Before I begin this post, I am going to start with a disclaimer: I am trying to write all of this on my brand new tiny keyboard that I just purchased at a Tiger store on a whim. (For those who don’t know or remember, Tiger is my number one favorite store in the whole entire world, and they are based in Denmark.) Technically, the purchase was only kind of on a whim, considering I woke up this morning with the desire to purchase a tiny laptop to make writing easier. Luckily, this was much cheaper and a bit more practical. The disclaimer part comes with the fact that this, being a keyboard purchased in Denmark, is a Danish keyboard, and this mixed with being a mini keyboard means that all of the keys are in strange places. To make things worse, I have discovered that not all of the key labels are correctly, so when I want to type a new character, I just kind of have to poke around for awhile and hope I get lucky.
For example, it took me ten minutes to write the first three lines of this post because I couldn’t figure out the colon, parentheses, or apostrophe. So, I apologize in advance if any typos slip my review.
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Now that’s taken care of, we can get to the meat of things: My Last Day In Naples.
I had one more day to spend in this Italian city, so I did what any girl would do: I left it. I woke up early, indulged in Francisco’s adorableness, and hit the town. I may have gotten a granita on my way to the train station. It’s all a blur, really. But I made it to the train station around eleven and went off in search for tickets to Sorrento, a coastal town that Rick Steves recommends to be used as a “sunny springboard” for any stay in the area. Too bad I didn’t do that research early on!
I ran into issues at the train station, and ended up wasting about half an hour because only one train company sells tickets from Naples to Sorrento, and they were located in the station’s basement. I didn’t get on a train until 11:45, but that still left me plenty of time until my 6:30 departure from the coastal town of Amalfi.
I had it all planned out: I’d spend a couple hours in Sorrento, book a ticket on one of the world’s most beautiful bus rides (according to RickSteves), and have another couple hours to walk around and get dinner in Amalfi before returning ‘home.’
The train ride was much the same as the one to Pompeii, but it contained on after the ruins to get to the coast. It was a little concerning getting to the city, because the only maps available at the station were €5 and I wasn’t having any part of that. I decided to leave a trail of breadcrumbs (figuratively) and try to not wander too much so I could make it back the way I had come.
Sorrento’s streets were much like those of Ischia, though a bit less bustling and with a lesser desperate-tourist-destination vibe. I liked it, though. Very serene and sunny, indeed. I had to pee pretty much from the moment I got on the train, but I couldn’t find any restaurants that looked enticing enough to offer more than a toilet. I continued my search, but I figured there was always the beach!
I did manage to find a very cute little gelato shop with a very cute gelato boy behind the counter, and he suggested I try the cheesecake and the lemon. It was an interesting combination, but very satisfying, and he even put this adorable tiny cone on top of the rest of the cone. So cute!
His scoops were actually so big I couldn’t quite finish it, but oh well.
Next, I continued my meanderings and slowly found my way to the beach via a long, windy street without a sidewalk. I had to dodge many cars and scooters, and twice I felt my hat lifted from my head and turned around to find it hanging from a low branch.
The beach was nice, but I was too scared about leaving my purse unattended to go swimming. I took a couple dunks, but it only cooled off the lower half of my body. Ha!
I sat behind some American girls, which was strange. It is always a bit unnerving for me to overhear Americans while in Europe. I came here to experience different cultures after all, not to hear American girls complain about internships and tanning.
After hanging out for a while with my book and a sandwich, it was time to head back to the bus station.
One last granita for the road (not a fan of the strawberry – bad choice), and I managed to snag a window seat.
The bus ride was positively gorgeous, just as Rick Steves said. It is crazy to think that people actually live in these amazing, picturesque villages.
It was also amazing that I didn’t die. The street was so windy and narrow, and it was always a bit of a puzzle to pass other cars, seeing as the road was really more of a 1.5-lane than anything else. At one point, we were passing through a village, when suddenly a horribly unpleasant and rather drawn-out thudding rocked underneath the bus. The riders craned their necks to try and see what had happened, and the lady next to me was sure we had hit someone. It turned out we had actually demolished a parked motorcycle!
The bus began a slow reverse, back up this windy road, narrowly missing several other parked motorcycles in the process! I thought maybe we were backing up to get the motorcycle out from under us, but it became clear soon that it was actually to let another bus by in the other direction. There was literally inches of space between these two monster vehicles. I honestly don’t know how they did it.
And then we continued on, seemingly forgetting the motorcycle…
Because of all the hubbub, we arrived about half an hour late to our destination of Amalfi. I really wasn’t planning anything here except to wander and grab some dinner, but I became worried when our bus arrived at a bus station and sea port, but with no trains in sight. I had purchased a train ticket out of this place which was scheduled to leave in just over an hour.
I found a ticket desk and asked for the train station. No such thing, she said. Only boats and busses.
Okay….
I showed her my tickets. She didn’t know where my train was supposed to leave from, but it was not here. She made a plan for me to take the ferry to the town of Salerno, where I could catch a train back to Naples. Seeing as I didn’t have much other choice, I agreed, bought a salad, and was on the ferry in about ten minutes.
Didn’t see much of Amalfi, really, but it did seem like a cute town. The ferry was nice, too. Can’t really complain.
Then the train…. Then the walk…. Then my last night in Naples.
