I took this ‘behind the scenes, pants down’ late afternoon iPhone shot of a Naples back street in mid June ’16 and wished at the time, I had taken my camera with me.

A couple of months later, I went back to the exact same location, time and day of the week etc., with the idea of reshooting it with my Nikon. No sooner had I raised my lens, than I found myself encircled by a group of dubious ‘compadres’, wanting to know why I was photographing ‘their’ street, rather than as they suggested, Capri. They just couldn’t see what I could see!

by Roland Blunk (iPhone pic)

We are enjoying a few months at Carmela’s house in the Campania region of Southern Italy. Situated in the foothills of the Apennines that run down the spine of Italy, it’s well positioned for exploring so much of what’s great about Italy. Rome, Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi coast are all no more than a couple of hours drive and even Capri is within a morning’s drive and sail.

However on this visit, it was the lesser known areas that caught the eye. We had a splendid evening in Castello, a small mountain village that puts on a series of ‘Festas’ at this time of year.

But it was in the small Roman walled town of Alife, pronounced ‘A-leaf-a’, that caused my biggest surprise. Usually I have my camera ready for the unexpected, but what happened next as I wandered the tightly packed streets of the Tuesday morning market, was a moment of pure Felliniesque magic, that could have graced the great director’s ‘La Strada’.

I found myself strolling a few strides behind a woman who was perhaps thirty, slender and tall by local standards, wearing a flowing calf length white dress. Just behind her was a young lad, no older than 5 or 6, that I took to be her son. All of a sudden in one magically naughty moment, the son lifted the tail of his mother’s dress above her waist as if a bridal gown, for all to see she was wearing no underwear! And the lad collected a sharp slap on his cheek, for choreographing the entertainment.

Why can’t Suffolk markets be so titillating!

by Roland Blunk

…and get to dress as a medieval milk maid as well! As Carmela and I are planning to escape Suffolk Hotel life and pass through Bruges this summer, I decided to check out a restaurant that had been recommended to me a while ago. After scouring their recent TripAdvisor reviews, I stumbled on a sublime example of how to write a great review:

“…A quick trawl of the internet revealed a list of top restaurants in Bruges and phone calls were made. The first two declined our custom, I obviously didn’t sound “quite the thing” we checked later on and they had free tables so how did they know that I like to walk out on an evening dressed as a medieval milk maid, replete with black teeth and eye patch?

Anyway Malesherbes had a table, was conveniently around the corner and they had a table, plus chairs, negating the need for my milking stool, so we set out arm in arm, my wife in search of food, I in search of marital reconciliation and the possibility of a cow to milk.

The restaurant was full, and several were turned away during our meal. Our starters of home made leek quiche were superb, particularly the pastry, and negated the need to negotiate soup which has all gone wrong on previous occasions as both my wife and I struggle with spoons.

Duck, sausage and beans to follow for me, which promised a repeat factor of five in the following hours but hardly raised the duvet during the night. My wife opted for the beef which was a concern as red meat often makes her aggressive, however this was so beautifully cooked that we left the restaurant in raptures.

The food is fantastic, the wine wonderful and the service sublime.

Mission accomplished, we departed arm in arm with the day’s misdemeanours a distant memory, no cows required milking, so we visited the restaurants that had declined our custom and belched post prandial contentedness at their empty tables”.

by Roland Blunk and Anon, photo by Anon

Whenever I travel, I’m always looking for ideas to bring back to Suffolk and our recent visit to Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps, not so far from Salzburg, was one such opportunity.

The Austrian Alpine menu is invariably very traditional, with a selection of heavy dishes that, although quite tasty and certainly filling, do not ooze subtlety. Oodles of calories are maybe just the ticket if you are about to assault the Hahnenkamm, but perhaps not for our delicate palettes. However, just when I was on the verge of giving up the thought of exporting a little bit of Austria back to Suffolk, I discovered their cheese dumpling soup. The Austrians don’t believe in using three words where just one will do, and so ‘Kaspressknodelsuppe’ has made it onto our home menu.

Shakespeare likened food with music as well as love, so lets just say that whilst music has an infinite capacity to be fresh and innovative, although little is, food is far more about embracing influences and reinventing classical or traditional dishes.

by Roland Blunk

This has been my 59th ski trip to date, some of which have been pure holiday, most of which I’ve worked as a ski guide, occasionally attended training courses and other times coached. But on this occasion I was just a punter, free to pull up and lunch wherever and whenever I liked, without worrying about the dozen skiers on my tail. Just Carmela.

Zermatt is very much my preferred destination and this trip did not disappoint. Although I know the pistes really well here, I never tire of them. The scenery is magnificently varied, with the Matterhorn dominating the entire valley (the foothills and the Matterhorn are just visible in my iPhone snap). It’s the archetypal ‘boys own’ mountain, awesomely chilling in it’s presence, although I suspect the top section has been added on with paper mâché and chicken wire, just to acquire that finely chiselled, iconic peak. Anyway, it didn’t prevent ‘Caran d’Dache’ and ‘Toblerone’ making excellent use of it!

The restaurants, generally regarded as the finest mountain eateries in the world, are the other great attraction. A couple of hours ago we pulled up at the restaurant in Zum Zee, a chocolate box mountain hamlet (pictured above), perched just above Zermatt. So popular that the only lunch option was ‘al fresco’ in -10c! Perhaps surprising for those unfamiliar with Alpine ‘dry’ air, the outside tables were almost as busy as those inside, as we grabbed the rugs provided, wrapped up and anticipated our meal.

by Roland Blunk (iPhone pic)

It’s Wednesday early evening and I’ve just planted a couple of lemon trees in the hard baked ground outside Carmela’s house in Southern Italy. Using a pick axe and spade, I feel I now know what it’s like to be a fugitive from a chain gang!

My hands are blistered …and my back aches, and so we decided to ease the pain by dining at Valentina’s, in the nearby mountain village of San Gregoria. We call first to check she’s open, she’s not but insists we come and she’ll open up anyway. This makes us feel pretty bad either way: ungrateful if we decline or inconsiderate if we go. We decide to be inconsiderate and arrive just as the sun dips down. Our hostess is a typically rotund Italian mama, in her late sixties who cooks from the heart and speaks far too fast to give me a chance. Her menu is always simple, just a couple of dishes per course, always verbal with never a sordid mention of the price. The wine is charged by how much of the bottle we drink.

The first time we ate here we were a bit apprehensive. Were we about to be ‘tucked up’ for my ‘give away’ English accent? But not so, the bill has always been more than reasonable and on this occasion 18 euros was excellent value for my pasta, Carmela’s steak, a shared ‘Mille foglia’ dessert, a bottle of mineral water and half bottle of an excellent local red wine. By this time memories of the ‘chain gang’ had long receded.

If only life back in Suffolk, could be as ‘laid back’ as this.

by Roland Blunk, engraving by Anon (I was away that day)