MAYDAY! Welcome to Napoli...

So this past weekend was a holiday weekend here in Italy for the workers. It's called Primo Maggio, and we would refer to it as May Day. I went to Naples with Shawn, Gio, and Sarah, and our roommates Azzurra and Alessandro decided to join us a couple days later. Our train ride down took FOREVER...6 hours plus it was two hours late (we sat in the Rome terminal for over an hour, just waiting!). Here was the first time I wanted to yell out MAYDAY! on May Day Weekend. However, there was the cutest southern couple in our compartment and the husband was a hoot! He kept telling these random proverbs, stories and jokes, usually with a thick accent and often in dialect. Plus the two of them were so cute together, always making fun of each other and looking out for one another. They are exactly the picture of how everyone would like to grow old. You wouldn't believe it looking at him, but he's 79 years old!

Once we finally got to Naples station we decided to take a taxi because we didn't know exactly where the hotel was and it was one in the morning. So the guy isn't running the ticker and we're all wondering what we're gonna end up paying at the end of the ride. So he takes a few random turns and after about 7 minutes we make it to the hotel. We get out, I ask how much, and he tells me me 20 Euro. MAYDAY! I just about had a heart attack, but instead said, "No." Shawn and I argued with him for about 3 minutes, him saying it's a holiday, you guys have luggage, it's late, etc...and me and Shawn telling him it was such a short ride, that he knew that wasn't a just amount to charge, and come on! 2o-no, 10-ok 15-no, 10-fine, 12...So finally we get him down to 12. The greatest part about it was the next day we come to find out we're seriously 2 blocks from the train station and it should have taken about 3 minutes to get there, not 7! But we feel that from 20 down to 12 was a pretty good deal to strike with a Napoletano and so we were quite proud of ourselves that we didn't just turn around and take it up the tailpipe (as Jim Carey says in one of my favorite rants from Liar Liar).

The next day was dedicated to Pompeii. We went to the Archaeological Museum in the morning and then to the ruins of Pompeii in the afternoon.

Rick Steves is our travel God.

I remembered that when I went to Pompeii 7 years ago with Mr. Rayburn's group, we took pictures on some columns in Pompeii...well I found them again! We took like 10 poses, but here's on of my favorites:

and then another pose at what used to be a fast food restaurant:

Ok so here's the deal. There's not many bathrooms in Pompeii. And I had bought a huge water bottle and was drinking like a camel because at the Valley of the Temples I had gotten dehydrated and learned that it's not fun to be dehydrated. Well then, as is the natural course of nature, I had to pee realllly bad after a short time. But Sarah wanted to keep following Rick Steve's guided tour of Pompeii. So I'm slowly dying and trying to get them to go to a bathroom but no one's budging and I'm about to explode and Sarah's like why don't you just pee in that corner and my big confession is that I couldn't wait and so I did! I peed on Roman Ruins! How embarrassing. But afterwards I could smile again:
That night we decided to eat at the most highly recommended pizzeria in Naples, Da Michele. They only have marinara and margherita but it was SO GOOD! The crust in Naples is out of this world. It's like if pita and crepe got together...they would produce a Napoletano crust baby!


After dinner we went back to the hotel...and instead of watching TV, which didn't work anyways, we just stood out on our balcony and watched a whole lot of stuff go down. There were cats and bats and rats and prostitutes. We were entertained for hours.

Day two we made our way to Capri along with Azzurra and Ale. I was super excited to go to La Grotta Azzurra (The Blue Grotto) with Azzurra! It was a beautiful day and inside the grotto was just fabulous, plus everyone was singing in Italian! It was quite magical.

Blue Grotto

That area is really well known for their lemons...and so Sarah and I just had to get a lemonade granita. It's the best I've ever had! I'll admit...I got two!

We decided to go all the way to the top of Monte Solare, at the highest point...and so we had to take a chairlift! I've never taken a chairlift without the presence of snow. At the top there was a gorgeous view of both sides of the Island, and I got to see the Faraglioni Rocks again, which is one of the main sights in Capri.



In Anacapri, the town above Capri, I went into the church to see a beautiful tiled mural that covered the entire floor. The really sweet curator lady there told us all about it...it's of the Fall from Eden and it's just beautiful.

Before leaving Anacapri I decided I had to buy a pair of sandals. They were hand-made just for me! I picked the color, the style, and he fit them to my feet! I wish I had a picture of him making them, but I was so freaking excited that I didn't even think of it!

Here's some shots of the beautiful harbor in Capri:


On our last day in Naples we got a personal tour from Azzura's cousin, Zaira, who's lived there for ten years now. We went underground to see the passageways underneath Naples, where at one point there was a super-narrow passageway through which we had to carry candles! It was beautiful. We also went down a street that's famous for having figurines for things like Nativity scenes...it was really neat to see the artistry and variety!

We rode a funicular (Sing along: Funiculi, Finicula...!) to a much nicer part of town where we went to Castello St. Elemo which had a beautiful panorama of the city. That's Mt. Vesuvius always in the background!





Shawn found a restaurant named Cin Cin which I got really excited about because that's what we often say here in place of Cheers (even though I'm pretty sure it's Chinese):

And then we continued with a tour around the city...


Here's my favorite picture of Italian boys playing in the park! Napoletani are known for raising their children in the street...We saw sooo many examples of it. Cute, eh?

That night we ate dinner at Zaira's apartment. We were entertained for hours with a very intense discourse (mostly between Ale and Zaira) about Naples' reputation.

All in all it was a great trip...now I just have a few days at home to get myself together before I turn around and head to Sardegna Friday...with a real Sarda!