Naples is an interesting area. Perhaps not all because of great things – but definitely interesting.

On Monday morning, we arose just in time to catch the end of the hotel breakfast – apricot correttos, yogurt, cereal – and of course, cappuccino. We then headed towards Napoli centro. The hotel desk man on Sunday had suggested that we could drive to Piazza Cavour and find a parking garage. He failed to mention the craziness that we might encounter with traffic in that area. We set ‘Sally-Sue’ for that destination. Those of our readers who have travelled with us have made the acquaintance of Sally – our trusty Garmin GPS. Now Sally has many good points – one of which is her excellent grasp of Italian pronunciation – but one of her faults is that she occasionally chooses travel routes that are challenging. Today was one of these occasions.

We were led into an area with narrow streets, a number of one- ways resulting in switchback turns and a very large volume of cars, scooters, buses and random pedestrians. Italians do not really follow any traffic laws or etiquette – they pretty much go where they want, when they want. I had a bit of a meltdown, fearing for our rental car. I didn’t think the speed was great enough to fear for our lives, although I wondered about some of the pedestrians and helmetless scooter riders. Luckily, Harv remained calm, cool & collected, even professing to somewhat enjoying the chaos. He did become a bit agitated when a siren blasting police van came up behind us and there was nowhere to turn. Apparently, Italians don’t worry about moving for emergency vehicles either…. We finally determined that we might never reach the intended destination so reset Sally for the airport. The drive there was much less stressful and we settled the Fiesta in a nearly deserted parking garage and hopped on the Alibus, which would take us directly to the Stazione Centrale area we wanted to reach. After a calming bus ride, we arrived in central Naples and took some time to randomly wander the streets – checking out the chaos from a sidewalk. We then hopped on a metro train to the Museo stop and entered the Museo Archeologico. Housed on the main floor is the Farnese Collection, a grand collection of restored statues excavated from Rome’s Baths of Caracalla. We were once again amazed at the detail of these amazing sculptures. We then climbed the grand staircase to the top floor. Here we found the statues, artifacts and art found in Pompeii, as well as numerous bronze statues from Herculaneum. It was so interesting to envision these items in use when Mount Vesuvius stopped time in 79 AD, as well as to imagine the painstaking work it must have taken to excavate and recover so many items. Returning to the mezzanine level, we admired the mosaics recovered from Pompeii and then visited the Gabinetto Segreto. This so-called ‘Secret Room’ houses a sizeable assortment of erotic frescoes and bawdy statues. I won’t post any photos, but just will comment to many of these men from ancient Pompeii – “you wish….”

Leaving the museum, we followed Rick Steve’s self-guided walk, which he titles ‘A Slice of Neapolitan Life’. We travelled down through the principal shopping area, with a couple of impressive structures used as shopping ‘malls’. We detoured off the main thoroughfare to wander a bit through the Spanish Quarter, known as one of Naples’ rawest, poorest and most characteristic neighbourhoods. We admired the exteriors of the Royal Palace and Teatro Di San Carlo.

It was time for a gelato break – and it was as good as we remembered! We took in the harbour view and passed by the Castel Nuovo, which houses civic offices and the civic museum. Close by, we found the Alibus stop and headed back to the airport, the car and and to the hotel. We stopped at a likely looking restaurant down the street but of course, it didn’t open until 7 pm, we decided on pizza again at the hotel. It was delicious and I had time to prepare for Tuesday’s assessment. Up early on Tuesday morning and after a quick breakfast, Harv whisked me to the US Naval Support Site, where I spent a delightful day with the hospital blood bank staff performing their AABB & CAP inspections. Harvey spent the day seeing a few of the neighborhood sites here in Guiglianano. We returned to the hotel and following our pattern of relaxing, decided to eat here again. Delicious caprese salad, spaghetti bolognese, wine & limoncello. We will be sad to leave the Hotel Agora tomorrow as they have treated us like family – but on to new exciting sites….

Interesting facts about the Naples area –
– it is apparently acceptable to just drop your garbage bags at the side of the road as it seems to be done everywhere. Quite disgusting!
– it is also apparently acceptable for hookers to stand/sit at pull-offs along major thoroughfares. And at noon, throughout the afternoon, etc. – guess that’s why there are prolonged lunch hours….
– the potholes in side roads are worse than Edmonton – and that’s saying something.
– Monday is laundry day in Naples! And finally, why would anyone eat this? All in all, Naples has been interesting and worth a visit but it certainly wouldn’t go on my list of return vacation spots!

Cheers,

B&H