“Back in old Napoli, that’s Amore”

We awoke on our final day in Sienna with many hours to kill before our midnight bus to Naples. We checked out after breakfast and left our bags with the reception before heading out to explore anything we had missed in Sienna. We went to the post office and sent home yet another box, trawled through the shops again and then sat in the main square to people watch. With still so much time to kill we decided to ask the tourist office one more time if there was anything we had missed. Their response was “have you been to this church (while pointing at the map), or perhaps this church? Or maybe this church? Or there is also this church??” to which we replied, “yes, yes and no but I think we’ve seen enough churches, is there any other attractions we should see?”.... the tourist office lady looked at us confused and said “it’s a very small town”...

Now satisfied that we had seen everything Sienna had to offer, which was very little, we still had such a long time to wait before our overnight bus. We decided to go back to our hostel and sat in the foyer using their wifi... for 6 hours... and watched streamed episodes of tv shows online. Finally our cab arrived and took us to the local bus station, where we again, being the earlybirds we are, waited and waited. Being so late at night it was rather deserted and dark, though there were a few other passengers waiting for our bus. It wasn’t until we were about to get on the bus that I realised the bus tickets I had printed out back at the hostel were in gibberish! All the text was replaced by symbols and random letters. Now with no wifi, and everything around us closed we went into a slight panic about whether we would be allowed on the bus... deciding that our only option was to turn on the dreaded roaming internet on our phone and pay the exorbitant fees, we were able to get the details we needed to show the bus driver upon arrival – thank goodness!

Naples

We were now on our way to Naples, and arrived at around 5:30am. We were aware that Naples has a reputation of being dirty, unsafe, and run by the Mafia so we were very cautious when we arrived at such an awful time, and as we were exhausted, decided to catch a cab to our hostel rather than figure out yet another transport system. We dragged our bags over to the taxi queue and were told to get into a cab by one of the taxi drivers. We put our bags in the back and got into the cab, only to watch our driver have an argument with another driver, and he started to remove our bags and put them into another cab... Sara and I jumped out of our taxi, terrified they were going to drive away with all our belongings and we were yelled at in Italian to now get into the new taxi. From what we could gather the first taxi had jumped the queue so the new driver had forced him to relinquish us into his care. We were then driven extremely fast through the streets of Naples, holding on for dear life, with no seat belts in sight and screeched to a halt outside our hostel. The driver then demanded a much higher price than we had been originally quoted and after a small protest we decided it best to pay up for fear of what he may do to us...

Now completely shattered, we paid our 5 cents to use the hostel lift (What the?!) and checked in. Though being so early we were not able to get into our room so we both passed out on the common room couches before moving to our room for more much needed sleep. We later awoke to most of the hostel watching the Royal Wedding on the common room tv, so we caught a glimpse as we got ourselves ready for a day of exploring and headed out. We had been told to eat at the world famous Gino’s Pizza, so decided to head in that direction and check out the surrounding area while we worked up an appetite. We were able to quickly establish how to use the public transport system and caught a bus downtown. We were amazed at the piles of rubbish, and overturned bins that lined the streets, some of which had been set alight and were now covered in ash and burnt garbage. It was quite a culture shock from the beautiful clean cities we had already experienced in Italia, and after our taxi ordeal that morning we were feeling a little apprehensive about walking around.

We pressed on anyway, dropped off some laundry and began roaming the back streets. We wandered through small alleyways which were covered with clothes lines strung up between apartments. We found the Duomo, the main church that the city is very proud of, and while it was quite detailed, was not on our wow list, though we had been very spoilt at this point in our trip. Eventually we found the famous Gino’s Pizza and were told there were no tables, they were closing soon (for their mid afternoon, before dinner break), and therefore we could not order. At this point we were now starving and were not looking forward to sampling any of the food we had passed on the way. We inquired at a few places on prices but nothing took our fancy. We walked past Gino’s again and noticed that people were ordering take away and inquired whether they were still serving take away to which they replied yes... why they didn’t offer this to us in the first place is beyond me but nevertheless we were finally allowed to order, just as a table became free and we were allowed to sit down to eat.... my goodness that pizza was well worth it! We had ordered a pizza each, as they were only 3 Euro each so figured they would be rather small... they were practically the size of our table! Soooo tasty, the base was like Naan, the sauce was almost drinkable, the herbs smelled amazing and we did our very best to finish them, though were unsuccessful. After our disappointment with Sienna and Florence, our beloved Italia was delivering again... we were in love with Naples!

