So yeah, terrifying first night, but our hostel was reassuringly safe. Two floors up, big thick doors etc. The first night I managed to finally come down with the cold that had been threatening to arrive for a week, and had a really bad night's sleep, tossing and turning and getting up to blow my nose super loud in the shared bathroom (sorry people next door!)...
In the morning we were woken fairly early by loud yells, bangs, screeches and general kafuffle down on the street, where it appeared the cars had been booted off the road and it turned into a big market by day. And we're not talking awesome Borough market style sadly, it was all crappy phones and clothes and knock off handbags. It all cleared out by about dinner time but boy howdy do they get up early to hock their wares!
Anyways, we got up, got our stuff sorted and ventured out. Spent the day wandering around town really, found a big castle and went in, wandered through 'old town' – Spaccanapoli – and then meandered back via winding streets and oddly a large number of shops selling Bambino goods. Baby gear. Who would raise children there, I ask you!
On the meander back we caught a cable car up the hill and went to a monastery that looks out over all of Napoli. Wandered through the museum and looked out across town. It was a lovely view but a bit cloudy, so we couldn't see out to Mt Vesuvius or to Capri. Caught a different cable car down the hill and headed back to the hostel.
In the short time we were back at the hostel before dinner, one of the staff managed to communicate to me that my shoulder bag was not so good, as it could be stolen reasonably easily. I demonstrated that I wore it over both shoulders and that I held onto it at all time, but he responded with 'ciao ciao italiano ciao yank yank, ciao ciao fall, ciao head injury' along with complete actions to show just how someone could really really try to steal it... I did not use the bag again!
Dinner was a lovely affair, we went to a pasta place in Piazza Garibaldi (opposite side of the square to where the scary phone seller was) and had prosciutto and mozzarella for starters, pasta for main (i love linguine bella donna!) and then this stuff called Babba for dessert with some panna cotta. Babba is AWESOME. It's like, a sponge cake thing, but drenched in syrup or something, it was so good. Recommended to us by our lovely waiter who spoke pretty good English and encouraged us to get a small bottle of wine each, which we both were surprised at but glad to find only cost about 2 euros each. Yum yum house wine! Headed home reasonably early – for one we were tired after walking around all day and for another, Napoli after dark is not cool.
Thursday led us out to Pompeii, which was so so cool! I hadn't realised it, but it's actually pretty much the whole city that has been excavated, not just a few buildings or a museum. We got there about 12ish and after a quickly inhaled margherita, we traipsed all over the place. It is awesome. So many houses and streets and buildings, random graffiti carved into walls, and awesome porno paintings on the walls of some houses (dirty little pompeiins :) ). Saw the plaster casts of people caught in the eruption, very dramatic. We took oodles of photos which will eventually make it online.
Headed back to the same pasta place again for dinner, this time a little too early for the lovely waiter to have turned on his charm, but the food was just as good. Had babba again because hey, it was delicious.
We then had one more day and decided to go to Capri...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Napoli/Naples
Monday 23rd March - We arrived after dark, amid a rush of Italians vying for closer spots in the passport check in line. I was amongst them with my Irish passport. This time I wished I was a New Zealander because Jen's line had just her in it. The line that I was jostling in turned out to be very similar to how traffic works in Napoli, you just push through and hopefully no one gets in the way.
Once outside the airport we boarded a bus to Piazza Garibaldi which is a big trap where they drop tourists so that the pickpockets can have first go at them. Got out of the bus and my first impression was... smells heavily of urine. Second impression... lots of trash on the streets.
So we made our way toward the hostel dragging our suitcases along the cobblestones. Jen's directions from the hostel's website said “From Garibaldi, go to Umberto and take the third right and then third right again.”
Out on the streets there was some sort of market going on, and the streets were still crowded. We pushed in with the traffic and I was immediately accosted by an older fellow with many scars and not much else trying to sell me an iPhone.