Overall, I would say Naples has a lot to offer, and people really underrated it. Much like my experience with Milan, I found that if you go in blindly and take the time to really appreciate all the city and area has to offer, you can find something special in any place.
Okay. You guys saw my ‘plan’ for today, so I guess I don’t really need to tell you what went down. Right?
Ha. Jk. Here’s how it went:
First thing, I woke up and lay in a bed for a while. Standard. I was trying to get the motivation to get moving early, but that didn’t really happen. Around ten, I decided to mosey over to breakfast. And boy was I pleasantly surprised! Francisco had set up an entire little place setting for me and the last remaining guest to eat breakfast (who never showed). Each setting had a plate, bowl, mug, croissant, muffin, and madeline. Then on the table was an assortment of teas, jams, cereal, and coffee, and when I opened the fridge, I found yogurt and milk. So cute!
I settled in with my book (er… kindle.. not proud of it, but I didn’t make the time to choose a good book to bring, and a friend had just given me a free kindle a couple days before my trip sooo…), and tucked in. After about ten minutes, Francisco rushed in apologizing for putting the orange juice away already, and he ran back from the kitchen to fill my glass. Seriously such a cutie.
After breakfast, I ended up…..
Lying in bed for a while. Ha! I was seriously so confused by my time in Naples. Never before have I been so lazy while travelling. It made me feel horrible, but at the same time I really didn’t care. I was catching up on rest and still seeing plenty.
I spent some time reading around on what to do since it was clear I would not have time to do the ‘everything’ I had originally been planning. I had been debating going to Pompeii, because I wasn’t really in the ‘walk around and look at things’ mode that I am in normally when traveling, and I also didn’t have a serious desire to see many petrified, lava-covered humans…. I didn’t think my tired brain could handle that at the moment. But still, even Rick Steves seemed to think it was a necessity when in Naples even only on a day trip, and the train was fast and cheap, so I figured I should make the trek.
I also noted that most people recommended the Naples archeological museum as the number one attraction in the city. I’m really not a huge fan of archeological museums. I much prefer paintings or other art forms, with natural museums coming in second. However, the archeological museum was made up mostly of art and objects excavated from Pompeii, so the general consensus on The Internet was that it was a good idea to see what had been IN Pompeii before seeing the empty, deserted ruins of the ancient city itself.
So off I went! I bought my tickets to and from Pompeii, giving myself a couple of hours to wander Naples and the museum, a couple of hours to wander Pompeii, and a train ride back that would get me in the apartment before dark.
On my way to the museum, I grabbed a granita and took a detour to the Duomo. It was closed, unfortunately, so I couldn’t actually go inside.
I wandered a little longer than planned and managed to stumble upon quite a few markets.
I also started being less freaked out by the city and more appreciative of its long, busy streets full of apartments and laundry hanging out windows. I realized that’s why Naples is so crowded all the time: practically every building is an apartment complex. There are just so.many.people. living in this city. They really cram them in!
I finally made it to the museum, where I posed with emperor Titus (I think).
I took it pretty easy. Wasn’t trying to spend nine hours here like I had in the Louvre. Honestly, my favorite things about the museum were the museum building itself and the views from its many windows.
There was also a Secret Room, which housed ancient naughty paintings and giant stone penises hanging from about every surface. It was…. interesting to say the least.
As I made my way out of the museum, I found a really lovely little gallery of sorts, and I spent a few minutes listening to a beautiful rendition of Thriller by a girls choir (not pictured.)
Then, much to my surprise, I found a street that I… actually really liked. Like a lot. Like so much that I ended up walking down it for many more minutes than I should have given how close I was to needing to be on my train to Pompeii.
I don’t know what it was about this street. It was just a little less crowded, a little less loud, lined with shops, and I had long figured out how to cross the street without getting run over or yelled at. I criss crossed to the other sidewalk whenever I found a shop that seemed interesting. I peeked down alleys. I bought another granita. (Dude, it helps me cool off!) I was also whistled and winked at by a very attractive Italian police officer, so no complaints there. (Not like a creepy whistle. More like an attention-getting whistle just so he could wink at me. Bahaha.)
By the time I decided I really, really needed to be heading toward my train, I pulled out my map and realized I was kind of on the wrong side of the city…. To the metro, we go! Barely made the metro. Barely made the train. But I did, with spare time to grab a salad to eat on the way. And I eventually made it all the way to Pompeii.
So here’s where I kind of messed up again. I only bargained for two hours between the time my train arrived in Pompeii and the time my next train left. It was less than what was recommended, but I was tired and short on time, and I figured some time was better than no time!
What I did not bargain for was that the ruins were not right outside the train station, as I had thought. I went to the information desk, where a young Italian man informed me that it was a thirty minute walk to the ruins. I did not exactly have time for that, so I had to opt for the three euro shuttle bus. I paid my fare, was handed what was essentially half a receipt with something scribbled on it (Is this really a ticket? I’m thinking), and then I was told to wait near the door.
I went. I waited. I saw no bus or bus stop. And I also noticed that I was the only one waiting for this ‘bus.’
