European Tour: Day Four

(Molly Post)

We woke up early on our 4th day in Europe - since we only had one day in Naples, we wanted to make sure we saw everything we could. The hostel was very helpful. They gave us a map and marked all the cool places to see on it. Basically, Naples has a lot of castles/fortresses.

We started around 8:30 and made our way to a fortress, Castel Nuovo or Maschio Angioino (everything had two names), which was next to our hostel and across from the main port (where ferries go to Capri & Sorrento). It had a large open square in the center with all the rooms branching off on different wings. The two main sights were the Chapel, which had disintegrating frescos on the walls, and a large hall that is now used for City Council meetings. There was also a small museum with some artifacts from the 1300's. The coolest piece was an ornate metal door that had a canon ball protruding through it - the story: when it was being transported, the ship was besieged and a cannonball struck the door making a big hole!

As I said, the fortress was right next to the water, so it had some amazing views of the Bay of Naples, Mount Vesuvius, and the Amalfi Coast (it was a little hazy the morning we were there, but still beautiful). Cody spotted Mount Vesuvius...

And a close up of the old volcano...it looked like the clouds were parting right over the peak.

And one of us...

From there, we made our way to the highest point in Naples, to the Castel Sant’Elmo, which was supposed to have the best views of Naples. We took the Central Funicular to the top of the hill (right in the center of the city) and walked to the castle. Naples is not well marked for tourists, so we had to use our sense of direction and guess which streets would take us to the castle. We made it and went straight to the top for the fantastic views. A few pictures from all sides of the castle are below.

It was very cold at the top, especially with the wind blowing, so we only stayed there for about 30 minutes before heading back to the funicular. Of course, we always have time for a picture of Cody sitting on a canon!

We decided to go to the old city center, called Spaccanapoli, to find some great pizza from the home of pizza. We walked up Via Toledo, the main street in Naples. The entire time we were in Naples, we felt a little anxious - half the shops were always closed and there was graffiti everywhere. We were never in any bad situations, but the city has an air of (for lack of a better word) sketchiness to it that we could not shake. Therefore, we don't have any pictures of the city center, because we didn't want to bring out our cameras, especially since we were some of the only tourists in the city (it is their low season in February). The streets were all cobblestone, and the cars and motorcycles drive down the pedistrian streets and honk at people walking to move. It was an interesting experience. We found a little hole in the wall to get a pizza lunch and give our legs a break.

After lunch, we decided to walk back down to the waterfront, but not to the port-side, to the rich and fancy side. The hostel told us there was a romantic park along the water for a nice walk. However, their view of "romantic" is different from ours. We prefer less graffiti and bums, so needless to say, we didn't stay long before walking along the coast back to our hostel.

That night, we decided to have a quiet night and cook dinner at the hostel since we would be eating out for the remainder of the trip in Postiano. We asked the hostel for help finding a local supermarket...and a beauty store. The hairdryer at the hostel was broken, so I had had a wet head all day. I didn't want to have a wet head two days in a row, because I was afraid of getting sick, so I decided to buy one. However, "hairdryer" is not an easily translated word. After a few unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the sales associate, I looked desperately at Cody. He pointed at his head like a gun and made the "burrrrrrr" sound of a hair dryer and everyone in the store started laughing and saying "si si si!" We managed to get the dryer and it definitely came in handy for the rest of the trip!

We went to bed early, ready to leave Naples and head to the Amalfi Coast the next day.