He knew some numbers in English and he knew how to say iPhone, but he didn't seem to understand no, which is strange because no in Italian is pretty similar. Anyway he started at 100 euros, at which i kept walking and said no (this is apparently just part of barter) he continued with me and repeated till the price was down to 14. At this point Jen had proceeded on up the street a little, and the guy was becoming very insistent and blocking my way. To which I just kept walking through him and saying no thank you. As this is happening we are surrounded by people, most just casually watching, some watching a little keener. I assumed this guy had some friends with him looking to steal my stuff or at least see where I kept my money. Just as i thought he might be feeling a bit stabby he realised I hadn't been bartering and I'd been saying no, and he just backed off.
I found Jen a little way up looking a bit panicked, she thought I'd probably been dragged into an alley.
So after that bit of fun we made it to somewhere near where the directions told us to go, but couldn't find the right street name. Eventually Jen asked a guy in a shop where our street was, in Italian (we used our phrase book here) and hand gesturing. He gave us some better directions, which turned out to be, go exactly back to where the bus dropped you off and look to the right, that is the street. So we dragged our suitcases back up the cobbled streets, but avoided the market because we both had enough phones, and found the street our hostel was on.
This street was dirtier than most and the door to the hostel well hidden. We were obviously lost tourists in a dark back alley. Luckily someone from the hostel was on a balcony above us and showed us how to get in.
Inside, the hostel was nice and warm and safe. A man behind the counter showed us our room and warned us of how unsafe it is outside, and told us various ways we could be hurt or lose our money.
So feeling very reassured we went back out to a pizza house nearby that had been recommended to us. It was called Trianon, I had a margherita pizza and Jen had some fish pizza with anchovies and olives. The pizzas were delicious, made doubly so because we were starving. Napoli is known as the birth place of pizza and especially the margherita Whether or not that is true, they make fine pizza. The base is thin and almost like pancake in the center, the edges are nice and crunchy, and it has fresh mozzarella and delicious tomato, which kinda makes the pizza quite liquid and a bit messy. So you definitely have to eat it in the Neapolitan way with knife and fork.
We had our pizzas with cokes straight from glass bottles. And then went through the tricky process of paying and adding tip. After dinner we made our way back the hostel feeling very full and scared for our lives. Naples hadn't made a great first impression, but we soon learned that it's not Naples that makes Naples great, it's all the great stuff around it. Oh and also the food.
Once outside the airport we boarded a bus to Piazza Garibaldi which is a big trap where they drop tourists so that the pickpockets can have first go at them. Got out of the bus and my first impression was... smells heavily of urine. Second impression... lots of trash on the streets.
So we made our way toward the hostel dragging our suitcases along the cobblestones. Jen's directions from the hostel's website said “From Garibaldi, go to Umberto and take the third right and then third right again.”
Out on the streets there was some sort of market going on, and the streets were still crowded. We pushed in with the traffic and I was immediately accosted by an older fellow with many scars and not much else trying to sell me an iPhone.
He knew some numbers in English and he knew how to say iPhone, but he didn't seem to understand no, which is strange because no in Italian is pretty similar. Anyway he started at 100 euros, at which i kept walking and said no (this is apparently just part of barter) he continued with me and repeated till the price was down to 14. At this point Jen had proceeded on up the street a little, and the guy was becoming very insistent and blocking my way. To which I just kept walking through him and saying no thank you. As this is happening we are surrounded by people, most just casually watching, some watching a little keener. I assumed this guy had some friends with him looking to steal my stuff or at least see where I kept my money. Just as i thought he might be feeling a bit stabby he realised I hadn't been bartering and I'd been saying no, and he just backed off.
I found Jen a little way up looking a bit panicked, she thought I'd probably been dragged into an alley.
So after that bit of fun we made it to somewhere near where the directions told us to go, but couldn't find the right street name. Eventually Jen asked a guy in a shop where our street was, in Italian (we used our phrase book here) and hand gesturing. He gave us some better directions, which turned out to be, go exactly back to where the bus dropped you off and look to the right, that is the street. So we dragged our suitcases back up the cobbled streets, but avoided the market because we both had enough phones, and found the street our hostel was on.
This street was dirtier than most and the door to the hostel well hidden. We were obviously lost tourists in a dark back alley. Luckily someone from the hostel was on a balcony above us and showed us how to get in.
Inside, the hostel was nice and warm and safe. A man behind the counter showed us our room and warned us of how unsafe it is outside, and told us various ways we could be hurt or lose our money.