After waiting quite a while, I actually ended up getting a ride with the attractive information desk man. It was a little strange, and probably not normal protocol unless they do this all the time, but it did get me to the ruins in the end, so I guess I can’t complain too much. The information desk man was also basically a young Marcello, so that was certainly nice. We talked about Pompeii and my upcoming trip to Sorrento, and he told me to make sure to swim while I was there.
The conversation is kind of a blur, but at some point, he started slowing down and took the map from my hands to flip it over, then began pointing out where he was dropping me off and where I would exit and how to get back to the train station where he would be waiting for me (last part was in my head). I thanked him and then he said it was nice to meet me as I lithely flew from the passenger seat. He was much less terrifying as I thanked him and closed the door, but I still walked rather quickly toward the entrance gates as I made sure he was pulling away and not getting out to follow me.
Overall experience: strange, but left me distracted from the heat for a while. Advice to future self: next time, make sure there is an actual bus.
Right. So. Pompeii.
Pompeii was actually quite lovely, and in the hour and a half I walked around, never once did I see a lava-covered human. I didn’t realize this until after I left, and I certainly had not been looking for them, but I am glad I never came upon them.
The streets of Pompeii reminded me of my trip to Rome, which is likely to put any girl in a good mood. I was still tired and a bit homesick, but it was nice to enjoy something that made it feel like I was a normal traveler again. (Close encounters with swarthy foreigners help too, I guess.)
Pompeii was quiet and deserted, but it was easy to appreciate the life and commotion that would have taken place here once before. I loved walking around and exploring nooks and crannies. Gardens, boulevards, amphitheatres, temples, it was all gorgeous and calming.
^Part of a large square – reminded me like the Roman Forum
^Vesuvius in the background
^These are ancient toilets in case you can’t tell.
^I found a vineyard!
^Mini Colloseum
The time to leave came quickly, though, and I made my way out the opposite side from which I had entered. Marcello had said I should expect a fifteen minute walk from this exit, and I had planned for just the right amount of time. Walking through the modern-day counterpart of the ruins I had left behind, though, I wished I had bargained for more time! It was such a cute little town, and I wanted to stop at every restaurant and trinket shop. When I came to the city’s cathedral, I stopped to take a picture and a waiter joked around and tried to photobomb me. Ha!
All too soon, I was back in the train station. I took one last look at Marcello and silently thanked him for not telling me his real name so I could continue calling him Marcello, then boarded my train.
Back in Naples, I was seriously hungry and seriously had to pee. I thought I would run back to my apartment, pee, run to Da Michelle’s Pizza, then eat in the air conditioning of my room. On my way there, though, I passed several tourist restaurants lining the station square.
Now, when I say tourist restaurant, I do not mean they serve bad food. They are situated in a touristy area and cater to tourists, but I have never had a bad experience with a so-called tourist restaurant (except maybe one time in France). They display their menus outside, so I could see that the food was cheap, and most everybody eats outside, so I could see that the food looked good. The sun would set in about an hour, but I figured that would give me enough time to get back safe to my apartment.
I had to wait a while to be seated, but I was finally given a table in the back near the restaurant front and away from the street. I was situated in the middle of three two-person tables, with an adorable 90 year old Italian man on my right and a beefy middle-aged man on my left.
The wait staff was made entirely of middle aged men except for one positively adorable young waiter. He and the manager continually came by the check on me, and the rest of the staff would slide a joke or a smile my way every time they passed.
I ordered the gnocchi and some white wine and settled in.
I was mostly watching the little old man on my right, who stared off at other diners and said hardly anything to the wait staff. He had a full bottle of wine in an ice bucket next to him, but I never once saw him drink from his glass. He received a plate of two gigantic shrimp-looking things, which he cut to pieces but I never saw him eat, and then received a large plate of watermelon, which he doused in salt before devouring. I’ll have to see what that tastes like someday.
The man on my left spoke to me every once in awhile, commenting on the slow service or on how I should be eating my gnocchi (with fresh parmesan and olive oil on top) or how I should be drinking my wine (with a glass of sparkling water on the side). I thought about chatting with him, but he didn’t seem overly pleasant, so I figured I would just enjoy the meal.
He thought otherwise. His comments became longer and more detailed, until he finally said, ‘Now that the sun has gone down, now that it is dark, that it is night time, I give you some advice. You see that street over there?’ He pointed to the street lining the opposite side of the square. I nodded. ‘And you see this street here?’ He pointed to the street I needed to walk on to get back to my apartment. I nodded. Hesitantly. ‘Do not walk on these streets. You will be raped.’
…..
…..
…..
Oh. Kay.
Oh. Kay.
Uhm. No. Oh. Kay.
I am… quite terrified at this point. I have lost all interest in our conversation and in the food in front of me. I want very much to not be sitting next to this man and to not be needing to walk on this street that I need to walk on.
He continued to talk about how dangerous this city is, and how horrible this city is, and how horrible this country is. ‘In my country, Croatia, you can go on the streets and no one will rape you.’
I am desperately wishing he would stop talking at this point, and I am desperately wishing I have not been drinking wine, which I am just now started to feel. He tells me he is not trying to scare me or hurt me, but that he is just trying to make sure I am staying safe. But he is seriously freaking and creeping me out, tbh!!!
He finally stopped talking about the dangers of the city (‘I am telling you. Leave this place. First flight in the morning.’) long enough to ask about where I was from and what I did. He was a mechanic in the shipping industry, so he travels around the world on a daily basis, but for some reason he was just Not Feeling It with Italy.
