Have you ever eaten a peach chosen by someone else? Not just any peach.
One that you held in your hand. Turned over. Smelled. Put back in the box. Because it wasn't
the right one yet. But the next one was. Francesco puts it in the bag. With
same thing happens with bread. With the wine too. It's amazing how much
responsibility a peach can have. Especially one that, in a few hours,
will end up cut with a big knife in the middle of the sea.
The day begins right there. At Boccia. A shop where the bread comes out
still warm from the oven, the fruit crates take up half the street, and
rush seems to be an invention that has never been very successful. Every
now and then, someone stops Francesco. A question. A joke. A few words. On Ischia,
it's hard to figure out who knows whom.
When you arrive at the harbour, Francesco has already spent most of the morning
avoiding minor annoyances for you. He has wetted the deck of the gozzo before the sun warms it.
He checked the icebox. For the second time. He arranged the towels. He chooses
thick ones because, after hours of sun, they remain soft. He starts taking care
of people long before meeting them.
It doesn't take long for her to figure out if you want to talk or not. There are people to whom
he tells about Ischia. Others whose pleasure of discovering it on their own he doesn't spoil. While almost
everyone looks at the coast, Francesco looks at the sea. There are bays he enters
only in the morning. Others he waits until the afternoon to visit. Sometimes he turns off the engine.
Sometimes he keeps going straight ahead. The next day, at the same spot, he might change
his mind. “Look there.” He hands you a mask. The rest happens underwater.
The aperitif arrives unannounced. Francesco takes two plastic buckets,
plastic. The kind used for sand castles. It's hard to take them seriously. At least until
you find an ice cold beer inside. From that moment on, you stop asking questions.
The bread passes from hand to hand. The wine follows. The gozzo boat continues to rock. At
At a certain point, no one looks at the clock anymore. Which, on holiday, is a surprisingly
surprisingly rare result.
Eventually, you'll try to remember the names of all the bays. You'll confuse almost all of them. You
You'll remember a peach cut with a big knife. The sound of the engine when it
turned off. Two beach buckets that, inexplicably, seemed to have been
born just to be on that gozzo boat. Memory has questionable tastes. It insists on
take home the most precious details.

PLEASE NOTE: the item “transport” in the extra services (available for purchase) refers to the return hydrofoil from Naples;
the item “drinks” refers to drinks that you will find on board (water, coke, wine, beer);
the item “beach club” refers to admission to the beach club and includes a sunbed, umbrella, an starter of marinated vegetables and courgette flowers, and a glass of wine.