Day 15

At 5:00 AM my multi-destination trip started.  Very early and although I had prepared as far as packing, at this time of the morning when rushing out you do forget/can't find things.  For one, my keys.  The keys here are apparently special enough that if you lose them it is a 300 Euro(approx $450) charge to replace your keys.  Really really hope I find those.  Otherwise I am going to start having to join the beggars on the side of the streets in Rome.

Headed to the train station which was a very pleasant experience compared to the buses in Italy.  First stop, Napoli(Naples). I heard from my professor that certain parts of Naples are not very nice, such as the train station.  We were in a large group of 6 guys and 6 girls so that adds a decent amount of protection.  Upon arrival, the train station was not so bad until we made our way outside.  Our professor was right.  First thing that happens is a 10 year old comes up to us and pulls out a air pistol on us.  True its not near as scary as a real gun but it could pierce your skin and who knows what this kid wanted.  Tons of trash everywhere on the street.  I don't mean just trash you throw out of your car, it was bags and bags of trash.  First impression is pretty bad so far.

Made our way to what was supposedly the best pizza in Napoli(where pizza was invented).

Turns out we were not the only Americans to have visited this pizza place.  Sandra Bullock filmed Eat, Pray, Love in this restaurant.  That is pretty impressive.  Not a huge fan of the pizza though.  There were only two choices of pizza, Marinara and Provolone.  Very friendly restaurant though.  Our waiter seemed a little...slow though.  We caught him talking to the wall once.  Interesting.





We found a beautiful church that had been around for ages.

Inside courtyard behind church.  Church had been bombed in WWII and was damaged pretty badly.  Rather unfortunate because the church was the largest in Naples and housed many historical artifacts.

Some recent excavation shows that this was a very popular church back in ancient times.  What is in this picture is an ancient hot tub.  Slaves fed a fire below that would produce heat which would then go underneath the water and produce warmth.  Pretty nice.







Enough boring stuff.  Lets see what Naples looks like from above. Way above actually.

To give you an idea of just how high we had to climb, the green roof is the church we are at.  We climbed at least two skyscrapers worth.

Despite climbing a few hills, many winding streets and finishing with 406 large stairs(around 800 if they were normal stairs), people at the top didn't seem to appreciate how much effort it took.  Probably because they took a car to the top.  Oh well.  Time to take the easier climb down.

 One of the more prettier objects in Naples.

 Medieval castle which was actually pretty cool to look at.

Hostel we stayed at was better than I expected.  Looked over port, which as anyone who takes cruises knows--it is not usually the nicest part of town.  No real A/C.  Internet was available, just no wi-fi.  Six of us to a room but at least we had a shower.

It was a holiday in Italy this day, and they decided to start celebrating around 11:00PM.  No A/C=open windows.  Celebrating in Italy=tons of traffic and people playing instruments on the street.  Ughh.



I am glad that we stopped at Naples, but plan to never return. I have experienced everything that I wanted to see, and my favorite part is when I was several thousand feet above the actual city. The place that Frank Sinatra sung of and my Grandma's ancestors hailed from is a city that is much different now.  Just glad we only spend one night here.  Look for tomorrow's blog for Pompeii!