I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to leave without being rude, when Cute Young Waiter appears in the nick of time to take my plate. I ask for the check and he asks if I want coffee or dessert. ‘Café, latte, chocolate,’ “Nonono, thank you.” ‘Cake, pudding, pastry, croissant,’ “Nonono, I’m too full, really.” ‘[insert many other drinks and desserts],’ “Nonono, really I’m too full.”
Then Croatian Man pops in: ‘She will have a Caffè corretto,’ he says. “Nonono,” I say quickly. The Croatian man explains what it is (espresso with a tiny bit of liquor) and how I need to try it, and I refuse again, chuckling nervously and shaking my head. The waiter asks if I am sure about ten times before smiling and leaving.
Leave me alone, Croatian Man! I am thinking. We chat a bit more, and the waiter comes back with the bill. I pick it up in time to see the total just as Croatian Man snatches it from my grasp and says, ‘I will take care of this,’ before placing it out of reach on his table and crossing his arms matter-of-factly. I look to Cute Waiter, he looks at Croatian Man, then we look at each other and simultaneously lift our arms in helpless shrugs. ‘It is no matter to me,’ he says, and smiles and leaves.
Well, GREAT! I’m thinking. How am I supposed to leave, now?!
I indulge Mr. Croatian Man in a few more minutes of conversation and try to decide how to escape. I think he ended up saying one more thing about how unsafe the city was, and I finally said something about how I ‘should probably be going’ and asked if he was sure he didn’t want me to pay for myself. ‘Nonono, this is nothing. I will take care of this,’ he said.
‘Well… it was nice to meet you..’ I said. We shook hands and exchanged names, but he mumbled his and followed it quickly with, ‘but this is nothing,’ and a wave of his hand.
I thanked him again for picking up my bill, and all but ran to my apartment.
I made it there safely, obviously. It was just terrifying the whole way.
So, yes. A rather eventful and confusing day in Naples and Pompeii. At the end of the day, I did feel… a bit excited for the next day, I guess. Easy to be distracted from exhaustion when you’ve got questionable men to deal with, let alone free dinner.
Don’t worry about me, though! I don’t really know how to assure you, readers, not to worry about me and my travel decisions after reading this post, but please don’t worry about me. I’m smart. Sometimes. Croatian Man said he could see in my eyes that I’m not stupid.
I guess I just have to remind myself of that a little more often.
Recap: I spent Tuesday basically doing nothing but sleeping, dozing, eating, and being hot. I decided that I need to make a plan for the next several days before I went to sleep so that I could be ‘productive’ for the last three days of my stay in Southern Italy. See said plan below:
Pretty busy. Pretty ambitious. Especially considering the battling exhaustion and motivation within me. (Exhaustion had been winning in recent days.) But I had a ferry to catch! And that ferry came at 8:35am, so I didn’t have much wiggle room there. I woke up around six and spent a couple hours being hot and messing around on my phone. Because of this, by the time I found the drive to get out of bed, I didn’t have any time to sit down for breakfast. I inhaled the warm leftovers of my pizza dinner (probably not food safe), threw on a swimsuit, rubbed on some sunscreen, and essentially ran the entire way to the ferry port. What made me sad was that I saw/ heard Francisco, the Airbnb host, setting up breakfast, but I just didn’t have time to stay! (I would regret this the next morning when I finally did have time to check out his breakfast set-up.)
So most of my walk was along this very busy street on this very busy sidewalk, and it was already past eighty degrees, despite being around 8 in the morning.
I held down my hat and walked quickly, barely making the ferry before it pulled out of the dock.
I did get a very pretty view of Mount Vesuvius and the coast of Naples!
I spent most of the hour-long ferry ride standing at the railing of the boat and thinking philosophical things about life. In fact, I was in a very thinking-heavy mood all day. (Probably not the best mood when traveling, but oh well.)
Finally, the island of Ischia came into sight. Plenty of pretty beaches and colorful shops and houses.
I spent a little while just wandering the streets lined with gelato stops and trinket shops. It was a jarring but refreshing contrast to the noisy streets of Naples I had left below my bedroom window.
At some point, I found a little botanical garden. Initially, I thought it was a private garden of sorts, but there was a man watering plants, and when I came up behind him, he stepped aside and offered a welcome of ‘Prego,’ so I ventured inside.
I ended up spending a couple hours in here, actually. I probably couldn’t tell you exactly what I did for this whole time aside from people-watching and life-pondering. All the life-pondering actually made me a bit homesick at one point, to be honest, and I finally moved on because my butt was getting sore sitting on the stone benches and because my stomach was losing its patience with me.
At one point, something scuttled out from behind me and stood a foot away from me on my bench, and it took me a second to realise it was a sort of little gecko lizard thing! So cute! I watched it for a while until it took its daring dash out into the sunlight to sprint to the other side of the park. (No picture, sorry).
Cue more wandering. I had found some shops and restaurants in the morning that I wanted to return to, but it seemed silly to backtrack all the way when there were other corners to explore. One thing I noticed was that in the two or three hours I had been in the garden, the streets of Ischia had become… eerily calm and quiet. Don,t get me wrong. The streets had already been nice and relaxing, but there were plenty of tourists and locals wandering around when I had first stepped off the boat. Now, around one in the afternoon, it was essentially a ghost town.
