Naples - Wrap up

After a long sleep, feeling mostly recovered from the travel follies of the prior 48 hours, we began our exploration of Naples, which took us through the next day, Thursday. Vee hit the nail on the head in her description of Naples as a FRENZY. The city is beautifully situated on the coast, but the large industrial-looking port is most of what you can see along it's coastline. There is a large castle that we walked through on Thursday, and from there, you have very nice panoramic views of the city, marina and water. The pizza in Naples is excellent, as that is where it was invented, and we had it for lunch both Wednesday and Thursday. Pretty much all we did was walk, when the weather cooperated. Actually, our first full day, Wednesday, it started raining, very heavily, early in the afternoon. We tried to brave it, but it was coming down so hard, with no letup in sight, that we decided to call it a day, and head back to the hotel to read, write, and relax. Finally the rain eased up, and we walked around some more, and had a very nice dinner, although not exactly what we thought we ordered. On the menu, we chose a "pizze", assuming it was just a different spelling for a pizza. But, it really was something different, a bit like a calzone, except it seemed to be fried, and had no sauce or veggies in it. Fairly tasty, just very rich. Thursday, we had to check out, but they let us keep our bags there, so we made a full day of it, exploring more of Via Toledo, the main shopping and business district in the old city, and the waterfront.

Overall, Vee enjoyed Naples more than me, and was better able to appreciate it's beauty than I was. I tried, and I wanted to like it. It was very hard for me to get past the city's overwhelming roughness. It is rough in its architecture. For instance, not even the trendiest, touristy streets were spared from graffiti, garbage, crumbling walls, dog crap, hanging laundry, etc. And the non-trendy/touristy areas, are dark, very narrow, dirty and just plain "shady". It is rough in it's manners, where we witnessed screaming, arguments, hand gestures, etc. It is rough in it's traffic. Whether you are on foot, in a taxi, or on a scooter, the rule is that there are no rules. It is just plain survival; try not to kill anyone, and try not to get yourself killed; always be first, at any cost. We felt pretty insecure the whole time, and always "on guard", so as not to be run over or mugged.

On a more positive note, eating is inexpensive, and pizza is good anywhere you go. It was a good experience for us, as it opened our eyes to the uniqueness of the South of Italy, and it's specialy personality, love it or hate it. Also, it was good for us in that it have given us more of an appreciation of the other places we've been, and those that we still look forward to visiting.