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Published: June 23rd 2005
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Well, so much for finishing Italy! I wrote Part 1 and completely forgot that I hadn't done the rest!
So anyway, we caught a train at night from Florence to Naples, and eventually made our way out of the station and through the very dodgy station area to our hotel, which was nice and close, though through a very stange little door-within-a-door, into a courtyard where residents parked their car and up a pay-per-ride lift! Luckily the hotel was run by the most charming old Italian man called Mario. For some reason (though we were paying very little) we were given a suite, with 2 bedrooms, great bathroom, eating area etc all with marble floor and the hugest bed we'd ever seen! It was honestly about 2x the width of a normal double bed. Mario brought us our breakfast each morning (I think he was bored though because he was always early and woke us up!).
On the saturday we explored Naples, including some churches in the historic centre, Spaccanapoli. We ventured up the hill by funicular after a very traditional lunch (pasta i ceci - pasta with chickpeas! - was awesome though stodgy) to a 14th centure Carthusian
Capri
These houses looked a little precarious to us! monastery which was pretty unexciting, and the church was so decorated it was difficult to know where to look. The complex did however have spectacular views out over the bay to Vesuvius (through the smog of course). But as you will see, smog sure does something for sunsets!
(Naples was pretty amazing. I'm still not sure if I really liked it or not. It was certainly extremely vibrant and exciting, but I never felt entirely safe there.)
Sunday was bright and sunny so we headed down to the wharf early to catch a ferry over to the island of Capri. I nearly had my wallet stolen on the bus, thankfully I noticed the unsavoury characters hand on the zip of my bag before he got anything, but it shook me a little!
Capri was beautiful, though the famed Grotte Azura (Blue Grotto) wasn't open unfortunately, they claimed the sea was too rough, despite us having had a most relaxing hour long ferry ride watching the flat blue waters! in fact we suspect pretty much everything on Capri closes down over winter, but noone will tell you this until you've already paid for and ridden the ferry over
Pompeii
You could wander round the excavations just like the town it used to be. there! It is a summer haven for the rich and famous, and is spectacularly set high on the cliffs. We caught a bus (since the funicular was closed!) up to the town of Capri and wandered around the empty streets. We finally found some average bread and fantastic gelato for lunch and caught another bus over the hill to Anacapri, the other town (such original names). This too was pretty much deserted, so Eamonn and I took a long walk along the tiny paths that link all the houses on the island, climbed someones large stone wall and sat under their grape vines in the sun reading and looking out over the ocean. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon 😊 We ferried back to Naples later on, and discovered the fare of the home of pizza . They are perfect, and I suspect I may never eat a pizza with cheese on it ever again. A little boy sneezed on my pizza as his family were leaving, and his mother just smiled indulgently at him! It started pouring with rain on our way back to the hotel though and we got soaked. Naples is a fairly poor city,
and drainage obviously isn't a priority. Within 10 minutes we were leaping over decent sized lakes in the road.
The next morning (Monday) I woke up feeling pretty crappy, with a cold and achy limbs. (I'm quite sure it was from the sneezed-on pizza). But we were really keen to see Pompeii so we caught a train and sat opposite 2 americans. We couldn't quite figure out if they were together or not. They seemed pretty close, but the woman kept going on and on about how she'd cheated on her husband because he'd cheated on her (but she was more successful at cheating apparently because she was so good looking!) the guy looked bored out of his mind (she had a really annoying voice too). they got off at Pompeii too but we avoided them and went the opposite way round the ruins!
I hadn't realised how large the excavations were. They cover a huge area and there are exmaples of many facets of ancient Roman life. We particularly liked the bakery, where you can still see the mills that were run by horses walking in a circle to grind the grain, and the stone ovens. The
The Colloseum
Eamonn and I outside, with my great red puffy jacket Eamonn found on sale in France! casts of people were pretty disturbing, their faces are almost universally set in masks of horror or pain. The surviving tiles and frescoes are amazing though, and they have found many pots and jugs too. Some of the houses of the rich, which were huge, even had indoor gardens. There was also an arena and theatre area which are very well preserved. It was quite eerie, but an incredible place.
In the evening, we caught a train to Rome, the last stop on our Italian itinerary. We stayed in a little pensione close to Termini station, a huge bustling complex of a train station, with a crazy tiny little woman who spoke no english at all! Interesting...
On Tuesday we met up with Torse (who had already been in Rome for a while) and visited the Roman forum, a real jumble of Roman ruins and the Colloseum. We had an audio guide that delighted in dramatising the deaths (by lion of course) of early christians or other evil doers. It is an amazing structure though, and was interesting to see where all the different ranks of people (by people I mean men of course, women were not allowed inside for most events) sat. We also trekked along the road to Piazza Venezia, with the enormous typewriter monument, and had a very overpriced smoothie at a cafe.
Eamonn and I continued on to the Piazza del Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo is on the most important of Rome's seven hills. The facades are quite beautiful, if a little imposing, but we didn't have any energy to go inside, so we just peeked from doorways, without paying, to have a look at a few of the ancient sculptures inside the Musei Capitolini.
Rome is amazing!..............
Part 3 to follow!
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