For his birthday, I took Jonathan to Positano on the Amalfi Coast south of Naples for four days. It was, of course, gorgeous. And surprisingly aerobic.

My father's grandfather came to New York from a little village near Positano at the end of the 19th century. He left under what might be called a "cloud," although the more accurate term would be a "plume" -- as in "plume of smoke rising from the smoldering embers of the family home that he burned to the ground in an act of patricidal vengeance." Long story. Obviously. Let's just say that his departure was precipitous and that I didn't spread the details of my family history around while we were in the neighborhood.

Our hotel was up on the hillside overlooking the town and the cathedral dome and the bay. The view from the bathtub (actually all the rooms, but the bathroom was the most hilarious) was spectacular during the day, but at night, with the lights twinkling on the slope across from us, it was breathtaking -- probably one of the most gorgeous bathtub views in the world. Certainly in my experience.

And the famous Amalfi lemons were going gangbusters. I did not know anything about these beforehand and had to be gently calmed down at my first sight of them. So giant! So yellow! So mutant! But it was important for me, especially, to be calmed because I was actually driving our car at the time of the first sighting of them and even someone inured to the hair-raising Via Capriglia, with its fourteen blind hairpin switchbacks, is hard put to handle the road into Positano. Via Capriglia may be equally narrow and equally twisting, but there aren't giant double-decker tour buses going both ways down it. Truly, the Positanesi must have nerves of steel.

And thighs of steel, too. The streets are mostly steep staircases going precipitously up and down the hillside and, going up, just when you think you are getting to the landing place at the top, you turn the corner only to discover that the "landing" place is actually only a "pausing" place to give you a chance to catch your breath and make your peace with God before continuing on your journey to the heights. I would have done (more) whining about it, but I was shamed by the elderly Positanesi going trippingly about their business like fleet (and very well-dressed) mountain goats. We even saw some construction workers carrying loads of construction material up a stair-street on their backs. Not trippingly, perhaps, but still. Being passed by a guy carrying a 200-pound marble countertop on his back going up five hundred steps has a dampening effects on complaining about the walk.

So we ate tentacles and one of the best pizzas I ever had in my life (roasted winter squash, gorgonzola, bacon and rosemary), drank limoncello and prosecco for Jonathan's birthday, took a bubblebath looking out over the nighttime view, bought four real lemons and a ceramic one, and generally had a lovely time.

But it was good to come back to lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea where the wildflowers are coming out now in profusion and our own bathroom has a view down to the sea that is not to be sniffed at. I sliced our four Amalfi lemons and made candied lemon slices with them for want of anything else to do with so much mutant citrus. Should the apocalypse come now, we can hunker down for months with no fear of scurvy. So that's a relief.

And a giant spider had moved into the kitchen while we were away -- a big, bulbous thing that you know was just filled with blood and guts from its victims. Lots and lots of victims, by the looks of it. Jonathan, emboldened after our recent flirtation with death on the roads of Positano and feeling immortal, captured it and took it far away from the house to release it. But I know now that it is out there lurking somewhere and I know that it is not alone. I'm glad that something is around to keep the insect population at bay, but knowing that the spider and its ilk are near does make putting on a pair of closed-toe shoes more death-defying than would normally be my preference.