For obvious reasons, it often feels – and probably looks – as though we’re on vacation. But Mark & I realized not long after starting our travels that if we ate as though we were on vacation we’d be big as houses, and over the years we’ve worked to hard controlling our weight to let that happen (again). So ever for over two months now we’ve been maintaining a low-carb diet. No potatoes, no beer, no sugar, very limited bread, and until we got to Italy no pizza or pasta. Even here, we’ve been very stingy in those areas.

Every so often, though, you have to splurge, and when we discovered there was a two-star Michelin restaurant here in Ischia, we decided it was time to splurge. Last night was the big night and it was … great? The food was remarkable, that’s true. Lots of small courses of interesting food served on utterly unique plates and spoons and all that. And lots of interesting quirks. As in, if you want – and we did – you can reserve a table right in the kitchen and watch all the stuff going on. A separate menu for your choice of bottled water (we took the cheapest one…). Major production over the bread presentations, though I have to admit none of them were as good as the bread you get at any old restaurant in Naples or most of the ordinary restaurants in Ischia.One thing they got perfect was our first Negroni in many weeks – that was worth its weight in gold.

I really felt the excessiveness today – didn’t get up for my morning run, sluggish all day. So yes it was great food, but now I’m ready to be back in my food groove of lighter meals. I’ll miss the Negronis, though!

Finally, we hung out a bit today up at the castle overlooking our little section of the island. It was cloudy off-and-on all day, but when it was sunny it was beautiful.

Tomorrow we’re off to Capri for four days, after which we’re headed to Sicily for a week or so. Then it’s over to Puglia for a few days of bicycling.

And now we’re starting to think of what comes next. When we left the country in May, we knew we were going to take the train across Siberia, come down through Eastern Europe, and – in part because we had already signed up for a bike trip  in southeastern Italy – spend September and the first few days of October in Italy. But with that bike trip getting closer, it’s time to think of where we want to go next. Any suggestions? Our current inclination – no decision, but we’re mulling it over – is to go to Israel and Jordan. The weather is still nice there in October, they’re both pretty safe still, and I’ve never been there.

We’ll let you know when we figure things out.

Today was a rare cloudy day for us, with a few tiny spots of rain as well. So it wasn’t exactly a beach day, but we made the best of it.

What to do? Take a crowded bus across the island, then climb our way down to a cove with a hot spring right at the edge of the sea. And squeeze into the right little spot with all the other would-be bathers trying to warm up.

Then catch a water taxi to the stunning town of Sant’Angelo for a slow seafood lunch and find a great reading spot overlooking the sea.

After three low-key beach days in quiet Procida, we took a 30-minute ferry to the neighboring island of Ischia this morning. There’s a lot more tourism and general buzz here, a nice contrast to peaceful Procida.

Walking through the town we noticed a lot of high end retail stores with window displays dominated by winter clothes. This struck us as a bit of a non-sequitur in a beach resort town. We also thought, “Why would you go stock up on winter clothes when you could just go someplace warm?”