6/10/13 – Sunday
Apologies to all our Italian friends who were trying to explain to us that Napoli is a horrible, dirty place not worth spending more than a day in. Ok you were right.
Our first impressions of Napoli are not very good. Chaotic, filthy and scary place with huge amount of dodgy, shady people selling shit (5th hand stuff) on streets and making mess all around the town – not so great. We were exhausted and I’ve got flu (awesome!) so I touched the bed and fell asleep for few hours. We went strolling through the town in afternoon, very cautious of our belongings.
As much as you try you can’t ignore piles and piles of rubbish, bottles of beer laying all around and drunk peoples all around… Everywhere! Serious! We were considering advising the mayor what ‘dustbin men’ are (ok, I was definitely like: let me tell u how to run this place!), the whole thing was like an open wound on a city that many years ago must have been beautiful, proud and a distinguished city. It was all a bit saddening.
The next morning we woke up to a little bit different world. First things first; we went for a breakfast to our hotel’s roof terrace with a lovely view. And just a first glimpse at the city proved how wrong we were about it yesterday. Dustman’s exist! They were just finishing of sweeping of all last night’s dirt and mess. Streets were almost clean and city was booming with life! People going to work, rushing for the train, various shops were opening, kids going to school. Pretty standard European life.
The only thing that hasn’t changed was the traffic! What an experience! Things that are normal and widely acceptable are: honking your horn on everyone around, crossing the road anywhere you want, driving motorbike or scooter on pedestrian crossing or across any road in any direction, parking your car on pedestrian crossing or on any crossing for that matter etc. The only rule is there are no rules! Whatsoever! It’s a clamper paradise if anyone would actually pay the fee… Highly doubtful.
Let’s go to see Vesuvius!
Obviously we got lost! Which is part of the fun especially if on a way you find people who with little English try as much as they can explain to you how you need to get to the place you are trying to get. Like a lady bus driver who let us out at the exact place where we needed to change and on her way back stopped the whole bus to check for us when we can expect the bus or what else we can do to get there. Lovely, friendly people.
Back to black… I mean Napoli! Evening full of tasty things; perfecto and humongous pizza, later watermelon and grapes. Somehow all tastes much better here!
We did socialise a bit but we ended up talking to a very bitter American woman from Hawaii who could not come up with single positive thing about her trip to Europe so will skip that.
Big plan of going to Pompeii. Breakfast at 9:07 sharp. Rain. Back to bed. Wake up. Rain. No Pompeii today.
Instead let’s see more Napoli. Walking being our favourite way of transport, we take the scenic (lost again) route to Castelo st. Elmo which sits proudly on a hill overlooking the city. It was worth going there in every aspect.
The view of Napoli and Vesuvius was just absolutely breathtaking. In addition we have met the sweetest and most helpful old Italian lady. Amazing how if you choose to try hard, lack of common language isn’t that much of a problem.
Tomorrow Rome! Can’t wait! Napoli showed us it’s better face after all but still, walking around in the evening no fun! Will not miss that place even though we did meet some lovely people here!