🍦 Episode 2: Springsteen Roots, Gabriella’s Gelato & The Water Run Test

🍦 Episode 2: Springsteen Roots, Gabriella’s Gelato & The Water Run Test

Sorrento may get all the headline press, but my heart belongs a few stops up the coast in Vico Equense. It is one of my favourite places on earth. Vico Equense is a cliffside town with ridiculous views across the Bay of Naples, of course, Vesuvio can be seen peeping at you from a distance too, as it pretty much is all the time, anywhere round here.

But, Vico, as us locals call it, also happens to be part of rock and roll royalty… Sort of… stick with me… Vico Equense is the maternal family roots of Bruce Springsteen, his grandfather, Antonio Zerilli, emigrated from here to America, eventually becoming part of the family story that would lead, generations later, to one of the biggest names in rock music.

Just across from where I usually stop for my morning coffee is the old family café, which makes it even more amusing. I can sit there with an espresso or… a coffee granita… they do a mean one of them… looking across the road at a piece of Springsteen family history, before wandering off to Gabriele’s for gelato, which is literally just around the corner.

Which, if we are being honest, is probably a much more Neapolitan way of spending a morning than listening to Born to Run and pretending I’m in New Jersey… I think I’d die if I had a pair of denim jeans on now anyway.

Although now I’ve mentioned it, I’m probably going to have to do exactly that… minus the denim… no, not even hot pants…

First priority in Vico Equense? It is always Gabriele’s.

If you know, you know. Gabriele’s isn't just an ice cream shop, it is  a temple of local gelato.

There is an art to ordering here, the same as with many gelato shops to be fair, you walk in on one side, pay for what it is you are after, I think I’m having a cup and I’ll go crazy… two flavours…per favore, and then you walk over to the counter of goodness, hand your ticket over that you’ve just been given and choose the flavours.

The texture, the rich thickness, those intense flavours, the way it immediately begins to melt under the southern Italian sun, forcing you into a race against time and gravity to shovel it into your mouth without looking like a madman, all the while managing to escape from any of it dropping in your beard… well, I fail at both of them to be fair.

Episode 8 of last year’s holiday series was about the Ice Cream Appreciation Society, and Gabriele’s is essentially international headquarters, without looking, I think… think there was an image of Gabriele’s in there.

This time round, we went giddy and we brought our own little gelato spoons, I think that these will be a little tradition of ours going forwards, being an EDC item, it completely legitimises it too.

With gelato secured, it was time for the daily logistical chore, the water run to the local supermarket… Conad… I love international supermarkets… the obligatory, ‘wow, they have these over here’… yes… it’s a Kit Kat… why wouldn’t they have that, it’s made by a large, world wide, multinational corporate greed machine… oooh, we nearly sidetracked there going into the ‘selling of bottled water for baby milk’… but, we will avoid that this time. Anyway, there’s always local things to pull off the shelves, biscuits, that’s always a firm favourite as are crisps… chips to our international listeners. I will almost definitely be picking up a bottle of limoncello as well, that’s pretty much the law I think… it can go back in the fridge at basecamp and be used as a refreshing tipple post shower/pre evening meal whilst sat on the balcony, observing the solar eclipse on Wednesday evening… Which, is going to be the visible for around two minutes, it’s no record really, but, if you want a record breaking one, you’ll have to wait until 2114… I won’t be here then, so, I’m making the most of this one. That particular eclipse though, if you’re interested will be around three times the length of this one! I am hoping that it is one of them moments, memories that anchor the place and time… hopefully, limoncello in hand, on the roof or the balcony, with family, glancing… not staring at Vesuvio… Also… there may be other record breaking ones between now and 2114, for different reasons… I’m sure that one is ‘longest viewable from land’, but…  anyway, we did end up digressing there didn’t we. 

Hauling multiple litres of bottled water, not the Nestle stuff, back to base is the ultimate test for lightweight travel gear. This trip, I brought the Matador FreeRain 22 folding backpack along for its maiden voyage as a heavy water carrier. It is a well used bag, just not for this purpose. Buying several kilos of bottled water is probably not what Matador had in mind when they designed a lightweight folding backpack, but here we are, admittedly, ordinarily, I use the slightly older version that I have, which also happens to be the 28litre version and that performs admirably and I’ve had four two litre bottles in that with a few other bits and there was still room to spare. I’m not sure why I picked this bag for this trip, but, it is what it is now I guess. Unstructured packability meets several kilograms of sloshing liquid is surely a true trial by fire for any bag. For overflow items and local bakery finds, I’ve also packed the Klättermusen Gebo tote bag, keeping the EDC kit versatile and lightweight… I did a video on that once… I know, shock, there’s a YouTube channel.

Anyway, the FreeRain 22, I carried four litres of water, two… yes two five hundred millilitre bottles of limoncello and a three pack of Peroni lemon… keeping it easy, it definitely doesn’t feel as robust as my older… heavier 28litre version but, I would happily use it for this again. It’s only been used for light sackable items really in the past, I had every faith in it really. In the Klättermusen… I transferred the drone I’ve yet to use whilst here… from the matador into that for easy carrying over the shoulder. 

To top off the visit, I am hunting down a local secret. Despite visiting Vico for years, I only recently checked the Geocaching map. To my absolute shock, I spotted a hidden cache right by the famous church perched high on the cliffs, the very spot where we have stood dozens of times watching weddings take place with the sea lapping at the bottom of the cliffs.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, searching for a hidden magnetic container whilst looking out over the water, licking melted gelato from around my mouth... is not a bad way to spend an afternoon in Vico… or anywhere for that matter… alas, I didn’t find the Geocache and it appears that the last few people who’ve been haven’t found it either, but, at least I’ve ’logged it’… maybe next time.