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.