That sense of peace, which we had not experience up to that point in this most frenetic city, was also the case as we arrived at Ettore, a well known establishment that had been on our list of restaurants to visit and which had come highly recommended by Giuseppe our tour guide that morning.  So excited was Giuseppe for us to try Ettore, in fact, that he phoned the owner, a friend of his, and arranged an outdoor table for us.  We arrived a half hour late, which in Naples is impossibly early, and our table was waiting.

We ordered too much food, our standard m.o. in this town where we had been sampling pizzas from Naples best knowns pizzerias, and included a pizza margherita and one with arucola and prosciutto crudo.  And I must say that Ettore’s pizza was among the best we ate, a real accomplishment given that it is a full restaurant unlike many of the pizzerias we had patronized.

And so we moved on to our main course, a couple of plates of mixed fried fishes and a heaping bowl of sauté – sauteed clams in a deliciously briny broth when our dinner was disturbed by the restaurant’s musician, a soloist on guitar singing haunting Neopolitan ballads.  After a while he gravitated toward our table and with a great deal of dexterity I was able to record him on my iPod.  The audio may not do justice to his voice, but I can say that the food and the meal would not have been as wonderful or as memorable without him.

We hold our Italian memories dear because they are dear memories.  And as with most of our cherished Italian memories it is the layering upon layering of irresistible pleasures, pleasures piled so high that you think you cannot add one more without the whole thing falling.  And so it was that night in Naples, the end of a trip.  The company of good friends and the addition of yet another.  An unexpected table at a lovely restaurant on a beautiful evening, an oasis of peace and calm unexpectedly found in a roiling sea of cacophony.  A  restaurant with a full menu but serving pizzas that rivaled the dozen best we had tasted at the Naples best known pizzerias.  A couple (or more) bottles of wine and a plate of fresh fried fish.  And just when you think it could not get any better, along comes a guitar player to steal away your heart and soul, to remind you that the goodness in this world, the beauty in this place is not finite at all, but limitless.

Enjoy!