Hey, Neighbor

Terra cotta stairs lead to the private terrace roof with its flowered pergola, chaise longues and an outdoor shower to cool our bronzing skin. And the views confirmed that no photographic trickery had been used on the Web site. The mountain sloped below us. We could see the cathedral and a stone watchtower where the land dropped off into the sea. Capri peeked out from behind the Sorrento peninsula. To our right, across the bay, was Positano's picturesque jumble, changing color in the shifting light as the sun rose from behind Capo Sottile, arced across the sea and sank behind the bluffs.

Silence reigned, except for the sound of church bells or the slapping of a speedboat far below. Sometimes, around lunchtime, we could hear the clinking forks and muffled voices of a family in a house above us.

One afternoon when we were leaving the villa to catch the bus to Marina di Praia, a little beach recommended in our guidebook, we met Luigi in the courtyard. He was coming to offer us zucchini from his garden. When we told him of our plans, he recommended that we instead walk to "nostra spiaggia" (our beach), La Gavitella, which gets sun all day. Marina di Praia is sunny only in the morning, he said.

We followed the tile signs "alla spiaggia" (to the beach) down flowered alleyways below the cathedral and a series of steps (naturally), then another 10 minutes to a tiny strip of rocky beach. We rented two lounge chairs and an umbrella and joined the handful of locals lying around. The water was translucent and emerald green, warm and salty. Children piled onto the tremendous boulders and took turns diving into the sea.

Across the bay in Positano, the sandy beach was carpeted with people. La Gavitella was a hideaway beach. We didn't have sand beneath our toes, but the dramatic setting was like none I'd ever seen.

There's a restaurant just above the beach that was recommended to us on several occasions. But after that first night, we never ate outside our villa, except for drinks or dessert. I made a spicy sausage ragu over maccheroncini from sausage Maria the butcher had made fresh that morning. I cut Luigi's zucchini into thin disks, cooked it in garlic-infused oil and served it over spaghetti, as I'd had it in Positano a month earlier. I squeezed fragrant lemons picked from the tree outside our door and mixed the juice with ice and sugar for a thick, refreshing drink.

I wrestled an octopus, too. The fishmonger had cleaned the ink out of its pouch, but it was my job to cut the tangled beast into pieces when I got home. The problem was that the sharpest knife in the kitchen was a butter knife. Phil finally tamed the octopus with scissors, clipping each slimy tentacle into little pieces. After all that work, though, it turned out to be the only flop in my week-long menu. Evidently sauteing octopus is not the way to go.

More Than Landlords

One of the challenges of renting an Amalfi Coast villa is the language barrier. Often the owners of the villas don't speak much English. Nevertheless, having the owners on the property was a wonderful experience. Luigi and Ana were always available, offered to drive us to get groceries, helped us navigate around town and gave us zucchini and green beans from their garden.

They also offered us friendship. It is a priceless experience to walk around a town in a country so far from your own and encounter a friend. We met Salvatore one day at the fish market. We met Ana outside the cathedral with a bagful of petals, on her way to decorate the piazza for her son's Communion ceremony. Then, on our last afternoon in Praiano, we bumped into Luigi on our walk from the bus stop back to the villa.

He told me he had something important to ask me, and I anticipated it would be about the money for the final cleaning or the hour when we would vacate the villa the next morning.

"Zucchini," he said urgently. "My wife wants to know if you want more zucchini."

It is heart-wrenching to leave a life in which matters of money yield to those of fresh produce. I find that I am left with a persistent longing for that way of life, like a perennial hunger pang for something simple and delicious. Perhaps young zucchini, cooked slowly in garlic-infused olive oil.

Nicole Cotroneo is the author of "NY Girl Eats World," a food and travel blog. She last wrote for Travel about New York's Hudson River Valley.