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Showing posts with label Salerno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salerno. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2018

Visiting Salerno (Italy) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Salerno (Italy) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


We went to Salerno (South of Naples) to look for a more bucolic place to stay than Naples on our vacation.

When the train came in to the station, we found out that as in France, August the 1st is the beginning of a month-long vacation exodus to the South of a country.  The train resembled a sardine can, because there were so many people in it.

We hopped in and held on around the curves going to Salerno.  I lost balance a few times along with some other people standing on the train.  I just laughed knowing the tickets were oversold.

Absolutely no one in Salerno spoke English.  I was able to get directions in Italian.  At the tourism bureau, Laurent spoke in German to find out the names of some hotels. 

Everything was full except for a place about 2 miles outside of town.  I was willing to go there after lunch in an air-conditioned restaurant.  We found a fast-food place called Golden Burger and ate there.

I knew all my walking would burn off the fat in those fries in no time and ate every last one of them.

After eating, we walked to the hotel, which was about two miles away from the train station.  We made our reservations and looked around our neighborhood.  There were many apartments and markets in this area.  Salerno’s streets were also very clean.  (When I was growing up in Highland Park (an enclave inside Detroit) Michigan, the streets were cleaned every two weeks for public health measures. 

There was a famous Medieval medical school in Salerno that focused on nutrition and commissioned tucinae paintings showing the Mediterranean Diet of their day.  Clean streets for walking to the market must have come down from this period.

The next day, we changed hotels from Naples to Salerno, which required taking a full train again and bus out to our hotel.  We stood with our suitcases and swayed around the curvy mountains down to Salerno.

We unloaded our bags, took cold showers to deal with the heat, and went out to buy some yogurt.  We ate and slept until 4:30 p.m.  Laurent went out and bought roll-up, reed mats for the beach.

After swimming, we rested on our mats and watched the sun go down.

As we were going out for dinner, the hotel managers invited us in for a glass of sweet, white wine and slices of watermelon.  They were happy that a couple on their honeymoon had come to stay in their hotel – The Hotel Suisse.  Laurent and our hotel managers chatted away in German.

We went to the restaurant next door where Laurent ordered spaghetti all carbonara with proscuiutto or pig’s cheek as the ingredient depending on the supply in the local region. 

This Italian version of this dish is good, but I like my American better.  I fry up a ton of bacon until crispy, drain it, and chop it up. (Pancetta is bacon without salt added or pork bellies.)

I add grated parmesan or gruyere and cream to the bacon and serve this over spaghetti or whatever cooked pasta I have on hand.  (I know the value of the commissary.)

I ate large cannelloni filled with ricotta cheese while Laurent regaled himself with deluxe pork.

Then, we ate a light summer entrée of seafood salad with octopus, shrimp, scallops, and mussels in a lemon-and-oil dressing.

I went to sleep on a full stomach all happy with a real Italian seafood meal. 


By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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