I decided to try to find water, thinking maybe everyone had retreated to the beaches to cool off in the rising heat, and I think I was probably right. I found a little beach shack manned by a boy in his early teens who spoke no English and a man who I assumed was his grandpa. Other than an older man smoking in the corner, I had the shack to myself. I ordered the spaghetti aglio e olio (garlic and olive oil) and a lemon granita and settled in to enjoy the view.
After downing the granita and finishing about half the pasta (Italian food is just so filling! even when I am so hungry!), I headed down to the beach to read for another couple hours, giving up on my original plan to make it to the island Procida and back to Naples in time to explore some more there. *shrug*.
I didn’t make it all the way into the water, unfortunately. I was too nervous to leave my purse unattended, and it really wasn’t that hot sitting right in front of the wind off the water. I stepped in up to my waist a couple times, but I regretted not doing a full dunk once I left the shore and the temperature raised about ten degrees again.
I did a little more exploring…
And then ate a little gelato…
I managed to get my gelato down my arm, on my hat, and in my purse. Go me.
Another quirky little thing I noticed about Ischia was that there were tiny little shop dogs everywhere, and they all seemed to just lie outside their shops or in the middle of the street, seemingly dead or close to dead due to the heat. I just wanted to give them a wading pool to swim in or something! I sure hope they were getting enough water. Whenever I found one, I usually bent down to give them some love before continuing on.
At this point, I felt my time at Ischia had been well (enough) spent, and that I would feel comfortable heading back to Naples to explore a bit and hit the hay early. I thought I had remembered there being a ferry to Naples leaving around six, so I made sure to head to the ferry terminal around five. I got in at 5:30 just as a ferry was pulling out of the dock, and it turned out that was the last ferry until 7:30….. Ugh…. Great planning on my part, right?
So what was I supposed to do now? I felt completely fulfilled and finished with Ischia, but here I was, stuck for another two hours… *sigh*…. Back to reading, I guess. I found a spot on a bench, made myself comfy, and spent the rest of my time on Ischia reading and watching sailors prepare their ships for some night sailing. I very much wanted to jump onto one of the boats with them, but it didn’t seem like the best or brightest idea, really. My fantasies would have to do.
Half a book later, I finally got on my ferry, got back to my room, and slept pretty darn well that night….
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.
Hello, there! Really quickly, I would like to look back a bit at some cute little Rome pictures that were recently delivered by my professor:
Just kidding. I will only post one, because the other is just a close-up. But aren’t we cute?! That’s the whole class. And some giant and old building behind us. (;
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Even older:
Have I shown this picture before? I hope not. That would be embarrassing. It’s my core course smooshing together to fit down the steps of the narrowest street in Stockholm, Mårten Trotzigs alley. I miss my Swedish city!
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Also, check out Copenhagen right now!
Setting up for the Christmas market in Gammeltorv! Color me excited. Imagine my shock Monday morning when I looked up from the many puddles to this beautiful view of a giant Ferris Wheel!
More Christmas decorations! Love. Love. Love.
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Okay. I’ll continue with Trondheim on the next post. As a side note, the main photo for this post is a view from a typical 7-11 here. I tell ya, Europe is insane. There are 7-11s on every corner here, about as prevalent as Starbuckssss (not sure how many s’s to put) in Seattle. And McDonald’ssss in Paris has an entire bakery section that sells top-notch macaroons. What is life?
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Venlig hilsen/ best regards/ arrivederci/ vänliga hälsningar/ ar revoir,
Okay. Let’s see if I can try to be a bit more choosy (remember, I took over 1700 photos while in Rome. Choosing my favorites is very difficult.)
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View from the top of Castel Sant’Angelo
And Castel Sant’Angelo itself. Apparently parts of Angels and Demons was filmed here. (And apparently Angels and Demons is a sequel to the Da Vinci Code? I was unaware. I should read-up. Although, I have read nearly four books in the last ten days! Travel will do that to ya!)
This is gnocchi. It is a weird, potato-infused, chewy, squishy, cube-ishly-shaped pasta. And it is so. good. I didn’t like it at first. I just ordered it because a lot of other people did, and the restaurant made it by hand, and it sounded Italian. But it was just such a pasta-textural-experience as I had never before experienced, and now I MISS IT SO BADLY.
Behold, THE COLOSSEUM. (dun. Dun. DUUUUUNNN!)
An inside view! (You don’t see much of those.) The maze on the bottom floor is where they kept supplies, lions, tigers, bears, etc, and it was originally covered with what would have been the actual stadium floor.
It rained that morning. A lot. A lot a lot. It was pouring at times. Before we had left from breakfast, I warned the boys that they should grab a jacket (they were both sporting very nice cotton t-shirts), to which they replied that their weather apps predicted no rain. *cue my blank stare and pause. “It’s raining right now,” I said quizzically. They were doubtful of my rain-sensing abilities, and they apparently lacked the ability to open their own curtains. Luckily, they went back for their jackets anyway, because that rain was a mess!
The Colosseum, like much of the ruins, was under construction. *sigh.
Inside the Forum Romanum!
Inside other parts of the Forum Romanum!
