Our first weekend in Salerno wasn’t action packed, but great in its own way. We hung out in the city and got to know our new home.

We spent a lot of time walking around, which is apparently a big thing in Salerno. In the evening the large pedestrian street fills with people. Kevin and I were wondering if they were all going, or coming home from something we were missing out on, but after a few days of observing the families casually strolling along and stopping to say hello to friends or neighbors, we realized it was just a nice walk with no destination. However aimless, it seems to be a big part of life here and we enjoyed joining in on the tradition.

There was a flower show in town. We stopped by on Saturday to see, and smell, the beautiful blooms. I had hoped we’d see some lemon trees and I was not disappointed.

After 3 months of travelling, Kevin needed a haircut. He decided to try a little barber shop where all the men were well coiffed (man-buns!) and luckily a few of them spoke English. The beard trim was the best part. Kevin got sculpted by a man wielding a straight razor like Picasso wields a paintbrush and then had an oil applied to make the hair soft.

After the haircut we bought a bottle of wine from a restaurant called Domo. The owner was born in Italy, lived in Australia for several years, and was a really friendly guy. We felt bad about only buying the wine since the rest of the menu looked good, so we came back the next night for another taste of the wine and the best cheese and meat platter I’ve ever had. We were coached to eat each piece separately, instead of stacking meat and cheese together, to really savor the flavor of each morsel.  I’ll have dreams about this spread for the rest of my life.

In the evenings, the waterfront turns into quite the party. There are carnival rides and games, a small market with local goods and fresh baked treats, and even a puppet show set up for the kids. We weren’t sure if this was just because the flower show was in town that weekend or if it was a different special occasion, but no, the carnival was rockin’ every night for the month we were there.

One of the best surprises was, unfortunately, a one-time thing. As we walked around early one evening we thought we heard singing, but shrugged it off. Back in the apartment we had planned to eat dinner, but the singing was a bit louder now, and we could hear intermittent applause, so we couldn’t resist going to check it out.

We walked toward the voices where it seemed the opera was giving a little outdoor performance in the town square. There were 3 people, main singers, standing on a small platform in the middle of a very large crowd. Right next to us was a group of men who were accompanying them, and across the circle was a swaying and smiling group of women and even more men who appeared to be the further accompaniment. A small orchestra was set off to the left.

I wish I had a better video to more accurately portray the magic of the moment, but we only caught this song and it happened to be the last.

Do I even need to explain why we already love it here?