Now with stuffed bellies we roamed the streets again, and began the search for a hairdresser. At this point we had been away for over 5 months and thought it time for a little personal grooming. We got a few quotes and eventually found a barber with a suitable price... he spoke little to no English... but how hard is a trim right?.... we sat down on his couch while we waited for him to finish his current client... a man so enamoured with his own looks he inspected the length of every strand of hair, demanding that each section be reshaped. He later took the clippers from the hairdresser to do the final touches to his perfectly (drawn-on looking) thin beard. Sara and I named him princess. Eventually it was my turn for the chair... By playing charades, and showing the barber some pictures from his hair magazines I was able to convey what I wanted... though when it came to my fringe... we had different ideas. Somehow he managed to butcher it... one side way too short and the other a strange shape but longer so would take less time to grow out...Next was Sara’s turn, who after seeing mine, asked for a much simpler cut, just a trim, no fringe, and we left with Sara in hysterics at her new name for me... “Captain Shit Fringe”... sigh

The next morning we left our bags with reception and headed to the beach side of town in search of breakfast. Having lived on pizza for a couple of weeks now in Italy, we were in desperate need or something else, anything else! Most of all we wanted breakfast food – eggs, toast, pastries, anything that a normal person would classify as breakfast... We stopped at every single food outlet asking if they serve breakfast. Many of which pronounced “yes yes! Sit sit! You eat you eat!” to which we inquired “Eggs? Toast?” and were told “yes yes” only, when we were finally shown a menu, no such things existed, when questioned the owners replied “pizza, pizza you eat you eat, I make”... this same scenario was repeated in every restaurant in town! 3 hours of walking around in the rain later, still hungry, still with no sign of any other food on offer, it was now looking like lunch time and so we caved and went to McDonalds...

It was a shame it had been raining most of the day, as the beach side of Naples looked like it would be quite beautiful in the sun. Such a difference to the dirty, rubbish filled streets of downtown. The people we spoke to were lovely though and although we had felt unsafe upon arrival, we grew to love it and felt very comfortable walking around. Next we headed back to our hostel to collect our bags and move to a hotel, where we would be meeting Mum!

Mum arrived later that night and after missing each other’s texts and calls we decided to head out to find her. We bumped into her on the street and helped her with her bags, in the pouring rain and showed her to our room. It was actually quite strange seeing a familiar face again. It had been 2.5 months since Kellie had left us, so Sara and I were quite the chatterboxes. Mum however, had been traveling for about a month before meeting us, and was quite tired from her day, so after grabbing a quick dinner we went to bed early... and had our first early morning wake up call from Mum the following day... something Sara and I were not used to, and were not going to get used to...

After breakfast in the hotel, we packed our bags, left them with reception and headed out to show Mum our beloved Napoli... First we went to the Archaeological museum to see the Pompeii exhibition, as we would soon be going to Pompeii and most of the original artefacts are kept in the Museum. Sara and I feigned interest at the pieces of broken pottery, faded plates, and other shattered artefacts, but enjoyed continuing our trip-long game of pretending to be statues for photos, which Mum soon learned to laugh along at, and now we could both be in the photos... together!

  

Next we took Mum back to the Duomo, and tried to take her to Gino’s Pizza but unfortunately it was closed, so we had a rather disappointing meal across the street instead.  We didn’t have time to get back to the beach, or to show mum the nicer streets of Naples, so I think for her all she saw was the dirty streets and piles of rubbish, which is a shame because Sara and I had really liked it there. She’ll just have to go back one day, and she’ll definitely have to go to Gino’s... now that I think about it... I’ll have to go back too! That afternoon, we got the train to Sorrento...