Retire Early Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this financially independent lifestyle, they invite you to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.

Our Apartment in Salerno, Italy

Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

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We had just spent another lovely time in Anzio, Italy and had plans to go to a beach town further down the coast called Salerno.

Having purchased our tickets days before, we were leaving early this morning.

The train station was an easy 30 minute walk away from our hotel, which is always a good feature when picking out lodging.

Our train was scheduled to leave at 10:12 and we should be arriving in Salerno around 2:30pm.

We boarded the train - which was on time - and left at 10:12. Only thing was… there were no seats available.

At all.

 Billy had checked the TrenItalia site previously and it said there were over 300 seats available going to Naples.

But not so (!)

We had hours to travel so this was not a good sign.

I took the first seat available when an older woman got up to leave. It was a jump seat right by the door, and while I was most grateful to have a seat at all, It was uncomfortable. For such a long trip, it was ouch on the back.

I had my bit of luggage all scrunched onto me or in between my legs. People were standing in the aisles and every lurch jostled them and their belongings.

Billy eventually was able to move up closer to me as people got off the train, but it never really cleared out. We had to change trains 3 times.

Who knew?

Other than our train ride to attempt to see Pompeii, (which was madness) this was the "worst" train-having-no-seats journey that we experienced in Italy.

That being said, we arrived safely but a bit worn out, and the pictorial of our apartment in Salerno is below.

The front door to our apartment

We arrived in Salerno between 2 and 3 – and on top of the fact that the train was nose-to-nose packed, it was also running late.

To the credit of TrenItalia, the head office had notified our connecting train and they were waiting for us! This was completely unexpected!

We made our way from the train station to the location of our apartment, got the keys from the lockbox at the gate and went up the stairs to the front door.

We were ready for a lie-down and get off our feet!

Our bedroom after it had been cleaned

When we arrived after our adventure, we opened our bedroom door and our room hadn’t yet been cleaned.

We didn't know what to do, and there was no one on site who could answer our questions.

We called the Proprietor and explained the situation.

Mrs. Owner apologized profusely saying that Manuel's car had broken down and hadn't arrived yet, but was coming soon to prepare the room.

So much for the mini-nap, as there was no where else to go to put our feet up.

Fortunately for us, Manuel arrived shortly.

Our bathroom

All being said and done, the proprietor was very agreeable and willing to please, the bedroom was big, and the bathroom was clean and had plenty of hot water.

The towel-drying rack is on the left.

The view from our bedroom out to the street

This is the view from our bedroom window out onto the neighborhood street.

We had lovely morning sun, and there was a clothesline just outside the window to hang our laundry.

The area was quiet and bright.

Our shared kitchen

Sometimes the listing of rooms, houses, and apartments can be a little less than accurate.

We had the understanding that our room came with its own kitchen - a mini apartment more or less - but it turned out that this was a shared kitchen with the other roomers.

It ended up not being "horrible" as everyone was very civilized and agreeable.

We got up very early in the morning to eat and the younger tenants stayed out late at night and got up after our breakfast. So there was no backup line in the kitchen waiting for time and space to cook meals. And while we like to cook at home, the younger ones tended to go out to Bistros, clubs and restaurants.

Great location of our apartment in the center of this map

Since breakfast was included in the price, Mrs. Owner asked us daily what we would like for breakfast and would shop that morning and drop off the items in the refrigerator.

However, the electric stoves in Italy were a challenge to us as we had never seen anything like it before.

There were switches to turn the power on and off, switches to turn each burner on and LED lights for each burner to have the temperature to go up and down. There were lights that let you know when a burner was hot, lights to let you know when the burner was heating up and lights to let you know when a burner was cooling down.

Get one thing out of sequence and the stove refused to work and had to be reset.

But once we figured out what was what... we had a great time staying here at Sapore di Sale.

Not only that, but the location was great!

Would we recommend this apartment as a place to stay?

SURE!

Just asked to be shown how the stove works before you are starving and really need to use it.

__________

Sapore di Sale

41 Via Alfonso Balzico

84122 Salerno, Italy

Tele: +39. 348. 810. 0040

Retire Early Lifestyle appeals to a different kind of person – the person who prizes their independence, values their time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly follow the crowd.

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