eight. Thursday September 02

A thing that started off badly but ended up well:

B was getting nervous about our return trip. The original plan was to leave from Agropoli for Rome early Saturday afternoon (requiring a change of trains in Naples). Under ideal circumstances, that would get us to the airport in plenty of time. But two significant delays on two train trips made us believe we had to do something different.

At the Salerno train station the day before, B learned there was a direct train from Salerno to Rome, with no changes required. Changes can be problematic because if the first leg of the trip is delayed, you miss your connection. Direct travel is better.

The desk clerk at the hotel told us we could get everything worked out at the Agropoli train station. So we waited until late afternoon and drove in...and, in true southern Italy tradition, the fucking ticket office was closed. No explanation, no nothing----just a sign on the window saying CLOSED.

There was a small newsstand in the station. We went in and asked the woman why the ticket office was closed. She didn't know. When would it open again? She didn't know. As we left, B muttered "Africa...AFRICA!" over and over again. Meaning, southern Italian trains are like African trains insofar as reliability is concerned.

B remembered seeing a travel agent in Agropoli, but she couldn't remember exactly where. Maybe we could find it, and get our tickets there. We drove through town, which was packed tight with traffic (quitting time.) We found a place to park and walked about 100 meters and found the travel agent. This being Italy, there were two clerks, both occupied with people who appeared to be planning trips to the moon. We waited and waited and waited and time just seemed to drag on....

After about half an hour, a desk finally opened up. Long story short, the very nice travel agent lady 1) refunded our original tickets, and 2) applied the refund to our new tickets. So we got a better routing at no extra cost. A blessing----had the ticket agent in the Agropoli train station been open, they wouldn't have given us a refund on the original tickets (because they'd been issued by a travel agent instead of the train company), which means we would have eaten it.

B asked the lady why the train system is so fucked up. She said, "Because they're trying to run it like an airline, and that doesn't work with trains." We didn't know specifically what she meant by that, but OK.

So what looked bad at first turned out to be good. For the time being.

Because on Saturday, things got fucked up yet again when we got to the Salerno train station.

But more on that in a subsequent post.

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We went back to the hotel, rested up a few hours, then everyone loaded into the rental car and drove into the Italian night, back to Agropoli, to eat at Heinrich's favorite pizzeria.

It was hard finding a parking place. And when H. found one, a local man told him "This is for local cars only; if you don't have a parking sticker, they'll give you a ticket. €200 fine!" There was a lady cop nearby, directing traffic in the dark. H. walked over, explained the situation, and the cop said: "Sure. Park there if you want. But no more than two hours, OK?" Problem solved, in the dual Heinrich / Italian way.

These old European towns are magical in the evening. The lights give a yellowish cast.

Dark and quiet.

We found the place after walking around a bit. For some reason I didn't think to note its name, so I can't link to it----but I doubt it has a website, anyhow. The history: the restaurant has been around about 20 years. When B's parents first discovered it, there were hardly any customers and they worried the place might not survive. But now it has the opposite problem: it's so popular, it was hard to find a seat.

Not as if there's a place to sit inside. No---you sit outside, and the long wooden tables were jammed with people, most of them Italian. At first we couldn't get a place at a table, but finally someone finished and we grabbed our place. Then we walked around the corner to order.

The crowd enjoying the pizza on a Thursday night in Agropoli. No inside dining!

It works like this: you stand in line in an entryway leading to an incredibly tiny kitchen. Behind the microscopic counter, with just room enough for the cash register, the owner and two workers are busy making pizzas, then shoving them into stone ovens. It appears chaotic, like the deck of an aircraft carrier when they prepare jets for launching. 

Meantime a harried young guy is carrying finished pizzas out to the tables in huge, shallow baskets. The line was about ten deep, but it went quickly. The building, like all of them in this part of town, was ancient and the stone walls were thick. It was a tight squeeze in there.

Back outside with our beers, we watched the happy crowds. Every few minutes the young guy would come out and shout a number in Italian: "Number 90! Number 90!" Somebody would say, "Hey!" and raise their hand and the guy would drop off the basket(s), bus any empty spots, and run back inside.

Two young women sat at another table. One said, in English: "I can help you when your pizza comes---what is your number?" (She thought Heinrich didn't understand Italian---which he mostly doesn't, but he knows the numbers.) It shows the friendliness and kindness of the average southern Italian. 

Heinrich told her he didn't need help, but thanks, and went on to describe Heurigen (Austrian wine taverns) and their similarities to this restaurant, which Heinrich calls "the pizza heurige." Later, when the two women left, they smiled and wished us a polite "Buona sera!" Even though they knew we were fuckin' tourists. Whereas in Vienna, by contrast, they pretend they don't even know you, even if they do----a combination of shyness and aloofness but mostly the latter. I much prefer the Italians in this regard.

One of three pizzas we shared. Thin crust, great ingredients. Delicious.

A nice Italian evening, dining casually on (somewhat sloping) simple tables, sitting on long benches, in the middle of a crowd of (mostly) Italians, watching the occasional local guy walk by on his way somewhere (and greeting anyone he knew, if they happened to see each other), and great pizza. Plus, spending the evening with B's parents and sister: how many more times will I get to do this? The parents are elderly and B's sister has serious health problems, so you never know. It was a bit poignant, thinking about it, but the others seemed so happy about the atmosphere, I quickly rejoined them, pushing sad thoughts away.

Mindful of the two-hour special dispensation the lady cop had given us when we parked the car, we couldn't linger too long. The walk back through old Agropoli was enchanting, and the view from the parking place on the hill to the ocean below was other-worldly...yes. A September night in Agroploi, Italy.

You know, it was just an evening out...but at the same time it was way, way, more than that.