Inside yet other corners and places inside the Forum Romanum! (Did I mention I took over 1700 photos during my four-day stay in Rome?)
Inside the Temple of Vesta inside the Forum Romanum! This place was crazy. You should do some personal research on the Vestal Virgins. They were dedicated ladies, and they were buried alive if they broke their oath of chastity.
A Roman stadium
A view of Rome from the Palatine Hill
A view of the Forum Romanum up above
My favorite pasta dish. My favorite dish. My favorite food. The pasta with seven sins. Golly…. Believe me when I say I would sin a few times to have some more of that pasta………….. gaaaahhhhh….. I miss the cheeeeese!!!!
We went to a modern fashion exhibit in the old market streets of ancient Rome, where they were holding an exhibition on food and fashion. This is the result. (:
Thorvaldsen! It was nice to see a little piece of Home all the way in Rome. (And by Home, I mean my current home in Denmark, haha.)
The ceilings. I cannot get over the ceilings. Have I mentioned how much I love ceilings?
A little backyard alcove behind Michelangelo’s Santa Maria degli Angeli
The fountain in the center of Piazza de la Republica
Another rendition of Medusa’s beheading
So many mosaics inside the Vatican!!! They put my little 8.5″ x 11″ from sixth grade to shame…
Mom. I saw the actual School of Athens by the actual Raphael. The Actual One!!!!!!!!! I almost died. (Also, it is huge! An entire wall! It’s so hard to picture buildings and paintings in real life while studying them in class, because they are all the same size on the power point slides, you know?)
Ceilingssssss
MORE CEILINGS
Okay. Embarrassing moment. I thought this was The Actual Last Supper. And I was over on this side of the room, taking bunches of pictures, wondering what the heck everybody else was doing on the other side of the room taking pictures of the Resurrection. Did they not realize how much more famous this painting was?! Idiots. And then I realized that The Actual Last Supper is, in fact, a painting. Not a tapestry. Which was what I was looking at. And then I shuffled quietly into the next room and hoped that no one paid me any attention.
There was an Egyptian exhibit inside of the Vatican because of all the Egyptian influences in Ancient Rome. And parts of this exhibit included actual real coffins from thousands of years ago, and inside one of these was an actual real mummy. But I will not post a picture here because it made me sad that he/she (it was unclear) had been dug-up, un-wrapped, and put on display in a glass case miles and miles from its resting place so that millions of strangers could gawk on the sidelines.
Writing from nearly three thousand years ago. (Do you even realize how long ago that is?!?!?!)
More posing!
And yet more posing, this time right outside the Medici Villa!
Drinking from the water fountains, because When in Rome….
Enjoying the sun outside the Medici Villa. Not sure what Abbi is doing…
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And then we trudged back to the hotel, took a cab to the airport, and landed in Copenhagen just after midnight. What an exhausting and exhilarating and overly-picturesque trip! Iceland will come later. I’m tired.
If you look closely, you’ll see that nearly every window has laundry hanging out to dry. So cute!
Markets and Vespa delivery boys
I wanted this man to draw my face so bad…
The Spanish Steps, presided over by James Bond, and gated-off for restorations
The magnificent Trevi Fountain! Covered in scaffolding and drained to the pit! (I still made a wish and threw in a coin. Tehe.)
The Pantheon. Spent a lot of time around this area (:
Some hunky gladiators trying earn a few euros
Largo di Torre Argentina ruins, right next to our hotel and swarming with cats day-and-night
Paintingggggssss! I bought the right one for myself (Piazza Navona) and the left one for Jackson, provided I don’t decide to keep it later
The view from my hotel window. I made faces at the people across the street all the time. This is the first time I’ve every had a window that looked into someone else’s window!
Just a really pretty door (:
Posing in the old meat-packing district, literally the only quiet part of all the Rome we saw
The cemetery for non-Catholics… Because that is a thing in Rome.
Pyramid of Cestius
A beautiful Roman manor house
The “keyhole of Rome.” My phone wouldn’t focus in on the light, but you could see a beautiful view of St. Peter’s Basilica and the surrounding city all the way at the end of those hedges
Rome from up top!
Circus Maximus, where the Romans used to hold chariot races (I really wanted to run down there)
The Mouth of Truth–line was too long to actually test my lying abilities
My dream bike, if ever I live in Rome, Tuscany, or Amsterdam. *sigh
The beautiful Forum Romanum!
St. Peter’s Basilica (this is when it first started to rain)
Posing with Abbi and Nynika
Inside the Basilica
Bernini’s Bronze Baldachin
Ceeeeeiliiiiiingssss….
Trying to convey just how large this cathedral was (impossible)
A few thousand chairs to seat a few thousand people to see the one-and-only Pope
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Okay. I’ll continue in another post, so as not to drown you!
And I’m alive, don’t worry! I barely survived, let me tell you. I almost lost the muscle control in my feet while in Rome, and I definitely lost feeling in my nose a few times while in Iceland. The woes of travel (which are far outnumbered by the thrills).
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As I’ve had one of the most ridiculously packed and fabulous and exhilarating and exhausting and busy (in the best, homework-less, studying-less way possible) weeks of the semester to date, I feel as though I cannot fill you in on every corny detail. (Is that the phrase? Or is it “every hairy detail”? I like corny better, anyway, regardless of how long it’s been since I last shaved my legs.)
