The Durneys Go Dutch: Good Friday in Positano

Less pictures, but plenty of stories on Good Friday!

We intended to spend the last two days in Positano enjoying the warm weather at the beach and the Easter celebrations. Good thing as both Pete and Pops fell ill. Pete's ear pain intensified and his ear began leaking unmentionables (unwritables?). During the morning, he visited the pharmacist on our street who instructed him to go see the town doctor. He followed the vague directions up a side street and into a windowless, signless room where another patient was waiting. As he tells it, he sat waiting while two people yelled back and forth to each other behind the closed door for some time. Then the other patient went in for just a few minutes and then it was Pete's turn. Intuiting that the doctor may not speak English, he had typed out his symptoms and complaints into google translate and had the screen ready to show the old Italian doctor. This and hand gesticulations seemed to work pretty well and soon Pete was on his way to the pharmacy with an Rx for antibiotics, steroids and pain relief! No charge at all for the doctor and 30 euros for all of the meds. I was impressed! Talk to me sometime about socialized medicine. I have some things to say!

We had been trying to find out what types of celebrations would be taking place in the town for Easter, but couldn't quite figure it out. While we were lounging about eating donuts, we heard music up on the hill and watched as the Good Friday parade snaked its way down to the front our apartment. The town children led the way followed by people depicting the stations of the cross. This led to a lot of questions from Jude and was a good place to start his biblical education. It is always shocking to see people dressed in white hooded garb. While I feel a bit uncomfortable showing the photos below, the Catholic tradition in Spain and Italy of people accused of crimes against the church wearing these outfits far outdates the hate-filled connotations that we know today.

The grandparents bought donuts and the kids were happy!

Maeve's sleep was thrown off this trip and she was waking up far to early every morning. We were glad to have these two days where she could get good naps at the house instead of out and about. While she took an epic nap, Nana and Pops stayed home playing Uno with Jude while Pete and I went to lunch and the new archeology museum in town.

Does he look like a guy hopped up on drugs?! Total trooper.

The archaeology museum was so cool. Historians always suspected that there was an old Roman Villa beneath the current church based on found documents. But it wasn't until they raised money to begin the excavation that they could confirm their suspicions. The museum just opened this fall and currently only one room of the villa has been opened to the public, but they are working on more as they get more money. They believe that this Roman Villa belonged to a freeman (a freed slave). When Mount Vesuvius erupted, the accumulation of ash created a landslide in Positano, which covered the town in meters of mud. The archaeologists don't think that anyone was in the Villa at the time as people would have had a chance to leave Positano following the eruption.

Villa is beneath the current church shown here.

Positano, like other Roman towns at the time, was a few floors below current ground level. The room was hermetically sealed by the volcanic ash that solidified. This allowed for the preservation of the painted walls in this dinning room. The bold colors were so vibrant (and an indication that the owner was very wealthy).

Split wall shows the shift in the foundations.

As we were touring, one of the guests sat down on one of these hollowed out chairs. The archaeologist said to her, "you might not want to sit there." Then we learned why! Between the site of the villa and the church above was an extensive crypt where deceased monks were lowered through a hole in the monastery or church and seated upright on these chairs. The holes in the seats were to allow their bodily fluids to drain as they decomposed. Living monks visited the decaying corpses to pay their respects. This was all a lot to take in!

Pete headed back home to sleep and Nana and Pops were ready to take their tour of the museum so I headed with the kids the beach. Gelato first of course!

Jude wanted to play down by the water to collect sea glass and Maeve wanted to play on the play equipment so I stayed somewhere in the middle and was like a spectator at a ping pong match, looking frantically back and forth between each kid to make sure they were ok on the fairly busy beach!

At one point I looked down and saw Jude chatting it up with a group of college kids at the water's edge. They were deep in conversation and I was starting to worry what it was they were discussing. The beach was covered with spring breaking American kids drinking freely. Some time later, Jude comes running up to me telling me all about his new friends and telling me how nice they were and that I need to come meet them :) I let him return to his new friends and while I was playing with Maeve, one of the girls returned to her group on the beach and was telling them all about this awesome 5 year old named Jude that they just met. He is our social butterfly! Later, Jude would go on his own over to their area of the beach and at one point I heard one of the guys say, "Hey! Has anyone asked where this kid's parents are?"Just me, Dutch parenting over here!

Pete's napped helped and he rallied again to go out to dinner. Our hosts had recommended a restaurant out of town that offered a shuttle service. After our public transportation snafus the past week, the idea of a private transfer was very appealing, plus the restaurant (La Taverna del Leone) had amazing reviews. It was a wonderful experience start to finish. Delicious octopus, lobster ravioli, fried fish and cheesecake.