Naples

Naples is the birthplace of pizza and sadly that is pretty much all it has to offer. I don’t like to be disrespectful about where we visit but thankfully we were only using Naples as a hub for our day trips. We watched a documentary explaining why Naples looked so different than Florence and we found out it had to do its location on the sea. These sea ports made Naples become a hub for drugs and crime. It seems like the inhabitants have given up hope towards their city. It is covered in graffiti, garbage and has absolutely no traffic laws. We were lulled to sleep by sirens and woken up by traffic horns.

 

On the day we stayed to explore Naples we went for dinner at this small stone oven Pizzeria. It was by far the most amazing pizza I have ever had in my life! They barely resemble the North American style of pizza. The crust is as thin as a piece of linguini pasts and the toppings are sparse. I used to think more was better but after tasting these pizzas I am not sure. Mine was topped with a thin layer of “pizza sauce”, mozzarella and a spicy pepperoni. Chris and I both agreed that we want to try to replicate it in Canada.

Although we did not enjoy the city we did LOVE our day trips. Our first day trip was to the coastal town of Sorrento. Sorrento is stunning. It is well taken care of and is full of restaurants and tourist based shops. Since there was not a lot to see, we spent most of our time on the sandy beach. Most areas are dominated by paid piers that hotels or restaurants rent out to tourist wishing for a beach chair and crystal clear water to swim in. Chris and I opted for the public beach which was smaller than a football field. The water had a few pieces of garbage floating around but once you went past it, it was beautiful! We soaked up the sand and picked some beautiful sea glass to add to our pieces from Australia.

Our second day trip was to Pompeii. Pompeii is an ancient town that was destroyed and covered by suet from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. We explored the city to view many houses, bakeries, places of worship and even the first fast food restaurants…. Okay these restaurants weren’t exactly drive thrus but they were pretty close. Chris and I could not believe the intelligence of these people who lived thousands of years before us. They were able to harvest water from the mountains to feed the town. These same practices are used today except they changed the led pipes. Chris and I actually drank from these same fountains!  We also got to see and old brothel. But honestly I am not sure how comfortable those stone beds were. After we left the brothel we were on the hunt for ‘signs’. These were honestly carvings of male private parts in the side of walls and in the streets. I felt like I was back in elementary school seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing.  For me the most shocking thing was to see the bodies of some of the inhabitants covered in suet. For Chris it was the size and how well the ruins were preserved after such a disaster.

Over all our visit to Naples was an adventure and even though we weren’t a fan of the city we would not have changed our experience. Staying in an apartment that was inside a compound, had a metal gated door and an inside door was an experience in itself!