Napoli

We arrived safely in Napoli after our overnight crossing, albeit a bit knackered as the ship tossed about a bit and neither of us got much sleep. Our arrival was a little late and we found ourselves in the middle of the morning rush hour. Driving through that was definitely extreme sport. There doesn’t appear to be any rules to driving in Napoli and anything goes; lights are routinely ignored, motorbikes frequently use the pavements and suddenly appear going the wrong way up one way streets, and the method used for entering traffic is to move first and look afterwards trusting that other traffic will miss you or stop, which by the look of most vehicles, doesn’t always work. And of course this is all happening at great speed. It really did feel like being in a computer game. With Mags screaming every 5 seconds next to me my nerves were shredded by the time we got to the hotel.

I’d developed a tooth ache on our last few days in Sicily so our first job was to seek out a dentist. Our friendly concierge recommended someone locally and I set off in a taxi. The practice was located in an unpromising residential neighborhood utilizing a converted flat in a tower block. I almost turned around when I got there but ploughed on and, once inside, the place looked well equipped, modern with professional looking staff. Anyway, lets just say the rest was an interesting experience – root canal work with no anesthetic. No-one spoke English and after half an hour, neither did I. The dentist opted for phone a friend and I communicated with him by speaking to a chap at the end of the phone with the phone passing between me and the dentist. You’d laugh it didn’t hurt so much.

Yesterday we visited Vesuvius and Pompei. We had clear, blue skies and the views from the volcano were amazing. We decided not to climb to the very top as it was very windy and cold up at the top.

We both enjoyed Pompei and even managed to avoid being hussled into an unnecessary car park for 10 euros. The site was much larger than I expected with really a fair amount of the city excavated and still standing. Walking along the cobbled streets was quite an experience and really gave us a feel for city life in Roman times. The baths were spectacular with plenty of marble and some of the art work still visible. We picked a great day to visit with blue skies and sunny weather and, being off season, not too many tourists – although I expect there’s always at least a fair smattering. Apparently, this is Italy’s most visited tourist site.

Some observations on Italian life so far, the first one from Mags.

There’s no such thing as a thin middle aged woman.
Lunch runs from 1 to 4:30
Wine with lunch is compulsory
Traffic lights are advisory only.
Only tourists say “perfavore”