Ponza - Ciao regazzi!

My belle regazze for a weekend on Ponza Just on our own little boat sailing

through caves in the Mediterranean, you know

A little place called Ponza

Our fearless regazzo, Pietro

Have no fear - there was gelato
Frontone beach - the site of Mere's future

wedding
Whhiiisssperrrre - said in a breathless voice

One of two of Ponza's hotspots

Yes, Tony Ballsy got creepy

And of course no weekend would be

complete without karaoke. Unfortunately

I don't have pics of our domination of

Living on a Prayer and All Night Long.

But it the only time the whole weekend

where we didn't clear the room, so a good sign
On such a short visit, Rome was not

high on the priority list, but we did manage

to hit the topspots......
and pay our respects.

Please note the facial expressions...

Merieta is like whatev, Cornelia is full

of hope that ol Trevi will pull through this time.

And yes, I'll admit it, I threw a coin - my third.

So its official, consider this my engagement

announcement, groom TBD

The view from our apartment on Ponza

with Palmarola (where we took our boat) in the

background - Bellisima

The day after my Dad left two of my favorite belle regazze arrived - Cournelia and Merietta (as they would soon become known). They both had already been to Rome, and a few months ago when I was thinking where we could go close by for the weekend - I came upon a little known place called Ponza, a small island between Naples and Rome. The guidebooks all had very little information about it, but described it as "a hidden gem largely ignored by international tourists" - sounded perfect. Later found out Jude Law likes to hang out there, which was just added to the allure. Little did we know how ignored by international tourists it was....

Side note - Shortly after booking this trip, I also developed a new strategy for my travel in Italy in general. Since clearly work is going to get in the way of me going everywhere I want to go, I've decided to focus on difficult places to get to unless you live in Italy - aka mountains and islands. So don't expect to see Florence or Naples on this blog anytime soon

So on the agenda for Ponza - finally manning a scooter and buzzing around the island, renting our own little boat and cruising around the island and to outer islands in and out of caves (guidebook advised no experience necessary), sunbathing on our private terrace, scouting out Jude Law, and of course having a dance party as can only be done with my American besties. Here's a few of the highlights from the weekend, clearly we had no idea, nor did Ponza, what we were in store for:

- Travel: So I chose Ponza for it's 'closeness' to Rome, and the minimal information offered in the guidebooks said that it was a one hour train ride South and then a 1.5 hour ferry ride. Cornelia and I were in somewhat non-optimal condition (due to a late night before) and Mere was coming off a nine hour flight, but we packed ourselves onto the bus from my house (with tickets in hand, thanks JB) arrived at Termini to our train being sold out. The next train would get us to the ferry 10 minutes before it was leaving, so we started planning how we would sprint with our bags in tow. Once we arrived at the ferry we found out that the ferry was actually "in ritardo" by two hours, one of my favorite Italian expressions meaning late and of optimal use because this is Italy and everything is in ritardo. So we took the opp for a first prosecco and some snacks and soon boarded our ferry. The ride was really pretty and we were enjoying ourselves until 2 hours had gone by and we were still out at sea......we finally arrived after 3 plus hours on the boat and approx 7 hours of travel time - so much for close to Rome.

-Our agenda - So after finally making it to Ponza, we had a quick meal at our local eatery where Merietta requested that they put some dance music on and inquired about the local discotechs (our first info about the legendary Whiissperrre), but soon crashed into bed exhausted, which allowed us to get an early start for Saturday where we immediately set off to get after our agenda of our private boat and scooter rental. Upon arrival at Piscine Naturale, there were about three boats and when we finally got someone's attention - I explained to them that we wanted to take a boat to ourselves to go to Palmarola. He took one look at the three of us, and asked if we had any boating experience, to which I replied - Un po. And by un po, I mean I've been on a boat and I know that you have to wear stripes. After some negotiation, we agreed that he could be our guide, purchased paninis and beers, laid out in the sun, and set off for the open sea. Pietro guided us in and out of tiny caves (Cornelia took fright and thought we may be reenacting Pirates of the Caribbean), let us stop wherever to fare un bagno in the sea, and we generally had an awesome day and when we got back it was only 2pm. We thanked Pietro and headed to Frontone, a beach only accessible by boat, which is also home to Frontone beach and sports club - aka. gorgeous beach side restaurant/lounge where we were the only customers (which soon became real apparent)/aka the site of Meredith's future wedding. We had a 6 course meal with mojitos and local wine, and were enjoying ourselves so much we missed the last boat off the beach. No worries, our new friends took us back AND drove us to our apartment, where we lolled on our terrace to the sunset, and then put our game faces on to hit up the Ponza nightlife. We realized before departing, that we had already been everywhere suggested by the guidebook in our first day, only thing left to do - Whiiisperrre and scooters

Dance parties - I'm not sure why I keep moving to countries where they don't like dance parties - NZeders are too cool, and Italian girls are too Catholic/conservative. Maybe my purpose is to introduce a proper dance party to these countries - of which we certainly did on Ponza and were immediately surrounded by countless sweaty dudes wanting to spin us around the dance floor. So dance party success - although I will admit there were a few unfortunate Snookie moves executed by yours truly, but that are all Marietta's fault