So feeling very reassured we went back out to a pizza house nearby that had been recommended to us. It was called Trianon, I had a margherita pizza and Jen had some fish pizza with anchovies and olives. The pizzas were delicious, made doubly so because we were starving. Napoli is known as the birth place of pizza and especially the margherita Whether or not that is true, they make fine pizza. The base is thin and almost like pancake in the center, the edges are nice and crunchy, and it has fresh mozzarella and delicious tomato, which kinda makes the pizza quite liquid and a bit messy. So you definitely have to eat it in the Neapolitan way with knife and fork.
We had our pizzas with cokes straight from glass bottles. And then went through the tricky process of paying and adding tip. After dinner we made our way back the hostel feeling very full and scared for our lives. Naples hadn't made a great first impression, but we soon learned that it's not Naples that makes Naples great, it's all the great stuff around it. Oh and also the food.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Ten down, two to go
Months that is. Til we get back :)
So we no longer have a flat! Or jobs. We've been staying in London at Chris and Milly's which is very very appreciated. During this time we have done a few basic siteseeing trips, such as visiting the Tate Modern again (it changes regularly! ) and also a further afield trip - we went to Bath and Cardiff from Tuesday to Friday.
Bath was very lovely, we went to dinner at a Jamie Oliver restaurant (I love that guy) and to the Roman Baths. Also went on a super awesome free walking tour of Bath given by this sweet old dude who I'm sure has lived in Bath all his life and now gives these tours every day. He was so cute, there are some pics of him with his little cap in our album...
The drive to Cardiff was in no way direct - we did a bit of a drive through the Vale of Glamorgan and then hung out on Cardiff Bay. Our hostel was lovely, better than the Bath one anyway, and on our second day we went to Cardiff Castle and had a tour of an awesome old Victorian house, built by (at the time) the richest man in Britain. It was seriously ridiculous - gold plated decorated ceilings, awesome nursery decked out with amazing art and fixtures, way too many smoking rooms, and all for a dude who only spent 6 weeks of the year there. On accout of he had like 6 other castles to hang out in! Lucky for some. Drove back a scenic route, mostly because we took a wrong turn at some point but was pretty much the right direction so all good.
This weekend has been pretty casual, but today was my birthday (yay! 25!) and I had a cake baked for me by my lovely boyfriend - he also got me some awesome trinkets from the Globe store (tea towel with 'Out damn spot!' and a badge with 'exit - pursued by a bear' tee hee). He is a sweety :) We went out for a Harry Potter themed London Walk and then for dinner at a place called Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden, which was pretty tasty, a Texmex kind of deal. Yum!
Anyways, tomorrow we are off on the third to last phase of our year long odessy; Italy and France. There has been a slight change to the plans, instead of Bordeaux we are hitting up Nice. This is because the train lines between Geneva and Bordeaux suck ass and Nice is easier, so Nice it is! A beach trip will be quite a difference after (hopefully) our day of skiing in Geneva. We tried to book a tour of the CERN facility, but we're on a waiting list so not sure if we'll get into that. But there's a exhibit or something that we can look at regardless so it should be interesting :)
Not sure how the internet coverage will be on this trip, but will try to update often (mostly so I don't have to sit down after 2 weeks and try to remember what we've been doing). What fun! Now to hurridly learn some Italian :S
So we no longer have a flat! Or jobs. We've been staying in London at Chris and Milly's which is very very appreciated. During this time we have done a few basic siteseeing trips, such as visiting the Tate Modern again (it changes regularly! ) and also a further afield trip - we went to Bath and Cardiff from Tuesday to Friday.
Bath was very lovely, we went to dinner at a Jamie Oliver restaurant (I love that guy) and to the Roman Baths. Also went on a super awesome free walking tour of Bath given by this sweet old dude who I'm sure has lived in Bath all his life and now gives these tours every day. He was so cute, there are some pics of him with his little cap in our album...
