I is in Ischia

Hide and Seek Peacock

Nice Castle!

It has been awhile. I’ve been slacking on the blogging. What I haven’t been slacking on is the fun-having, food-eating, sun-worshipping and life-loving.

I have to backtrack now to remember all the good times that I have been lucky enough to enjoy over the past two weeks.

One thing I feel I must mention, is how incredibly lucky I feel to be graced with such wonderful loved ones. I have just been bouncing from one wonderful person to another over the past few months and I can’t even begin to explain how fortunate I feel to have such great people in my life. I must have been a saint in a past life to be blessed with such an amazing existence. I know that tragedy, sorrow and difficult times make for more interesting reading and more well-rounded people… sorry to disappoint folks. It’s been all smooth sailing on my end with no waves in sight. That is, other than the waves I’ll be crossing tomorrow, on my way to Ile Ste-Marguerite, off of Cannes. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Our time in Ischia was… well… wonderful. We were there one week before tourist season and so there were very few annoying people crowding our space. The only downside was that the thermal baths around the island weren’t yet open to the public. Lucky for us, I had managed to book our apartment somewhere with a thermal bath just metres from our door. After a first night of fitful sleep with me worrying that I had made a big mistake booking us at this place, dad woke me up like he used to when I was a kid. (No, not by sending the family dog outside to get cold feet before he would put him into my bed… that one was reserved for my big bro! ;) 

The Caterpillar!

I woke up to freshly made coffee, a view to take one’s breath away and a suggestion to hop into the thermal bath before I sat down for breakfast. 

The view was perfect. We had a big balcony that had a panoramic view of the island, with Mount Epomeo on the left, the Villa Ravino Giardino in the center and the bright blue Mediterranean on the right. My fears that I had chosen the wrong place to stay quickly disappeared when A walked in and had already visited the garden. Phew.

We spent one day touring the local town market and stocking up on delicious food for our kitchen. We were directed to the market by a string of locals who understood our charades for food. The market was relatively small with two fish stalls and three fruit stalls. A and dad found the fish stall they wanted to buy their food at. The fishmonger was such a character. A huge rotund man with hands the size of my face, he started laughing and responding to my dad's silliness. I've never seen fish that was so fresh. I actually saw one that was still alive. No joke. I didn't want to tell the man in case he just smashed it with his huge hands and fish juice went flying everywhere.

San Angelo

Another day was spent driving around the coast, trying to find the beach that supposedly had thermal springs shooting off into the Med. We didn’t find it. What we did find was my intolerance to narrow roads that barely allowed our little car to pass through. OY. My poor nerves. We did find an adorable little town called San Angelo with a Presqu’Ile, jutting off of the end of it. A and I went to find a place to sun ourselves on the flat rock overlooking the bright blue sea.

The next cloudy day found us walking up the highest point on the island (Mt Epomeo) which had the self-proclaimed title “the best panoramic view in the world”. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to judge, but it was REALLY cool! We drove up partway and then parked and hiked the rest of the way, through what I can only imagine were ravines, roughly carved out over the years by gushing water. The higher we climbed, the more the terrain changed from quite lush forest to ashy-white stone that was easily broken up by hand.

As we climbed, we passed by men who were cutting down trees in the woods. A called it coppicing and it seemed like a very efficient forestry management technique. They could cut one tree trunk in every ~10m² patch. That truck, after many years, would sprout one or many more trunks and then the men (I assume) would return and cut another. It’s like shaving! You cut them down and they grow back thicker and more plentiful. How is that for a visual? Except in this case, it is more like selective shaving, since there weren’t many trees being cut. I also noticed that they were careful of where they selected the trees. No trees were cut on steep inclines, I assume to ensure that erosion wouldn’t occur.

At the Top!

A volcano with a view

Back on track. We climbed to what I assumed was the very top, and found a few little vineyards at the base of what I can only assume was an old pilgrimage site. It was a church or chapel (no idea what the difference is) carved directly into the cliff of Epomeo. I should mention that Epomeo is an inactive volcano. Hence the ashy-white stone and the really interesting rock formations. We climbed around the top and found a little trail that would lead to the very highest peak. A had disappeared at this point, so dad and I made our way up. I left him at a point just past his comfort zone, holding onto the rock. I pranced onwards to see how high I could get and what I could see. It turned out that the path was carved out ALL the way to the top, where an Italian flag was flying at 788m above Ischia. Luck had it that as soon as I reached the peak, the clouds parted and left me with a small window of a view onto the town on the coast of the Island.

Hearing the increasingly stressed out calls from my dad, making sure I hadn’t plummeted to my death, I made my way back down and we returned to the car to find A. We all returned safely to our precious thermal bath.

The one rainy day we had, we ended up going into Napoli. I must admit that dad and I had settled in to relax for the day. A was going without us and we realized that she would have way more fun than us, so we joined. Also, we needed her to protect us from the Napolitans. We parked the car by the port in Ischia and took the ferry, car-less, into the city of thieves. We had a fabulous day walking around the city. I want to go back. It was fabulous. The city exudes this air of old grandeur. The first building we walked into was a shopping area that must have been an old train station. Vaulted glass ceilings that felt like they were 50m high, big extravagant designs and just… classy. The main road was lined with old palazzios with huge doors that carriages would have gone through to pick up the rich people for their rendez-vous. A friend of mine had described the city perfectly: “gritty and wonderful”.

Sunset from the roof of our apartment

The volcano I would conquer!

We left Napoli rather reluctantly, A more than the rest of us. We hopped a ferry back to Ischia and had no pick-pocketing incidents. 

The side of Epomeo