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Instead, I will do a two-parter, possibly three if I feel adventurous (unlikely). This first part will include my writings and musings of travel, and the next will contain a multitude of pictures. How many pictures, do you ask? Well, I’ll try to keep it to a miinum, but as I took over 1700 in Rome, and I have yet to count the ones from Iceland, it could end up being quite a few. Or maybe I’ll just choose my absolute favorite (impossible) and slap that up here. We’ll see.
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All right. Wow. I guess I’ll do a bullet-point-and-comparison thing here. Yeah, that sounds fun. I have two essays looming ahead of me over the next few days, and I don’t feel like thinking about paragraph structure.
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In order of appearance:
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ROME:
It smells… dirty. Like car exhaust and motorcycle exhaust and vespa exhaust. So many vespas. The vespas of Rome are like the bicycles of Copenhagen. And they smell.
Everything is so old! Sometimes in a beautiful way, sometimes in an off-putting way. The ruins and the ancient buildings are gorgeous, obviously. Plus, I went with a class (Classical and Renaissance Rome), so it was fun actually knowing what I was looking at and understanding a bit of the history surrounding me. Had I not taken this class, I would have been relatively clueless in Rome. I would be wandering around with no idea what to see besides the Colosseum. I hadn’t even heard of the Forum before this class. Thank goodness for DIS.
Because things are old, some things are relatively shabby. Everything just seems a little back-corner-of-the-city, if that makes any sense. Especially the cobblestones. So many cobblestones. Believe me, there have been cobblestones in every city I’ve visited so far in Europe, but these ones were old and had deep, deep trenches in between, and my feet felt it. I mean FELT it. All that extra muscle movement really takes a toll, especially after walking 48 miles over four days.
Because of the walking and the heat and the walking and the walking and the walking, people got tired. There were only eight of us, and the first day went swimmingly. Everybody was in a great mood, the sun was out, we had left our winter jackets in closets in Denmark, and we were in Rome, for goodness sake. But Day Two was a different story. And Day Three. And Day Four. With each step, people got more and more tired. Which put people in bad moods. Which put me in a bad mood. Okay, scratch that. It tried to put me in a bad mood, but I tried really really hard to stay in a good mood because I was in Rome and it was beautiful and I was having a fantastic time, but the attitudes and the fatigue was getting to me. They even tried to rush through the Vatican on the last day! Ugh. It was rough. It was beautiful, but it was rough.
The pasta was delicious, as is to be expected. My favorite meal of the trip: Penne with Seven Sins at the Seven Geese restaurant. SOooooOOOOoooOO good. So good.
It was a tourist trap. There were so many tourists. The whole city was flooded with them. Only on one occasion, when we went to the edges of the city to see a quiet little graveyard the old meat-packing district did we escape the tourism. Tourist shops. Tourist stands. Men walking up to you with handfuls of selfie sticks. Men walking up to you with 20-packs of postcards (I bought one). Men and women selling paintings of the exact same thing that they had clearly not painted. It was so strange. Never have I seen so much pushiness. It was relentless. Even the restaurants lining main streets and side alleyways had waiters and waitresses posted outside, begging you to come in and try the delicious, cheap food. Everybody was so pushy! So that was weird, and slightly unpleasant. But I don’t think it took away from the trip. I think it added to it, because I’ve never seen such a spectacle. (I did invest in some paintings, but they weren’t like all the rest. They were being sold by a tiny, elderly Italian woman wrapped in scarves with paint on her nose and under her fingernails. She was working on another as we walked up to her, and the ones on display were bright, unique, imaginative, and fresh. You could see the oil paints sticking off the canvas, see the mistakes, see the inspiration. I bought two.)
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ICELAND:
I’m going to start with a disclaimer: words cannot describe the wonders of Iceland. Pictures cannot describe the wonders of Iceland. Excited hand motions and wide eyes and repeated, disbelieving shakings of the head cannot describe the wonders of Iceland, though I have tried all of these methods. It just cannot be done. You have to go there. And you should. Because it is amazing.
I managed to pack only five kilos in my one backpack for four nights and five days, because I am a cheapskate and that is all WOW Air allows before they start charging extra. I didn’t wash my hair aside from the first night, right after the Blue Lagoon, because my hairbrush didn’t make the wight limit. I didn’t pack a second book and had to borrow because an extra wouldn’t make the weight limit. I had to wear the same set of tights-leggings-long-underwear for three days in a row because a second set would not make the weight limit. But I did it. I succeeded. I feel like I can do anything now, travel anywhere with nothing. I am a woman of the world!
The colors were… I can’t. I can think of not a single word that will adequately describe all the colors. The land isn’t just green, or brown, or white, or yellow, or blue, it’s all of them. It’s everything. Somehow, moss and pines and birches and dead grass and brown shrubs and black volcanic rock and snow and blue sky and teal ice all mix together seamlessly everywhere. The world is full of color! I couldn’t handle it!
Instead of talking about history and buildings like on most tours (they did that too, just not as much), the tour guides on our day trips discussed the history of the land, the way the rocks formed, the way the curves and mountains and rivers were shaped. They talked about the last volcanic eruptions and the next volcanic eruptions and the last Ice Age. It was so refreshing.
