Today's plan is to visit the University of Pizza, Metro Pizza, in Vico Equense. It's presumably the birthplace of pizza and a record holder in the Guiness Book for the world's largest pizza. It's not far; and a very exciting ride if you are an American unaccustomed to Italian drivers.
Jack has done very well piloting the little diesel Toyota Rav-4 through these snaky narrow streets. But here's the thing: he seldom gets very far out of the driveway at home before he's swearing at other drivers; here he is positively a saint. Not one curse has been hurled while driving in Italy. I quizzed him about this. "Well," he said sanctimoniously, "we are all ambassadors for our country." I snorted.
The little Rav-4 has a GPS and we've been putting it to good use. Today we're routed through the tiniest of streets in Italian nowheres-villes and we're driving very slowly. The GPS lady instructs us to "turn left in 10 meters." We do, and are immediately stuck like a cork in a bottle. Eeep. I'm guessing we had less than two inches to spare on either side of this little road, flanked by rental car-eating stone walls. We creep forward at about an inch an hour and the road narrows further. We pull in the side-view mirrors. No, it just ain't happening. The irregular stone walls won't let us pass. It's time to back up.
It was even narrower than it looked.
On we blunder to Vico Equense, paying more heed to which street we're directed to turn onto. Have I mentioned that parking is at a premium in Italy? We circled the little city center three times before we noticed a parking garage. The garage was small enough that Jack had to inch-up-back-back about 4 times before the little truck is wedged in between a stone pillar and another car. Cripes! I could never drive here.
Metro Pizza is huge, more like an S&W Cafeteria than a pizza joint. And we're its only patrons at 12:30. Metro Pizza sells pizza by the meter. But there's a little side note down at the bottom of the menu that says pizza by the plate can be ordered as well. Jack excuses himself to wash his hands and the watchful waiter chooses just this time to take our order. He asks me several times what we want, exactly. I tell him, exactly, several times.
Metro Pizza
Later, a gurney-sized trolley comes our way with more pizza than we could eat in a week even if we worked really hard at it. I smile and order a restorative prosecco.
The sun finally comes out on our way home and we're able to take some very good snaps of the sea from our little villa. Just in time!
Later I'm packing for tomorrow's journey. And - zzzzt! Another power hit! We move to the little sitting room and wait. It's not long in coming: flashlights explode out of the main house with heavy foot-stomps accompanied by wrathful Italian curses shouted in every direction. A cat yowled when someone stepped on it. The dog barked. More curses and general shouting. Man, I'm thinking we should have to pay extra for this.
A religious picture in our room. Who knew Obi-Wan Kenobi was also a priest?
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