Naples: History, Passion and Pizza

Ciao! Chester here.

We ended our brief stay in Portugal on an early morning flight that had no less than three gate changes before we were able to take off, vaulting over Spain and the Mediterranean to land just before noon in Naples. Groggy but excited to be in Italy, we were soon bouncing between various wildly gesticulating taxi drivers who eventually got us to our hostel - though for perhaps a higher rate than a savvy local might pay but hey, welcome to Naples.   

It was immediately obvious to us from those first taxi rides that Naples was not a city that does things neat and orderly. The streets are a churning battle of wills between car, motorbike and pedestrian; traffic signals were more suggestion than law. After resting for a bit in our room at our hostel, we headed out to do a food tour and quickly learned to follow the examples of Neapolitans when it came to crossing the road - just go.

The food tour itself was a lovely introduction to the historical center of the city, and also filled us up after a long day of travel. To start, we sampled delicious antipasto (which I realized did not mean anti-pasta, but rather ante - before - pasta, duh).  We then faced down a barrage of carbs - pizza margherita, pizza frita /fried pizza, and fritatina, a puck of fried pasta and bechamel. With our stomachs lined, the guide then took us to a limoncello distillery where we got to try creamy and straight limoncello. Following that, aperol spritz, pastries, and gelato. Whew! All the while, we were getting filled in on the traditions and stories that define Naples. We ended this first evening in Italy with a few glasses of red wine at a nice bar.

     

    

    Selections from the food tour.

The next day we did a bit more wide-ranging walking tour with the help of the OG of European Travel Guides, Rick Steves. We'd heard about his free audio tours, so we loaded the one for Naples up on our phones and walked the route. It was a little overwhelming dodging traffic and our fellow pedestrians while Rick cheerfully led us through the Spanish and Greek quarters of the city and in and out of churches, but we found it was a good and cost-free way of getting oriented that we will probably to use in other cities. We ended in front of L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, the "birthplace" of pizza, but opted to go with Rick's suggestion and skip the crazy line in favor of Pizzeria Trianon nearby, where we scarfed down delectable vegetable and margherita pies. 

            

Scenes from the visual cacophony of Naples, inside and out.

We found a few key differences between these pizzas and the ones we are used to at home, even the fancier upscale Italian pies. First off, the center is a veritable soup of olive oil and cheese juice, which is a little alarming at first but actually deliciously soaks the crust. Second, no slices here - the pizzas come as is, and it is typical to eat them with a knife and fork, which definitely helps with the soupiness. Finally - they are damn good. No disrespect to the many fine slices at home, but the combination of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella di bufala and hundreds of years of experience baking these things really does make for a sublime experience.

 

Pizza perfection.

After the pizza, we headed back to our hostel and did some laundry and rested up a bit. We then headed back into the chaotic city for an underground city tour. This was pretty cool, if disjointed. In about 90 minutes, we were able to see and walk the Roman aqueducts and cisterns, explore underground spaces which housed antifascist partisans during WW2, and view the remains of a partially buried Roman theater. Pretty neat stuff! We had some ragu for dinner, and then a few glasses of wine at Gluu, a natural wine bar with a friendly owner.

    

Ancient cisterns and the passages between them.

On Thursday, our last day in Naples proper, we of course could not miss unmissable Pompeii. We opted for an afternoon tour, and after a bit of confusion with the train system, arrived on the Circumvesuviana train in the early afternoon for our tour. I was excited to see Pompeii, though I did not know exactly what to expect. I suppose I was expecting just a field of ruins, but we were both surprised to find that the ancient town was hardly ruined at all - you could still easily find and see the street layouts and walls of individual homes. I was intrigued to discover how dense it was, and the dense apartments and storefronts had me imagining what it was like to be a city kid in ancient Rome. 

In Pompeii, I am very pleased with my decision to bring a bucket hat.

What was most jaw-dropping of all was the well preserved frescoes and gardens of the more ostentatious homes, which showed clearly how seriously the Romans took decoration and beauty. Nikita and I were also very amused by a small group of Americans from the southern states on our tour who were utterly scandalized as tour guide professionally explained and showed the abundance of phallic symbols around Pompeii as well as the erotic paintings inside the brothels (direct quote: "It's like a Playboy magazine in there!").

 

Various shots around Pompeii.

 

 

 

Various much better shots, from Nikita's camera.

We took a bit of time to explore Pompeii after the tour ended; in one section we were able to see an ongoing excavation and it was great to see the city being uncovered from the ash that had held it in stasis for centuries. Leaving in the early evening, we hopped back on the train for a sweaty, stuffy, standing ride back to Naples with the other tourists. We were pretty beat from the standing and the sun, so after a dinner of let's say "creative" Asian street food, we headed to bed early.

On Friday, we left Naples on a ferry bound for Ischia. It turns out, this was a very poor day to be leaving, as we had seen preparations all over the city for a major football match that evening that surely would have been fun to stick around for. As it goes though, there are only so many things you are able to plan in advance and we were excited to get to our next destination. 

Overall, we were both charmed by Naples. It was a city that came loaded with a lot of expectations - of loudness, of griminess, of danger - and we found that all to be true, but also we saw a lot of passion, pride and fierce independent spirit. I was struck by the way that layers of history stacked on top of each other and the lack of distinction between any historical and living part of the city; the same road that served as a center of city life in Roman times is the same road, serving the same purpose, today. It was a quintessentially Italian introduction to our time here, and I think a perfect one as well.

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All in all the first week went very well with no major snafus so far. As expected, we are figuring out what works for us and what doesn't as we settle into long-term travel with an eye towards the several months of moving ahead of us. We are trying to push in the morning, and then allow ourselves time to rest in the afternoon before heading out again in the early evening for maybe a bit more sightseeing or another activity before dinner. We are very lucky to have decent amounts of time in each place we have visited, so we don't need to push ourselves to exhaustion to see everything in a compressed time.

Speaking for myself, I have been thinking on the similarities and differences between this trip and the last time I was traveling long-term, back nearly a decade ago when I spent four months on my own traversing South America, mostly in hostels. In Naples, I found myself in a hostel again but older, married, and with a bit wider of a budget than before - all of which really changes your approach to the whole thing. Rather than eagerly jump into whatever the scene is at the hostel, we've mostly been content to stick to ourselves and marvel at the endurance of the twentysomethings as they head out for night after night of drinking. We don't have too many hostels booked and I am still looking forward to them, but I am also comfortable admitting that at this point I am content to leave that era of travel behind me.

Anyway - thanks for reading! More to come soon on our Italian travels.

Ciao!