We didn’t see the Northern Lights. The other girls wanted to (Tessa from UW, Abbi from Rome, Erin from Abbi’s core class), but it clouded over every night we were there. Fingers crossed that I’ll see them in Norway in a couple of weeks!
Everything is ridiculously expensive. More expensive than Copenhagen. More expensive than Stockholm. More expensive, more expensive, more expensive. On our first night there, we went to a 24-hour grocery store down the street to buy some basic breakfast and lunch supplies: yogurt, apples, muesli, a loaf of bread, milk, ham, cheese, spread. It was only enough to get us through the next day, when we could go to a bigger, slightly cheaper grocery store. The bill was about sixty dollars.
Our lodging, on the other hand, was cheap and perfect: an adorable studio apartment with a queen bed, huge futon, giant TV, fully-stocked kitchen, and bathtub. I took a bath on our last night there. It was wonderful. And it smelled of sulfur.
There are only about 330,000 people living in all of Iceland. And they all speak Icelandic, Danish, and English. If they go to grammar school (kind of a high school/ early college hybrid for 16-20 year olds), a fourth language is learned. Why? So they can talk to people who don’t speak Icelandic, of course. Crazy Sauce.
Of those 330,000 people, over 200,000 live in Reykjavik, the capital. It is also the only real city in the whole country. The rest is made up of villages and towns. On our bus tours, we would often hear the guide say, “And this is the small town of….” We would look out the window and almost miss it: eleven houses, all with colorful roofs, under the watchful eye of a magnificent waterfall and surrounded by sheep.
The sheep are everywhere. And they are adorable. Not the gigantic, long, Puyallup Fair sheep I am used to, but tiny little fluff balls who sprinkle the green countryside. It reminded me of the wool cards in Settlers of Catan. We had to stop once to let a bunch of them cross the road.
Icelandic wool is a big thing. Nearly every store had its fair supply of Christmas sweaters, hand-made in Iceland. I wanted them all, until I felt how scratchy they were and saw the price tag (usually around $250, sometimes more.)
The nature. The nature. The nature. Waterfalls, glaciers, rolling lava fields, bubbling hot pools of water, soaring geysers, black-lava-sanded beaches with ice dotting the shoreline. I’m so tired of using the same words, but I can’t think of any more. Gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, breath-taking, eye-opening, magical, wonderful…. They all sound ridiculous compared to what I actually saw. None of them are enough. But I think the closest one is “magical.”
At the base of one waterfall in particular, Seljalandsfoss, the water came over the edge of a cliff and plummeted, free-fall, into a wide pool below. It was such that we could walk all the way around and behind it, out the other side. Because of this, as the water came down and hit the surface, instead of just continuing on in a river, rushing past, it came slamming down like a needle of pure power, sending sprays and winds in all directions, 360 degrees from its center. It looked exactly like Elsa’s powers when she stomps down in her ice castle and the wind and ice fractals emanate from the center of the building.
I’m not sure about the rest of the movie, but I know for sure a lot of it has to be inspired by Iceland! For one, Kristoff’s family is definitely made up of Icelandic trolls, which are apparently a thing. I would know. I saw an Icelandic troll penis with my own eyes. (We’ll get to that later). Also, Kristoff calls the wise old man grandpabbi, and pabbi means “dad” in Icelandic! I know this from watching an Icelandic movie with English subtitles on the plane to Iceland and from watching American dramas with Icelandic subtitles in our apartment.
So yes. While in Reykjavik, I went to the world’s one-and-only phallological museum. To save you the google: it was a penis museum. Tessa made me. And the other girls helped with the peer pressure, though they didn’t attend themselves. It was one of the most uncomfortable hours of my life. I was expecting… well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but I certainly didn’t brace myself for viewing actualpenises. Not human, of course. Because that would be weird (sarcasm). The small set of rooms was filled, and I mean FILLED with tubes and containers, some the size of a test tube, some reaching nearly floor to ceiling, depending on the species of course. And each container was filled with fluids and held a dead and removed crowned jewel, though not the type I got to see in Rosenborg. Uck. It was so gross. There were other things too (literally). Bones, photographs, stuffed animals with extra appendages. There was also a letter from the man with the to-date recorded, world’s longest penis. He explained his history in the locker rooms of high school and promised the museum the right to his manhood upon his death. It was accompanied by a nude photograph. I cannot un-see it. There was also a folklore room, which contained the pride and glory of countless mythical creatures: Icelandic troll (pretty sure it was a rock), elf (empty jar filled with water, apparently they’re invisible), merman (moss covered rock), wood nymph (literally a stick). This place was weird, man. So weird.
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Okay. Sorry. I just can’t really think of anything else to say about Iceland now that I’m reliving that unforgettable museum trip. I’ll come up with more anecdotes for the picture post. Sorry you had to read that. I hope you are accompanied by no small children.
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But despite the pain, the fatigue, the expense, the lack of hair-washing, and the uncomfortableness, I had an unforgettable and remarkable week. I loved my travel buddies, I loved the sights, the sounds, everything. Doing Rome right before Iceland was the coolest thing ever, because they were just so different, beautiful and wonderful in completely unique ways. And I have a new nickname! “Baby puffin.” Apparently that is my spirit animal. (:
