Naples, pizza and mobsters
After dusting off historic Rome, I was headed to the city of pizzađ and mobstersđ§ââïž, Napoli. Naples was not at all on my to-do list, but as my flight home left in the morning from the Naples airport, it made sense to make it my base for the last few days. O the horror!!
Bad first impression. Naples is a thief.
After beautiful Rome, Naples is not the city to visit. It contrasts in every way you can think off. Just after I arrived at the Napoli Centrale, the public transport ticket machine stole my money! Well, I probably must have compassion with the thing seeing as it must have been the first machine ever built.
The second time around I got a ticket out of the old timer. Then I descended to middle earth where the underground trains are. By the time I got to the platform, I was a bit komkommerd about being down this far under this very old city. And not old like Rome, but old like not taken care of for years.
Then the train came and way too many people squished into it. I got out at my stop, made the long-haul journey back to the surface and stood a little deflated at the dirty square that met my first sight. Add to that that it had started to rain. Urg.
Just one kilometre…
But fear not, it was just a kilometre to my AirBnb, I mapped it out. Kilometre schmilometer. All went well for a few metres. Until the historic centre with all its cobblestoned ‘splendour’ hit me. They were not cobblestones, they were cobble boulders. After about 10 meters or so I could not handle the hysterically bouncing be-wheeled suitcase. The bouncing was so violent that I was afraid that the wheels would literally come off. Therefore, I had to give the case a lift.
….over coble boulders is like 10!
Now a suitcase is not ergonomically designed to be carried on one side. I had to stop every few meters to get my bearings back. With each breather stop I was horrified by all the trash everywhere. Trash cans overflowing. Trash in heaps next to the pavement. Heaps against walls. And a weird sooty blackness against everything that makes me want to power- waterblast the walls and streets. Jig. I kid you not, one of my thoughts was: do people live there voluntarily?I just can’tâŠ..
Africa is dirty, there is no denying it, but it is a big space. Naples is dirty in a condensed space making it all the worse. I was not even halfway to my room when I wanted to pack up and leave. But alas, I was there and my flight was still 3 sleeps away.
Smoking from the ears.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I came to the junction in the road. But could I find my place? Noooo. The numbers are not sequential, not even close. So thoroughly fed up and probably smoking from the ears I stood in the rain and wondered what to do. I could not phone the host and ask him to come out.
I cornered someone and they directed me into a courtyard of, you guessed it, another old neglected building, but it was the correct one. Inside I had to take one of those cage-type elevators. At the 7th floor, it stopped, and as you should know by now my luck is not that good. You can probably guess what happenedâŠ. I got stuck in that cage hanging 7 floors up. I kicked and screamed like a crazy person trying to either break open the door or have someone hear me and come to my rescue.
A very disgusted neighbour did eventually come out because of the noise, but so did the host. They luckily quickly freed me. I felt like a complete idiot and was ready to call T.O.D
The flat and my room, however, were very nice. I still had to go out in search of food and had to force myself into the icky streets again. I just waked, got lost, found pizza and chips and headed back to the bed.
Better days ahead. Starting at the Amalfi coast
Salerno
I was dead tired and could not get myself out of bed the next morning. I must have snoozed for an hour, before forcing myself into the world. Luckily, this day was reserved for the beautiful Amalfi coast. I ran to the underground, âtunnelledâ my way down into earth, got to the train station just in time as the train left for Salerno.
On a side note, if you want to go to Amalfi and Pompeii. Stay in Salerno. It is super easy to reach by train and it is tons better than Naples. Hindsight ne!? Next time that is what Iâll do.
Positano
Anyway, from Salerno I got on the ferry to Positano. I loved the boat ride there. You are on this beautifully coloured ocean, and you get to see all these pretty little towns all âcrawled upâ on the side of the hill.
Amalfi
Positano was such a pretty town, as is Amalfi, where I went later. Here they love their citrus, mosaics and donkeys. I found a donkey store in Amalfi. Loved it. And found a souvenir my mother would truly love. I enjoyed those towns a lot more than the towns of the Cinque Terre. Canât really explain why. But if I get to go again I would choose the Amalfi coast over the Cinque Terre.
Back in Salerno, I easily got on a train back to Naples, walked through the trashy, sooty streets with a pizza in the one hand and âslap chipsâ in the other.
