Brent and I had been talking about a weekend away to celebrate our recent milestone birthdays; we eventually settled on Naples with the main objective of a trip to Pompeii. We set the weekend at the beginning of October and off we went…
We arrived in Italy on Thursday afternoon – me from Manchester and Brent from London. Brent landed about an hour or so after me and when we met we found our way via taxi from the airport to our Airbnb in the centre of the old town of Naples. The apartment was lovely, clean, secure, quiet and had amazing views across the city to Vesuvius. The old town of the city was busy and felt chaotic with it’s cobbled, narrow streets, crowds and scooters making their way through them with horns beeping… It took a little getting used to! We had a little wander around where we were staying once we’d settled in before finding somewhere in the square near our apartment for dinner (Neapolitan pizza – had to be done I guess).
On Friday morning we headed out from the apartment to our pick up point for our organised tour of Pompeii and Vesuvius. It was about half an hour on the bus (not far really) and we had an excellent tour guide to take us around Pompeii. It was somewhere I’d always wanted to go since I learned about it in high school Latin class – it was neat to see it and get a better understanding of what life was like there as the city was so well preserved. I certainly hadn’t appreciated the scale of it! After lunch which we had in a restaurant just by the gates to the ruins, we got back on the bus and were taken to Vesuvius. We walked the last 200 metres or so from where we’d parked to the top of the crater. It certainly looked very benign when we were there – and the views from the top were stunning. Once we got back into Naples, we had dinner in the square near our apartment again at this place. We were trying to decide what to have when we saw some people at an adjacent table order something that looked very good so we copied… It turned out to be Frittura di verdure miste (Italian Fried Vegetables) and they were very tasty indeed especially when accompanied by a Caprese salad.
On Saturday we explored Naples on foot – walking through the old town with the harbour as our objective. There were a few cruise liners in and after watching a roller blade race on the main promenade by the sea, we had lunch by the harbour. I had a seafood pasta which was very fresh – not many food miles there I don’t think! Once we got back to the old town, we went to Underground Naples (Napoli Sotterranea) which is a network of tunnels and caverns that includes a 2400 year old aqueduct. We also saw the ruins of a Roman theatre used by Emperor Nero. For our last night in the city we decided to get some food and eat in our apartment enjoying the views and the sunset before we left it the next day.
Along the way, we sampled a few of the sweet things that Naples is known for… and I quickly understood why they are so popular. Sfogliatella ricca is a layered filo style pastry filled with sweet ricotta cheese. We also tried rum babà which is a flour, yeast, and butter-based sponge cake covered with rum syrup. Gelato of course featured on a couple of occasions including tiramisu and stracciatella flavoured versions. Another must felt like limoncello spritz… when in Rome and all that… We had one of those each while sitting on a little table outside a cafe in the old town – I’d got used to the narrow, busy streets and scooter horns by then!
I left for the airport mid morning on Sunday- Brent moved from Naples down the coast to Sorrento for another few days in Italy. I really enjoyed the couple of days spending time with Brent and being somewhere that we’d both wanted to see. Here are some of the pictures from the trip.
