Naples is loud.

And hot. And muggy. And busy. And crowded. And hot.

I touched down at Naples airport just before eleven on Tuesday, and I was expecting it to be hot. It was hot in Annecy, too. However, somehow the loudness just added to the hotness.

Oh. Quick side note: check out those mountains!!!

I hadn’t figured out exactly how to make it to the city center beforehand (you’ll figure out quickly that this Naples excursion has been a mess), so I went to the information desk for help. Something that was bothering me was that I couldn’t remember how to say ‘hello’ in Italian. Ciao didn’t seem quite right. However, I figured I would just do what I had been doing the past several days and parrot everything back to the information lady. It works wonders in French. (Not so much in Italian.)

You see, the first thing she said to me was, ‘Prego.’ I smiled hesitantly with relief and said, ‘Prego,’ before launching into my spiel. See looked unimpressed and pointed me toward the bus.

It wasn’t until I was ushered onto the bus by an older Italian man saying ‘Prego’ with a gesturing motion that I remembered prego means something closer to ‘go ahead’ or ‘you have my permission to speak/ come in/ go out.’ It does not mean ‘hello.’

Awkward…. Live and learn, right? I barely made it out of the airport in time to be the last person on the airport transfer bus. It was crowded and warm, and I was squeezed somewhere between suitcases.

We were dropped off in the middle of a very, very crowded street. Keep in mind that I was going into this Naples excursion somewhat uneasy. Nearly everybody I had talked to about my little solo trip exclaimed that ‘Naples is kind of sketchy! Be careful!’

This really did nothing but worry me, though. I could have seen with my own eyes that it was a bit sketchy on entering the city center, but the previous warnings just made me twitchy and on edge.

I was extremely lost because the bus hadn’t dropped us off precisely where I thought it would. I tried walking around to find the streets I was looking for, but instead of street signs I found leering bag, shoe, and sunglasses salesmen lining the roaring streets. I managed to make it around to the central train station, examine a paper map, and make a plan before setting off again.

Was quite terrifying trying to find my Airbnb, mostly because I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in an unsafe place due to the many warnings I had received. The streets I had to walk on to get to my apartment were almost as busy, loud, and bustling as the first I had wandered. I decided to attach myself to a mother and her children for safety, but lost her when it came time to cross a very busy street with very fast-moving scooters, motorcycles, and tiny cars. With no stoplight.

Aye-yeye-yaaa.. was scary. Barely made it. This confusion and terror lasted a while longer as I scrambled to find my apartment, then scrambled to make it inside my apartment, but then….

Salvation.

This was the first time I had ever stayed in a private room by myself. When I had stayed in Airbnbs, I have had others with me, and when travelling by myself, I have always stayed in hostels because it seems safer to have a well-established community and a building easily located on maps. However, the hostel selection in Naples was lacking at best, and this apartment seemed to be a sort of mini hostel with great reviews and a central location.

Couldn’t have picked a better place, if you ask me! The host, Francesco, is adorable, welcoming, smiley, and helpful. My room is huge, right across from what has been essentially my own private bathroom (have never seen anybody else go in or out of it) and I am four flights up on top of a bustling street with laundry hanging out my window.

Quite the immersive Naples living experience, if you ask me. I enjoyed the calm and privacy of my apartment, and considering how exhausted I still was and how hot it was outside, I decided to lay down for a while.

Before I knew it I had been laying there for five hours, dozing in and out of sleep and chatting with various people from home, looking up things to do, and just generally being lazy and listening to all the sounds outside my window.

Soon after five though, my stomach decided it was time to actually do something with my body other than forget it was there.

Fine, I said. I would investigate this pizza place Cousin Katie had recommended, which just happened to be right around the corner from my apartment.

It seemed an unsuspecting, unextraordinary kind of place. Smallish, relaxed, seemingly no different than any of the other little cafes and pizza shops I had passed by since landing.

It wasn’t until I sat down that I realized this place was famous. Over in the corner, cut out of a cheap print on plain white paper and taped haphazardly onto the plexiglass between the pizza prep area and the diners, was a photo of Julia Roberts. She was eating the exact pizza I saw in front of me and sitting across from where I was currently.

Okay… weird.

I shared a table with three others. To my right was a little old Italian lady, and she was scraping up the last bits of an entire pizza which she herself had devoured. Across from her was a rather swarthy young Italian man who was in a hurry. And in front of me was a friendly-seeming girl who laughed when I ordered water and was presented with a bottle of Coke.

I decided to strike up conversation with her. She was Polish, and she, like me, had chosen Naples because of a cheap flight and a travel-partnerless situation. Neither of us had a plan. Both of us were hot. We had both arrived several hours earlier and had as of yet accomplished nothing but sitting down and ordering the ‘double mozzarella,’ which the Italian lady to my right insisted upon.

The difference between her and me is that she had chosen Naples with purpose, and her purpose was this pizza. “That’s a long way to travel for pizza,” I said. She said she just hoped it was worth it.

Minutes later, two enormous, simple, deliciously greasy looking pizzas were slapped down in front of us, and my first thought was that we should have shared one.

I honestly can’t tell if I’m excited r scared. Haha. The first bite was at once creamy, crisp, salty, sweet….. mouthwatering.

“I’m in love,” said Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love. “I’m having a relationship with my pizza.”

I eventually gave up and decided there was just no way I would ever finish this pizza, regardless of how hungry I had been when I sat down. “Do you think they give boxes?” I asked my dining partner. “I see some back there, but I haven’t seen anybody get one.”

She laughed. “I think it is just that everyone else is finishing theirs.”

I sucked up my pride and asked for a box. I wanted to ask the Polish girl if she wanted to explore a bit, but I was feeling lazy, so I went back to my apartment to stick the pizza in the fridge (it didn’t fit), and then was planning on walking around the city for a couple hours until it started to get dark. I did manage to wander a teensy bit on the way back to my apartment.

But…. My room was just so cozy…. And the bed was so inviting….

I didn’t leave my apartment that night. *sigh*…

I made a plan though! I may not have time to explore Napoli itself, but I would make up for it in the next three days. All the surrounding cities. All the islands. I would wake up early for a ferry and go from there!

Stay tuned to find out what actually happened…. Haha.

 

-Venlig hilsen/ ciao,

Lizzy-wa