-Our accommodation - I found our apartment on Homeaway.com and really didn't look much further. It was 20 euro a night each, and our gracious host Alfredo was very friendly and welcoming. We soon discovered that our 20 euro didn't give us soap, towels, or toilet paper - but it did afford us an awesome terrace with perfect views of the sunset and Palmarola (complete with a family of visiting cats). Lesson learned - pack like I'm going camping when renting Italian vacation rentals

-Clearing a room - For some reason, no matter where we went - the dance floor of Whisper or the other discoteque, or a cafe for a coffee in the afternoon, to the local gelato shop - as soon as we entered and got comfortable the whole place cleared out. At first we thought maybe a coincidence, but then we started to think we were developing a reputation and people were specifically avoiding the 3 Americans on the island

-Smallness of Ponza - To give you an idea of the smallness of Ponza, during the winter (which they still consider May, crazy Italians), there are only 1500 people on the whole island, and in summer that swells to 35,000. Given that we were visiting in "winter" there weren't many people around. Add to that that 95% of the tourists that go to Ponza are Italian, so Ponza wasn't quite ready for these three Americans and I'm not sure we were ready for Ponza. The smallness does owe itself to making friends. A few of our favs - Sam the bartender from Brazil who had a sweet spot for Cornelia and was trying to romance her with M&Ms; and whatever this dude's name was who ended up tracking us down to introduce us to his 3 year old daughter Sharon with a rocking haircut, or the bumbling man wearing a rosary who we ran into at least three times a day, everyday and for the life of me I could not understand one word that he was saying to us; and a ton of stray dogs all of whom Marietta wanted to adopt and almost did.

As mentioned above, we also made some friends on Frontone, namely the owners of the establishment, one of which was named Antonio Balzano, aka Tony Ballsy. Balzano in italian means crazy/wacky and boy we should have taken that as a sign. Tony Ballsy first impressed us at Frontone with the lavish spread, his knowledge of Ponza's history, the fact that he used to be the mayor, his previous residence in Connecticut, and his perfect English. We soon ran into Tony Ballsy everywhere we went, at first this seemed like coincidence since Ponza is so small, but then it started to get a bit weird, especially when he showed up at the ferry just to wish us goodbye.

Celebrity sightings - While we didn't find Jude Law, we did find a younger hotter version of AC Slater named Mossimo. We first spotted Mossimo on Frontone and marveled at his beauty, needless to say when he entered the discoteque later that night we made him our new best friend. After the fact, we found out that Mossimo is 22, so just about AC Slater's age in Saved by the Bell - perfect

-Italian - Marietta and Cornelia jumped full steam into Italian, with practice on our train ride to Ponza, much to the delight of those sittings next to us. Marietta mastered, "Ciao regazzi" and might have been part of the result of us making so many friends. They also both adopted Italian names for their visit, as the Ponzans couldn't quite master their American ones. The other thing that has happened both with my Dad and M and C, is that by the end of the trip they all are speaking with an Italian accent - like adding an Ehhh, and doing a lot of hand motioning, like speaking in this way makes it easier for Italians to understand you - love it. Miming is also a learned talent of each of my visitors in order to get their point across, of which Cornelia became an expert and charmed many a young man with.

-New business venture - Most of you know that Marietta and I launched a business a few years ago named Good In Bead. It wasn't a raging success mostly because neither of us have the patience for actually making the jewelry - a problem, but they say it takes 10 ideas before a successful business is launched so we're not giving up. Well a new idea has been hatched in the way of SheMoon Adventures - a travel planning company geared towards girls/young ladies/regazze that are interested in adventure and a bit of an ego boost. Ponza is well suited to this venture - so Mere and I will be writing this trip off as research (oh right I don't pay taxes, zing!). Stay tuned for more SheMoon Adventure locations, of which the site of my original MeMoon, Samoa is obviously one. Now open for business...

So back to that agenda - you may have noticed that we didn't scooter, it wasn't for lack of identifying our scooter rental location, it was more that in the end we didn't think we could handle it given how the rest of our weekend played out and the narrowness of the roads/oncoming traffic - you're welcome (for now) Mom. We did however also squeeze in a nice lazy day of shopping in Ponza where Marietta scored two pairs of childrens shoes, and I got a scarf with stripes for our boatride home

So all in all, it was awesome, hilarious, and my favorite part was definitely just having time to lounge and catch up on our hopes and dreams. As I said in my last post, to have dedicated time with so many favorites in my life makes me feel very very lucky. Marietta and Cornelia, it took me awhile to come down off the high of your visit, and to help myself cope I've been looking into our next SheMoon for October!!!!

And tomorrow.....Bob arrives! I know it appears as though I don't work, but I promise you that I do and full-time with technically no vacation days. About one year ago, Bob came to visit me in New Zealand where we journeyed through Middle Earth and chased down waterfalls - this time we're chasing down George Clooney and conquering volcanoes........