Day 5: Naples' museums

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Curses! Foiled again by public transportation!

This morning, we set no alarm, but were still up at 7:30. We had to pack our suitcases with some more souvineers, so it took a bit longer than usual. Still, we were ready by 9:30. After dragging our bags to the top of the stairs, we learned that we had just missed a bus and it would be 45 minutes until the next one. But we used the time to enjoy the view and read more in our guidebooks. After we finally got down the hill, we had to wait another 30 minutes for the Circumvesuviana, which itself took over an hour to reach Naples.

Finally, we checked into our hotel at 1:30. It was difficult to find, as their directions given online were extremely vague. They also gave us a free upgrade, but the room isn't anything special. We also learned that the reason all the dumpsters are overflowing is because all the sanitation workers are on strike. At least it's not always this bad!

By then we were hungry, so we tried to follow Rick Steve's horrid directions to a local pizzeria. The street names here change every few blocks, we have discovered. We had three different maps on hand, each of which was slightly different. We were the only tourists walking down narrow, dark streets, so it felt a little disconcerting. Finally we found the place, and the line was out the door. So we went to one across the street that was also mentioned in the books. Our originally intended joint only served two kinds of pizza; this one had about 4 dozen. We were confused by a couple that looked exactly alike, so I asked the men next to us and used their recommendation. That was a mistake. The difference was that our pizza margherita had pomodorini, cherry tomatos, instead of sauce. Greg thought it was good, but I was very disappointed.

Next we got lost trying to find Cappella San Servero, which has zero signs or long lines of tourists. It's just on a little side street, practically hidden. But the inside was indeed impressive. We didn't spend long there, but really liked it. I think we should have gotten the audio tour in order to better know what we were seeing. Even our best guidebook only had 2 whole pages on the chapel.

By this time, it was after 4:00, so we walked quickly to the National Archeological Museum. Having read so much about it, I think our expectations were too high. Also, at least a third of the museum was closed off, including some parts we really wanted to see. That said, what we did see was good. The mosaics from Pompeii are particularly impressive. The statues are interesting, but most of them are Roman copies of Greek originals, and we couldn't help but wonder if something was lost in translation. After having seen so many similar pieces from the Renaissance, these didn't seem as good. But since they were 1500 years older, it's not really a fair comparision. We found the museum layout to be a bit confusing, because all of the Pompeii works are not together. Instead, things were grouped by type, and it wasn't always clear what things were from different origins. For example, all the housewares were together, but some are from Ercolano, some from the Roman baths near Rome, some from other random places. And most everything was only minimally labeled in Italian. Overall, it was not as tourist-friendly as we had hoped.

With tired feet, we left about 6:30 and took the metropolitana to the waterfront. We sat in a park for a while, then found a trattoria recommended in one of our books. Greg ordered the swordfish pasta, and I got my perfect pizza margherita I had been wanting. We rode the metro back to our hotel, and were brave enough to walk the streets at night. Which was no problem, of course.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow afternoon and the next morning. So we're planning to visit Caserta and Paestum, respectively. Hopefully, we won't have any more trouble with transportation.

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