The drive to Cardiff was in no way direct - we did a bit of a drive through the Vale of Glamorgan and then hung out on Cardiff Bay. Our hostel was lovely, better than the Bath one anyway, and on our second day we went to Cardiff Castle and had a tour of an awesome old Victorian house, built by (at the time) the richest man in Britain. It was seriously ridiculous - gold plated decorated ceilings, awesome nursery decked out with amazing art and fixtures, way too many smoking rooms, and all for a dude who only spent 6 weeks of the year there. On accout of he had like 6 other castles to hang out in! Lucky for some. Drove back a scenic route, mostly because we took a wrong turn at some point but was pretty much the right direction so all good.
This weekend has been pretty casual, but today was my birthday (yay! 25!) and I had a cake baked for me by my lovely boyfriend - he also got me some awesome trinkets from the Globe store (tea towel with 'Out damn spot!' and a badge with 'exit - pursued by a bear' tee hee). He is a sweety :) We went out for a Harry Potter themed London Walk and then for dinner at a place called Navajo Joe's in Covent Garden, which was pretty tasty, a Texmex kind of deal. Yum!
Anyways, tomorrow we are off on the third to last phase of our year long odessy; Italy and France. There has been a slight change to the plans, instead of Bordeaux we are hitting up Nice. This is because the train lines between Geneva and Bordeaux suck ass and Nice is easier, so Nice it is! A beach trip will be quite a difference after (hopefully) our day of skiing in Geneva. We tried to book a tour of the CERN facility, but we're on a waiting list so not sure if we'll get into that. But there's a exhibit or something that we can look at regardless so it should be interesting :)
Not sure how the internet coverage will be on this trip, but will try to update often (mostly so I don't have to sit down after 2 weeks and try to remember what we've been doing). What fun! Now to hurridly learn some Italian :S
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Toot toot all aboard
Well now! What have we been up to? To start with I just finished the first day of my last week of work, and I must say I'm thrilled. Went out for pub lunch with the team since today was the last day we were all available, tasty. Spent some of my afternoon going through my notes and papers and shredding things that I didn't need (those machines are noisy and fun) and passing on projects.
Joe is also in his last week but it's more of a break than an end for him, since he'll be contracting from NZ for them. Yay for earning in pounds! Hopefully the exchange rate will stay favourable.
Weekend before last we rented a car again and spent the Saturday driving up to Hull on a grave-hunting quest for the ma. We had a couple of maps and lists of graves of Sutton-on-Hull parish cemetery and went about taking photos of great great whatsits graves. Most of which were either reasonably crumbly or else completely overgrown by whole trees. Apparently it's the done thing to allow cemeteries to become very overgrown and wild in the name of nature preserves, which does make them quite pleasant really. Hard to find the rellies though! Also went to Wawne cemetery, where we had no map but just hunted for Robinsons and other family last names, found a few. The pics are all up online under the trip to Hull album.
On the Sunday we ventured to Cambridge – very close to bedford but we hadn't gotten round to it prior to last weekend. Did some brief shopping (I was given some vouchers for John Lewis/Waitrose for christmas and neither are in Bedford) and then went for a walk around the town, which is pretty awesome. All full of colleges and museums and universities. We sat for a while at Kings College admiring the view while punters on the river went past, full of tourists. Very nice :)
Last weekend was our last full one before all systems are go. On Saturday we did grooming things (Joe finally got a hair cut and I did girly things at the salon next door) and then went along to Bedford Museum, which is just super cute! Free entry, and it has a section on Victorian life in Bedford, Bedford Castle and its demise in the 1300s, then a lot of archaeological information about the area. Also a great section called the Olde Curiosity Shop, which was apparently a bunch of fellows in the 1800s idea of a good collection – lots of dead stuffed animals, an elephant skull, bugs pinned to boards, all sorts of ancient pottery and some Egyptian stuff too. We sat down in the kids area and raced each other on a butterfly wordfind :)
After that we went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which was grand, and Sunday we lounged extensively. It was nice to have a relaxed weekend – this week we'll be starting the packing process and trying to get the Salvation Army to take our unwanted flat stuff, surely someone will want that stuff. Also planning to pop down to London for a show or two, but mostly packing. Woo hoo...
So basically four days from now, we'll be unemployed, and a week after that, homeless! I'm so very looking forward to being a tramp.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
