Then onto Rome via Trenitalia, 1 hr 20 min, a hop, skip & jump to Termini station. I've already related my Vatican experience in other threads, but our 3 BR 2 bath AirBnB, totally renovated even though a very old building as well--was fine. A little pricey but that’s what you’ll pay for in Campo de’ Fiori, where I wanted to be. At the daily market, I reconnected with the same fruit vendor I had met eight years before—that had been on my bucket list. I showed her a pic from then, and she almost cried. Touching. Also, we spent a lazy, quiet afternoon in Trastevere on a backstreet at Trattoria da Teo, talking with other diners and the chef, eating homemade tagliatelle with wild asparagus, which wasn’t even on the menu. I asked him ‘what’s that?’, and not only did he bring a dish of it out for us to try, he brought a bunch of the wild asparagus for us to bring home, which we cooked up the next night. That’s what I love about Rome. The traffic, the massive influx of people for Jubilee 2025, it was there but in reality, incidental. I had always disparaged the HopOnHopOff buses as for idiots that couldn’t plan, but on our last afternoon in Roma, warm & sunny, we booked it for 19 Euro apiece, and sat up top with cold water to drink for two complete rounds, totally enjoying ourselves being ‘above the fray’, watching the human gridlock below, catching some rays. Wonderful—I’ll never make fun of HOHO again! We did get off by Spanish Steps, where right at the top I heard a solitary guitarist playing Carlos Santana’s ‘Europa’, and the sheer beauty and perfect acoustics of it literally choked me up.
On to Salerno (2 hrs, 15 min), where I knew it wouldn’t be as crowded. Since we were only staying three nights, upon a recommendation from a trusted friend I had booked us at the Hotel Plaza, directly across from the train station. This was the only hotel of the trip, and for less than 100 Euro/night we had great rooms, perfect beds, hot showers and an expansive Italian breakfast each morning. Salerno’s a wonderful city of just over 100,000 people, friendly southern Italians, and a great base for travel to Naples, Pompei or the Amalfi Coast. Went to the beach, the floral festival, had some true Napolitan pizza at Trianon. We hired a driver one day take us to Vietri sul Mare to shop for ceramics, for lunch at Garden Ravello, and then down to Minori for some incredible pastries at Sal De Riso, which had been recommended for years by my Tel Aviv pal Chani. It was all she said, and more. Incredible. On the Amalfi Coast, I do want to say that it was beginning to get very busy, even though we were still technically in shoulder season and we didn’t hit the more-publicized towns like Positano, Capri or Amalfi-town. I could sense that situation was going to get exponentially worse as the days & weeks progressed. Good luck on the A.C. once June hits…