Naples a City to Leave Quickly

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My flight was early on a Monday morning from Cologne/Bonn airport to Naples, Italy. The flight actually got us in at around 10am in the morning so we had most of the day to explore the city of Naples. I was traveling the 2 weeks with a good friend named Rachel who lived in Cologne and Bonn during the year we lived in Germany. The 2 of us had done little prior planning on what to see in the cities we visited and figured we would just wing it. On our bus ride from the airport to the hotel we spoke with an American man that warned us about how unsafe Naples was and that there was really not much to see. After speaking to him and looking out the bus window we notice it was very dirty. We got to our hotel which was actually very nice and decided that we would instead go to Pompeii that day.

We found the main train station and figured out how to travel to the city of Pompeii. We had tried, before going to the train station, to find a beach area or at least get near the water. On our search for water we discovered how dangerous walking in Naples is since cars don’t like to stop and will often totally ignore street lights. We got on the train to Pompeii and I got to experience another example of how Germany has the cleanest and most dependable transportation. We arrived in Pompeii after a 20 minute ride and walked to the entrance of the city. Pompeii is the famous city that was totally destroyed when Mt. Vesuvius erupted and it was covered in ash and preserved until it was discovered and the excavation started. The runes are amazing and you can walk around it for hours. The weather was a little rainy but we kept looking around the amazing place. After wandering around Pompeii we decided to head to a town nearby called Sorrento for dinner. The town was very stereotypical southern Italy and we ate some of the best ice cream of our lives there. We had dinner and headed back to Naples on the train. It was an exhausting first day but well worth it once we thought of all we saw.

The next day we settled on taking a boat to the island of Capri. We headed to Naples pier on a disgusting overcrowded bus and boarded a boat for the island. We arrived and had an amazing lunch looking out on the ocean. We talked over lunch about what to do and settled on renting a boat and going around the island. We found a place that rented boats for 80 Euros for about 2 hours. While getting things organized for the boat a couple came up to us and asked if we wanted to share the cost and go together. They gave us a quick lesson on how to drive it and we headed off on our own. We found an interesting cave and got out of the boat to swim for a little while. We each took turns driving the boat along the island and really got to enjoy the sunny weather while seeing the entire island. One of the coolest stops around the island was the Blue Grotto. This is a cave that when you swim in it and look back at the entrance it makes the water glow an amazing blue. We took turns swimming into the cave. It was a pretty freaking experience swimming into a pitch dark cave with a very small entrance but well worth it once you got in. We ended our day on the boat and then took the water bus back to Naples with plans to go further down the coast to Amalfi the next day.

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Photos

Our Naples Hotel
The city was pretty dirty but we dd have a pretty good view from our hotel

Pompeii
Runes of a city hall

Amazing Runes
This was the main city center

Body Casts
When the city was excavated they made concrete molds of bodies that died during the volcano

Sorrento
The main city is up on a mountain and you must hike down to the beach

Sorento Church
Amazing area of the city center

Capri Island
The view from our water ferry

Inside a Cave
This was the first cave we swam too

Beautiful Water
On the boat near the teal blue water

Famous Rock Formation
This arch was near Capri island

Very Captain of Me
This was while I was driving the boat

Blue Grotto
We swam inside that cave hole