Naples... You Can Keep It.

Today has been an adventure.

It started innocently enough- breakfast at the hotel, lemon trees (note the SIZE of the lemons), singing birds, cappucino...

It was relaxing...

I love that you can't go wrong with a cappucino here.






We stopped at Herculaneum on the way. It's only a fraction of Pompeii, but much better preserved.

LOTS of well-preserved frescos...

Some statues....






And the skeletons of what looks to be a family of 3 huddled together in an otherwise unassuming house.

:(

It's not like when you go in there's a sign that says "There's a really sad display of skeletons in here." You just walk in like any other house in the town. I don't care who you are- it makes you a little sad to see that.
We spent about 2 hours there and then got on our way. We meant to get to the Navy base there so we could mail some stuff home for more room in our luggage so we could shop a little in Rome. Well, after a stop at the Exchange and asking around- we found the post office- tucked away behind some buildings. We walked in and were told that it closed at 3. Huh? the POST OFFICE on a Navy base overseas, on a Tuesday, closes at 3. And of course it was 3:30. Ugh. We didn't know what we would do with our stuff. Find a FedEx in town? Stop back at the base tomorrow? Just hang onto it until we get home? While we were trying to figure this out- we thought we'd either find our hotel or the train station to drop off the rental car. The two were close together.

Fast forward an hour or two and we're 'parked' on the side of a 'street' I think it was under the train station. We had found our hotel amongst the crazy-ass drivers, cars parked 2 deep and piles of trash. After we'd located the hotel- we thought maybe we'd drop off the car, but we couldn't find where the Hertz point was and frankly- the train station was scary as hell.

This is at the train station.





I've been alone and lost in the back woods of Kentucky and I've been alone and lost in the Ghetto of Oakland, California and I've been lost in Tijuana, Mexico- alone and drunk- but Naples scared the crap out of me. Not driving around in a car with my sister, but the idea of the two of us in a questionable hotel, on a main street, at night, just didn't seem like the brightest idea.

No thank you. Naples was a trashy city and Micki and I made the decision to find the quickest route out of there.



We got out of the city and thought we'd head for Rome tonight but we didn't have hotel reservations anywhere and it was at least 2 hours away. Hm- So we headed back to the Navy base and got a room at the Navy Lodge. Some familiarity and security was relieving after that debacle.
Though the food on base isn't authentic Napoli... we got pizza at the base pizzeria (it was that or Subway sandwiches) and hunkered down. It was a good decision because we did laundry free of charge (we each only brought a carry-on of clothes for the 10-day stay) and we can mail out our stuff tomorrow.
I am a little sad that I won't get to see the pretty stuff in Naples, but NOT having to deal with that filthy town is a fine trade-off with me. Small sacrifices........

That's Vesuvius in the distance. This is the prettiest picture I could get of Naples.... LEAVING.



Tomorrow will be a more productive day. I won't say 'better' because 85% of the fun is the surprises. I think Micki and I make a damn good team. She was driving (I think that was a good thing) and I was navigating.. with an inferior map that only had a couple of streets actually labeled- though I don't think it mattered because the streets in Naples are hardly marked. So the fact that we found what we were looking for- train station and hotel- and still got out of there is an accomplishment. We just didn't have to stay once we got there.
I think we will mosey tomorrow. Get the car dropped off just outside Rome, take the train in, get our goodies to the hotel, have some dinner and wine, then on Thursday we'll hit the Colosseum.

Still a good GREAT day. We all need a little excitement- and Micki and I got our fair share.

Ciao!