We reserved a ticket for Rome, but had just under an hour to kill. So we took turns using the bathrooms to freshen up.
Then straight onto another train. The two hour journey passed quickly and before I knew it we were in Napoli. At the station we noticed that there was a touring card of sorts. The youth version was 8 euro for 3 days and included free admission to sights in Napoli and free transport within the city. Excellent deal, especially since a bus ride costs 1 euro and most sights are 4-5 euro.
At the counter we were asked where were hailed from. When we replied Australia we were told ¨sorry, no studen- wait, where in Australia?¨.
¨Western Australia¨ we said, cautiously.
She said ok, we could have the card.
For some reason only WA students can get the card. They have sort of arrangement with Naples. I left feeling smug for my awesome state.
We found the R2 bus and when it arrived squeezed in with our backpacks. It seems that Italians will never wait for the next bus, even if it is full. It was suffocation levels in there. Every stop pushed me further from the door and neither of us could see any signs for which stop we should get off. After a few stops we decided to walk the rest and shoved outward as soon as the doors opened. I think I injured some people with my bag but at that point I really didn't care.
Walking maybe not the best idea. The temperature hit sweltering and was steadily rising. The humidity was tangible. Our free map was little help, with few street names written on it and few street name signed on the streets. Through sheer luck or force of will we found the right area, by the port. Someone at the bar in Vienna told me that Napoli was ´dirty´. They were right. Its a pretty dirty city. A busy, thriving city, but dirty. Our area especially. We were pointed to a hostel that then pointed us to our own hostel.
The hostel is on the 6th floor. We dragged our bags up and I thought I would faint by the 4th floor. Once we were in though, the place was lovely. The place was clean, spacious, cheap and had free breakfast with helpful staff.
There were three beds. Our roommate was a french speaking Belgian. He spent a lot of time putting down his own country. He kept saying it was boring. then went to reception to find a travel book to show us parts of Belgium. He kept recommending places to go followed by ¨you wont remember it any way¨. Annoyed by this, I did an email swap.
We set off to get laundry done. 20 minutes walking up Duomo street and we still couldn't find it. The place was supposed to be behind a cathedral, but every corner has a church. Well, I thought, this is 2 hours from the worlds catholic centre. Also there are many tiny small streets. The maps only show the main streets with proper names, so it gets hard to navigate. Duomo was full of wedding shops. Exquisite dressing fill every window. Huge full of ruffles, none of them are ever simple. Most are tasteful though.
We found the laundry and asked how much for a wash and dry. He joked that we sounded Scottish, not wanting to pay much money. We replied that we were students. The washing wouldn't be ready for an hour, we headed to a nearby main attraction of the archaeological museum (Museo Archeologico Nazionale).
The museum itself focused on the Vesuvian towns; Pompei, Napoli and Herculaneum. There were pots and pans and vases and some statues. Many rooms had frescos from Pompeii temples or bronze statues from wealthy houses buried in rock. It was decently interesting I guess, but not enthralling. There were also some paintings from later periods.
The last floor we went into had beautiful mosaics. They has been saved from the rocks. Some of the stones making up the designs were less than 2mm. The pieces made up intricate scenes that from further back could easily be mistaken for paintings.
The last rooms we saw were called the Gabinetto Segreto, the secret cabinet. They house the areas largest collection of ancient erotica. Apparently these towns were quite into that type of thing. There were sex scenes on plates and paintings plus nudes abounding. There were very large stone pieces hanging off the walls (pieces in both senses of the word).
Laundry was done by then so we picked it up and re-found the hostel. In the evening we went out for pizza, with Napoli being the home of pizza and all. We got a Marinara (a vegetarian pizza here) and a Siciliana. They were incredible. The marinara especially. The sauce, melted on the tongue and the base was heavenly. A bit pricey for us but truly an awesome pizza experience.
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