Nautical Knots

Seeing this clever Blackberry ad over at Black*Eiffel reminded me of last summer. I spent a few wonderful weeks in Italy, mostly in Sorrento and Rome (where Alex proposed). In Sorrento, we rented a house for 10 days... it was such a great spot, on the top of the hill overlooking the bay and Mt. Vesuvius. We would take little day trips to Capri and Naples and ate some of the most amazing food.

 This is the view from one of our balconies. And yes, that is an olive grove underneath us and Mt. Vesuvius in the background. I want to go to there.

I bring all this up because the house had this framed picture of nautical knots that I became obsessed with. It wasn't just a picture though. It was actually little teeny ropes tied into knots that had all of the knot names hand written underneath in Italian. Some of you might not understand why I would want such a thing but I have my reasons (my dad is a sailor and I speak Italian for starters).  I was convinced that it was an old school touristy purchase circa 1970s, so I  scoured every shop I could trying to find something similar. No luck. I could find plenty in English but none in Italian. The search continues...

For good measure, here is a picture of me and Alex before we went to dinner at the Don Alfonso - one of a handful of restaurants in Italy with 3 Michelen stars. All I'm going to say is 7 course tasting menu followed by a tour of their state-of-the-art kitchen and their wine cellar which just happens to be in a cave that was hand-carved into the mountain side by the Etruscans.  If you're ever in the area you have to go.