Rome-ing - Naples

The first quote from Railbookers had us taking the train from Florence to Naples with a private transfer from Naples to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast with a stop at Pompeii. My main reason for wanting to go to Naples was to see Pompeii; I didn't just want a stop enroute to Amalfi.  Don't get me wrong, someday I'd love to go to the Amalfi coast but I'd rather do a tour focusing on southern Italy when I do go.  We asked just to stay in Naples, the only hotel on offer was the Holiday Inn in the business district but it was close to the train station and to a subway station so we felt it would be fine.

We took a taxi from the train station to the hotel. It wasn't really that far but because I hadn't been able to street view a good walking route from the train station, but also because when I did street view that part of Naples, the area just beyond the hotel seemed like a no mans land; it seemed the wise thing to do. The hotel was nice; the issue we had was because it really was in a business district, nothing up there was open in the evening.

After settling in to our hotel room, we made our way to the nearby subway station and went back to the train station, first to find the location where our tour the next day would depart from and then to walk Spaccanapoli. When I researched Naples, the best description I could find was "gritty" and yes, that certainly was true but I have to admit I did enjoy the chaos as in someway it was very vibrant especially when you came across local markets.

Spaccanapoli is a narrow street that splits Naples. It's actually what the name means, Naples Splitter. It's not just one street but a number of streets that go almost from where we were in the business district down to the port.  It's filled with small merchants, souvenir shops and restaurants.  One side street off of Spaccanapoli sells all kinds of Christmas Nativity scenes. 

Since most restaurants didn't open until 7:30pm, we made our way back to the hotel where we could order food from the bar, even the hotel restaurant didn't open until 7:30pm. The next day we would have our tour of Pompeii and Vesuvius. The details we had from Railbookers was that we had to pay for the local guides but that lunch was included; turned out to be just the opposite, the guides were already paid and there was a set lunch that we could pay for. 

Our guide was very good, we had an excellent tour of Pompeii. You could spend two or three days thre and not see the same things. We saw one of the theatres, the thermal baths, the markets, a bakery and some of the homes.  It's amazing to think they had that kind of technology so many centuries ago. The city was buried in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted.  

Many of the mosaics are reproductions; the originals now in the Archeological Museum in Naples. We had lunch before boarding the bus to go to Mount Vesuvius. Unfortunately, our guide had received word that the trail was closed due to high winds. We drove up Vesuvius anyway and waited for a bit to see if the winds would die down. 

The winds didn't die down so we ended up getting back to Naples early. We took the metro went down to the port. There are two castles there, Castel Nuevo (New Castle) and Castel dell'Ovo (Egg Castle). We walked along the water front and stopped to enjoy an appertifo.

The next day would be our free day so since we planned to use the transit system we bought day passes. We had already purchased timed tickets to see the statue of the Veiled Christ  and would do the Cloisters of Santa Chiara, a nearby church afterwards. If you're a fan of the Amazing Race, you'll know that last season they raced through Naples using one of funiculars and racing through the markets to make deliveries and to find Pulcinella, that, but intending to use transit, was my plan for the rest of the day. 

Little did I know we would have our own Amazing Race. We got to the the subway the next day only to find it closed, a lady told us we'd have to go to the train station so off we walked. It turned out there was a one day transit strike in support of Palestine. We had a choice, we could walk 25 minutes to the Sansevero Chapel Museum or take a taxi; we walked and so started our Amazing Race of Naples. On the way down to the chapel we did see a scooter driver make a delivery to a home just the way they did on Amazing Race, by putting the delivery into a bucket lowered down by the purchaser. 

You can't take pictures inside the Sansevero Chapel but if you think Sistine Chapel with many marble sculptures, you'll get the idea and you can find pictures online. The next place we visited was the Cloisters of Santa Chiara. I was amazed at these places behind the non descript building walls you saw from the street. The cloisters are filled with painted tiles as well there was a museum, an archeological site and an 18th century Nativity scene

We had found out that the funiculars were still running so we headed off to find the Montesanto Funicular so we could go to Castel Sant'Elmo.  We stopped before riding the funicular to have an afternoon apertifo .

We took the funicular up the hill and visited Castel Sant'Elmo where we had some great views of the port of Naples. When we went to go back down the funicular was closed, but it was to open again in about 45 minutes so we just went to a nearby restaurant and had another aperitifo. 

We learned that the transit was running but only during peak hours. We had missed the service in the morning but would be able to use it to get back to the hotel that evening. But before heading back to the hotel though, we had to find the bust of Pulcinella. After we found him, we took the metro back to hotel. Back at the hotel, after doing an Amazing Race of Naples, we relaxed for awhile then went to the restaurant next to the hotel for dinner.

The next day, we would be off to Rome for the last leg of our Railbookers vacation.