“Preggo” is the Italian, much politer, version of “fuck.” The two are similar in that they both have ubiquitous meanings and can be used in place of an adjective, verb, noun or adverb. We witnessed the Italians use “preggo” to mean everything from come in, please, you’re welcome, yes, sometimes no, and on and on. Quite possibly the most Italian Italian word, it gave me intense joy to hear it during our weekend in the Amalfi Coast.
I definitely wanted to utter fuck , I mean, preggo, multiple times over the weekend. There’s a concept in Remote Year called “level 3 fun,” where basically everything goes awry from the original plan, but you still decide to make due and have more fun than you ever would have if everything went according to expectation. Our Amalfi Coast adventure was DEFINITELY level 3 fun.
Lisa, my travel partner, and I were able to roll with the punches and when the Amalfi Coast lemons were thrown at us, we juggled them and made them into lemonade, with vodka ;).
It rained. When I say it rained, it poured: thunderstorm style for the first two days straight. Because of the storms, our flight from Rome to Naples was canceled. No fear – we took matters into our own hands and easily found a train to our destination city instead.
The lightening, thunder and rain came down with the full intensity of Zeus while we had to be outside for our tour of Pompeii. Turns our Lisa is in love with thunderstorms so it made her giddy, and for me – well, while we were wet, the overcast dreary sky seemed to make Pompeii all the more enchanting. I also counted my blessings that I was able to get there easily via a weekend trip, while there were people on the trip with us who probably planned and waited all year to be there.
Not letting the rain take away from our weekend while in Pompeii
Due to said thunderstorms, our travels deviated once more when the waters were too rough for us to go directly to Positano from Capri. We initially chose Positano for our Amalfi Coast destination precisely because it was easy to get there directly from Capri. But, Italy had other plans for us.
Instead, we ferried over to Sorrento, which is on the other side of the hill from Positano. Needing to check-in to our Airbnb by 6pm, time wasn’t on our side trying to figure out how exactly to get there. After waiting for the bus that will take us to Positano for over thirty minutes, we were denied entry onto it as we didn’t have a pre-paid ticket. Knowing that the next bus wouldn’t arrive for another hour and we’d miss our check-in time, we tried hailing a cab. No dice. During all of this, we noticed that we were pacing outside of a rental car shop. Problem solved – we decided to rent a car to get us to Positano. Arriving into Positano and seeing that our Airbnb happened to be right on the main road and have one parking spot available for us made it seem like the stars had aligned, and we were always mean to drive there. The drive was probably one of my top moments from the weekend – a sense of total Wonder Woman badassery, “we got this” and empowerment from being able to figure out a plan B when plan A didn’t happen.
I mean who could be mad with these views?
Outside of these moments, there was also the food - “pregggoooooo.” I’m not normally one who prioritizes amazing dinners over excursions, but I certainly could appreciate everything I tasted that weekend. My absolute favorite dinner over the weekend was at La Taverna del Leone. It’s a family-owned restaurant and hotel with fresh, home-made pasta made daily, which you can see being made with the open kitchen. I had lobster tortellini with a lemon zest and green beans. It was so perfectly balanced I think I moaned with every bite, not being able to contain my ecstasy over the flavors (Julia Roberts Eat-Pray-Love style). The lemon was to die for within the dish, buttery, and perfectly balanced. I used bread to finish every last drop of the sauce.
The lemon lobster tortellini - literally TO DIE FOR
A close second for weekend favorites was A curtiglia, another family-owned restaurant in Anacapri. This restaurant’s charm was unbeatable, and you could literally feel the family love throughout the entire dining experience. The pasta Lisa had was made by our waiter’s mother, just that morning. Our waiter was the perfect amount of charismatic and sassy and kept bringing us home-brewed drinks on the house and finally, his dad ended up driving us back into town. 100% first class service. They even recommended where we should go out that night, which ended up being a night for the books. Who knew sleepy Capri would turn out to be anything but! With full bellies and liquored spirits, we danced the night away with a wedding party at a nightclub that many pop sensations frequent (Taverna Anema e Core) and even made it onstage with the band.
Appetizers at A curtiglia