Have you ever been somewhere you had no intention of going, but were glad you did?

When my family and I went to Italy in April we had only two goals: Spend Holy Week in Rome and see Pompeii.

 

Holy Week in Rome was crazy-busy and the convent we stayed in, while close to the Vatican, was on a hill behind it. Needless to say we got a lot of exercise and by the time we left Rome we were all ready to relax.

 

Our train from Rome dropped us in Naples where we rented a car and drove to San Giovanni Rotondo, which I already wrote about here. From there we headed southwest to the seaside town of Sorrento, where we had planned to spend the last days of our vacation. Sorrento has a good train system that would allow us easy travel to Pompeii and make day trips to Naples and the surrounding area. What we didn’t know was that most every person in Italy has the week following Easter off. And as luck would have it they think Sorrento is a pretty awesome vacation spot too. After all, the Amalfi Coast is beautiful and can be seen from the two lane highway that hugs the jagged coastline. The most picturesque thing I’ve ever seen and apparently Italians think so too. Did I mention there is only one way in and one way out? And as soon as we got there my husband wanted out. Several stuck-in-traffic hours later, we were off this tiny peninsula and headed south to the coastal town of Salerno.

Salerno is a port city with ferries departing each day to Amalfi and Positano. We have stayed in Salerno before, some 20 years ago before our daughter was born. That time, we stayed above a bar outside the town. This time, being smarter travelers, we stayed in a nicer part of town and rented two rooms in a house not far from the city’s main square.

Driving through the town’s narrow private streets, we had to squeeze our tiny car into a courtyard parking lot. Well, it was really more of a small niche resembling a courtyard in the center of some small shops. We entered our lodgings via a breezeway between a luggage shop and a shoe store into yet another small courtyard. There, an old man stood filling a bucket with fruits, vegetables and some small tools. Attached to the bucket was a rope; the man’s wife was at the other end three stories up waiting to pull in her groceries through an open window.

With no bucket of our own, we carried our luggage up three flights of stairs to the home where Massimo, an attorney and the father of the homeowner, was waiting to show us to our rooms. His son was away on business and he was helping for the weekend.

Inside, the marble floors, long drapes and French provincial furniture met our expectations of what an Italian’s home would look like. On the wall just inside the door was a framed piece paper with blue stripes on either corner. I immediately recognized them from Mother Teresa’s striped habit. Printed on the paper was a poem that read:

Viva La Vita: Live the Life

“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
― Mother Teresa

Massimo showed us to our rooms. The linen drapes flapped in the late morning breeze, in the distance I could hear the old couple talking to each other in the courtyard, doilies covered the arms of the chair and on my daughter’s bed is a large oval plaque with an image of St. Anthony on it – my husband’s patron saint.

We were home for the next few days. We settled in and took the last ferry out to Amalfi.

We had never intended to come to Salerno so I never bothered to check what there was to see here. We took the train the following morning to Pompeii and the next day we went to Naples’ city center. On our final evening in Italy, we walked down Via dei Mercanti, the main shopping drag of Salerno where each evening and late into the night, the locals perform the “passegiata,” a casual evening stroll by the entire family. Visiting a cafe we had stopped at once before we realized there was a grand Cathedral directly opposite. After a few weeks in Europe you become so used to them you just don’t always notice what is right in front of you.

Ascending the Cathedral steps, the large main door was propped open. Fully expecting another stately church on the other side we entered through the door into a large, empty courtyard save for a small fountain in the center. Across the courtyard was sacristan pulling a cart of vestments into the church – I followed.

 

Inside we were greeted by some of Italy’s most beautiful and intact mosaics. We spent the next hour wandering, praying and sneaking a few pictures. In the front of the church in a side niche is a door with a sign that reads “Crypta.” Of course, it’s Italy and there are lots of dead people here. I left my husband and my daughter, who were on some secret quest I wasn’t about to interrupt, and descended the stairs. Beneath the church is a fantastically beautiful crypt decorated to honor the tombs’ inhabitants, but one in particular, St. Matthew, as in the Apostle.

A grand statue of the evangelist towers over the tomb where his remains lie.

My husband was still on his secret quest but I was sure I had found the better part of Salerno. Meeting up with my husband I discovered he was reading about another inhabitant of the church, Pope Gregory VII. From what my husband could translate from the signs, Pope Gregory was exiled from Rome (not sure of the reasons) and took up residence in the castle on the hill above the town. He died there, a hermit. One of the few known popes buried outside of Rome.

So glad we wandered around that day.

Moral of the story: When in Italy always check your guide book, there’s a dead body buried around every corner. And some of them are Saints. 🙂

To see more picture of the Salerno Cathedral you can follow me on Instagram.