Passegiatta

After that short but HOT walk to our B&B, Certe Notti, we checked in, dumped our bags and took naps--mine was about 2 hours, my mother’s about 90 minutes. Both of us woke a little dazed and thick-headed, but cleaned and dressed ourselves up and went off into Pompeii (the new city) at about 7:30 for our first passegiatta.

It was wonderful. Neither one of us expected the streets to be quite so crowded with people, especially on a Sunday night (we decided it might have been a holiday because we heard fireworks late in the evening).

Antonio, the proprietor of our B&B had suggested three local restaurants that weren’t geared for tourists where we could find local cuisine at a good price. We needed to ask directions three or four times in order to find Zi Caterina, but it was worth the minor hassle. On our way, we saw a puppet show and spoke to several people, each of whom gave us different directions to the restaurant.

When we headed out for dinner around 8 PM, we discovered that the city wasn’t nearly as quiet as we had first thought. All of Pompei was in the town square seeing and being seen.



We found the restaurant that Antonio recommended called Zi Caterina where Mom had the house ravioli (homemade, of course) and I had the gnocchi. We split a half liter of red wine, which was more than I have had in a while, and a tiramisu for dessert. In the States, neither one of us would touch tiramisu, but last night, it was de-lish. The place itself resembled a tavern with its dark wood and timbers and we were the only Americans there.