Why Not Somewhere Fabulous?

As we left Venice by train, headed for Napoli, we started preparing ourselves for the work part of our adventure. Instead of working from home back home, why not somewhere fabulous? We hoped that the place we had chosen back in Spring of 2020 to make our home for the next month would be all it seemed to be in the photos that we had pored over incessantly.

We chose the island of Ischia as our destination. Our friends, the Moricos, had told us a few years back that we’d love the place and should visit. Then we watched the old Billy Wilder film, Avanti! with Jack Lemon and we were sold. Ischia is about 19 miles off the coast of Naples, in the northern part of the Bay of Naples, reachable by ferry. It has a population around 60,000 on about 46 square kilometers. More about the island later.

A Day in Napoli

We had decided to spend a day in Naples before heading to the island. We stayed in the old part of town and got that first flavor of the South of Italy. As we learned a while back, Italy becomes ever more Italian as you go south. For some, it’s too much…too much chaos, too in your face, too passionate. Others, like us, feel embraced by the warmth and passion of the people here.

We spent a little time exploring Spaccanapoli, a nickname for a road that is narrow and straight and when viewed from above seems to split the city and in fact means Naples Splitter. It’s teeming with locals and tourists and lined with churches, souvenir shops, Maradona shrines and bobble heads, cafes and ‘gazosa’ stands (gazosa is a fizzy fresh lemon drink and supposed to be super refreshing. Still waiting to try one as we accidentally ordered spritzes instead. Oops). We only had a couple of hours before our ferry to Ischia so we mean to go back and explore more fully soon.

Ferry to Our Island Home

And finally, we boarded our ferry for Ischia. It was about a 45 minute trip and as we approached the island, we started to see the Aragonese Castle, a major landmark and the most visited spot in Ischia, and the ports. We’d made it!

Took the most spectacular taxi ride along the northeastern corner of the island, towards the Cartaromana region, to our Airbnb, and were met at the gate by our Airbnb host, who helped us with luggage and led us through and up some steps to the terrace of his place, where his wife joined us to welcome us to their second home. It felt like a dream, since we had dreamt of this for a while. It was so wonderful to watch them watching our reactions to this magical spot that they loved. They spent an hour showing us everything we needed before heading out for their primary home in Naples. We believe they felt they were leaving their Ischia home in good hands.