Napoli!

Sweet, gritty, loud, tasty, fantastic Naples. Go to Naples, its fantastic. We arrived at 5 and took a cab to the hotel. We were both exhausted but walked the street our hotel was on to check it out. There are a million scooters, many with 2 people and 2 kids on them, cars, bikes and people all on a street the size of an alley to us. We immediately loved it. I got my haircut by what turned out to be a barber…but he was focusing so hard on doing a good job. Just as we were about to turn in we stumbled across this bar that looked too cool to pass up. We went in and found a bookstore/bar that was tiny and playing amazing music. We got 2 seats at the bar, extremely strong and cheap cocktails (yes, I am never going to get well) and settled in to enjoy the place. Halfway though the evening this guy overheard us talking and said, “hey, you’re from America”. Turns out his name was Jeff and he and his friend were there doing a theatre workshop. What a small world. We went out for pizza (yum!) and talked to them for another couple hours. They were hilarious and it was a wonderful night out.

On Thursday, Lorenzo arrived and walked us all over the city. We went to churches (of course) and a courtyard built by the Portuguese.

And then we went to Pizzeria da Michele. This would be the pizza place from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you haven’t read it, you should! The description ofis on pages 79-80. We waited outside, got our margarita pizzas to go and sat on a stoop with a can of coke to eat them. Yes, it was the best pizza I have ever eaten. No, she does not exaggerate. Yes, you should fly to Naples immediately to try it.

Onward we go to keep exploring the city. Lorenzo tells us about the mafia and the strong influence they have here. We went to the castle to see the view of the bay and Mt. Vesuvius. We had delicious deserts and coffee and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves before taking the train back to Rome.