Walk like a Pompeii-ian. Striking like an Italian
After some âcoastingâ in modern times, I was back on the historic track the next day and some more unexpected âadventuresâ. I was off to Pompeii and Sorrento on the last day of my holiday. To get there I had to take a regional train. They are not run with the rest of the rails and have their own trains and routes. I made my way super early to the other train station, only to have to wait for the train to go. Some women came to me and the only English that she knew was âstrikeâ.
So, she gave me the âSâ word a few times, I nodded, but did not think much of it. After all, this is not back home where strike takes on a whole other meaning. But after a short delay, we were able to make our way to the rickety train (probably still the original train from way back when).
The city that Vesuvius buried
I got off the train at Pompeii, bought my ticket and walked along the ancient streets along with faithful old Rick. Pompeii is huge and you can spend an entire day there, but it was not as intriguing to me as was the Roman Forum. As with the Amalfi Cinque Terre thing, I canât place my finger on it. It just was. During lunch, I made my way out so that I can go to Sorrento (where I originally wanted to stay) to get my dadâs souvenir.
Going nowhere
At the train stop, I got to a pretty crowded ticket counter with some pretty agitated people. Why? Apparently, striking is a thing in Italy and no trains were running and there was no telling when they will start again. There I was in the middle of an archaeological area, which by the way you are not allowed to enter again unless you buy another ticket, with no idea how I was going to get back to Naples. And with the early flight looming, I was in a bit of a flat spin.
I had no choice but to join the rest of the commuters on the pavement outside. And so we waitedâŠ
Turned out that their strikes are not endless like the ones back home. They have end times, and before the day was done, they were training again.
A train like a bully beef can. Stampvol
There was an issue, however. People had increased at all the train stops as the day wore on. When the train finally arrived, I was shocked at the number of people on the train. I was freaked out, to say the least.
I need personal space. But at each stop, more people crammed in. How I donât know. But people were standing packed together so tightly, that nobody could fall. Nobody could breathe.
I hung from a grip on the ceiling. Closed my eyes in a useless attempt to not see all the people and think what could happen to this rickety old train should there be an accident. Then I started singing whatever praise and worship song came to mind so that I donât completely flip out.
It was like that video of the 25 people climbing out of a 10 seater taxi. Only if that train had been the taxi, the people getting out would probably have totalled 35, if this comparison makes any sense.
Beautiful Sorrento
I donât know how long the ride to Sorrento was but the gush of fresh air along with the relieve from pressure from squishing, is a feeling that I cannot explain. And when the pressure released, a headache appeared to just to remind me of all the stress of the previous hours.
But, the sun was out in all its glory, the ocean bluer than blue and you can see for miles and miles. It seems like a very pretty town, and it would have been nice to explore some more. But I wanted to get the souvenir and get back to the station and take the first train back in case they want to strike again. So, I was not there longer than maybe an hour and a half.
Almost the end
I got back to the station and got on the first available train. When it pulled out of the station I was finally able to relax. The sun was still shining by the time I got back to Naples and it made me notice the ikkyness a little less
I went home, packed and when that was done, I was happy as a clam. I even felt like exploring some of Napoli. Not a lot, but at least to the castle where there was another cache.
And then it was the last morning. I had a sleepless night, afraid that the strike will go on and that I will not get to the airport. So, I got up super early. Schlepped my suitcase over the cobbled boulders, and made all kinds of plans to reach the airport should the strikers strike again. But everything turned out super smooth. There was no lingering strike and I got to the airport in plenty of time. The airport, with its huge windows and plants (the only plants that I saw in Naples) can be very misleading if it is your point of entry. And then that was that. To me, Naples was a âcolourfulâ memory if nothing else.
2 last random things
I have a friend who went there before me and she loved Naples. So, the point is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe my glasses were dirty or something.
Another thing that I thought funny before I went was the Mob. đ§ââïž Yes, the actual Mob. When I did my searching before I went, I found a forum for Naples. This one guy listed some funny things that people have asked him about Naples. The one that had me laughing was: If I go to Naples, will I get killed by the Mob? I thought that was funny and a bit weird. The Mob. Really?
So I googled âmobâ and âNaplesâ and found that the city seems to be run by the Mob. As a matter of fact, the day that I did the search, there was a suspected mob killing in town. That should have told me: stay away from Naples. Not so much about the Mob thing but about everything else.
You can see that there is no love lost between me and Naples, but all the other towns that I visited from this base of operations were spectacular. I did have Pizza there but did not see anybody get whacked. So I guess I did not get the whole Napoli experience.đ
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