Packing and showers are on the agenda
for this morning. Because of the EU meetings and demonstrations we
will not be heading over to the old city, we will stay on our side of
the river. Andre went out and got some things for breakfast, we are
all out of eggs, and some bread to make sandwiches for the train ride
later today.
The owner of the apartment has arranged
a private tour operator for pickup to take us to the train station,
she couldn't get a taxi booked because of the EU meetings, and all
the road closures.
We arrived at the train station very
early. I had booked super cheap tickets for this train as well, but
this meant we couldn't change the train and go earlier unless we
wanted to spend another 55.00 Euro each, our tickets only cost 9.90
Euro each so no way we were going to pay that. We found a place to
sit upstairs to kill the hour that we are here early. It is nice and
quiet compared to downstairs in the terminal and free wifi so it was
not a bad wait.
The hotel had sent an email asking
about arrival times. I sent the time for our train arrival and asked
them how much a taxi should cost. They gave directions to Burger
King, and told us to phone them from there when we arrived and they
would look after getting a taxi there for us with a set fee of 10
Euro.
We arrived at hotel, very cute, great
area, booked cheap room, no view at all. 2 free drinks and a package
of pasta for booking directly with them. Really nice garden,
breakfast included as well
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| Courtyard at our hotel in Naples |
We are off to explore as we have
limited time. Walked towards the water, and on the way there it is a
very busy shopping street called Toledo. Part of it is
pedestrian, and part cars, it was so busy. Along the way we ventured
off of Toledo and into the Spanish Quarters. We loved this part,
extremely narrow streets, densely populated, high buildings, lots of
laundry hanging out, and lots of little markets and shops.
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| Wendy wanted some licorice at the food fair, she say someone buy a little bag for 13.00 Euro, so we moved on |
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| Lots of markets on the street today |
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| Spanish Quarters |
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| Andre would have loved to eat here, Wendy not so much |
Next we made our way down to the
Palazzo Reale, we lucked out as a wedding was just about to start at
the beautiful church here. The bride and wedding party were getting
ready to go inside, a gorgeous day for them. Lots of beautiful
orchids outside for decorations, rice hanging in little sachets for
decorations, must be a sign of good luck we think.
Next we walked down to the waterfront.
There is a nice walkway here that is only for pedestrians today, and
they are out by the thousands. It is a gorgeous day, nice and warm.
We make our way to Castel Dell'Ovo and of course climb up to the top
of the castle. You can see where the cruise ships dock here, it is
really close to the old part of the city.
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| Beautiful views of Mount Vesuvius |
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| Castel Dell'Ovo |
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| Lots of Italians out walking on a gorgeous day along the waterfront |
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| This is a tough project for renovations |
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| No matter what country or language bubbles are always fun |
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| Toledo Street - so many people out shopping or just walking |
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| A few buskers out as well on Toledo Street |
We walk back up to the hotel and stop
for a break in the garden and have our free drinks. We both order
spritz, I really hope Andre can duplicate these when we get home.
When we checked in earlier today the
front desk told us the best place for pizza, but it only opened at
7:30, she said go and get in line before 7:00 or you won't get in.
So we planned our walk before dinner to get back here for pizza.
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| Square outside our hotel |
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| Supper plans |
We walked towards the Duomo with a
couple of stops along the way. We were going to go into another
church as well but they wanted 8.00 Euro for tickets, not sure what
was in there, but we didn't see it, that is the price of our pizzas
for tonight! Again the Duomo is really big, it is from the 1300's
and no charge here. The silver in here was amazing. We are now
totally done with Churches.
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| Lots of silver in this Duomo |
Next I wanted to go see Castel Capuano
and Porta Capuana that I had read about. I had heard about how dirty
and lots of garbage there was in Naples, well we found the spot. It
was terrible here. This seems to be where the homeless hang out, and
we're not sure what all the shoes and clothes were on the lawn here.
It looked like maybe they were donations for the homeless maybe,
there were dozens of pairs of shoes all mixed in with the homeless
hanging out. It wasn't the homeless that bothered me, it was the
piles and piles of garbage in the street. It was really sad, we
thought Naples had such potential, it is on a nice hill with
fantastic views, too bad it isn't cleaned up a little bit.
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| Porta Capuana, a not so nice end to our time in Naples, so much garbage |
Back to the hotel, it is now 9PM, which
is really 10PM because the time is moving forward 1 hour tonight in
Europe. Our wake up call is for 4:30AM, it is going to be a very
long day for us tomorrow.
