After 4 intense days in Italy, and about 24 hours of Naples, I'm spending the evening in my hotel room with my feet up, too tired to do anything but type.
I cannot describe Naples. Yesterday I tried to pigeon-hole it in my head but it's like nowhere else. It just needs to be experienced. It's "in your face." This morning, as I got ready for my first full day here, I thought "second chance time" I followed Rick's self-guided walking tour and there's a lot to like here.
Things I wished someone had told me:
My hotel is at the opposite end of Piazza Garibaldi to the train station. Had I known, I could have taken the escalator down and walked through the modern station. Instead I walked on the crowded, busy, narrow, cobbled sidewalk between shoddy shops, shoddy-looking loiterers, and tables of shoddy goods for sale.
After checking in, there was just enough daylight to get to Castel Sant'Angelo (according to the official website, it's open daily to 19.30). I took the metro to Vanvitelli, then just kept walking uphill. It took about 10 minutes to get to the upper funicolare stop, then another few minutes walk (without much signage) to the entrance (irrelevant since it was too late to go in), but there's a partial viewpoint of the city, the bay and Vesuvius just below the castle. Not knowing what I was letting myself in for, I chose to walk down the staircase instead of walking back the way I came up. Bad decision. The first couple of flights of stairs are covered with broken glass (kids tossing their bottles from the parapet above, I guess), then endless stairs with little light and not much of a view, because where the staircase is not flanked by homes, there are high protective walls. After about 20 minutes of stress, both on my legs and my psyche, I came to a small private parking area. Where there are cars, there must be a road, so I gratefully abandoned the staircase and continued downhill on a somewhat easier path to the middle stop of the funicolare. Below me was another staircase (though better built and better lit) but my knees begged off, and I decided it was worth 2 euro to ride down to Montesanto. I tried to ask the agent on duty how to pay for a ticket, but he just waved me in, so I got a free ride. I walked out of the Montesanto station and around the corner and that's when Napoli hit me upside the head. I just wanted to sit down and have dinner at Da Carmine (not far from my hotel and recommended by Zoe). I was ready to take the metro, but at the Montesanto station the agent gave me a decent city map (the one from the hotel only had the historic center) and told me to walk 1/2 km to Dante instead of the train. I have no idea where I walked or how I got to Piazza Dante but I certainly saw a slice of Neapolitan life. From Dante, I walked thru Via Port' Alba and then along via Tribunali only to find that Da Carmine is only open from Wednesday-Saturday. I soldiered on, albeit limping a bit, and decided I would sit down at the very next cafe or bar I found and have a drink, but there was no cafe, there was no bar, there were only shops, many of them closed. At some point I found myself heading in the general direction of Da Michele, so that became my destination. If I couldn't have a nice pasta dinner, pizza would suffice. The holy grail was arrived at, but the line outside was too long for my feet to agree, so I opted for Trianon. The service was quick, the place was quiet and comfortable and the pizza was edible if nothing to write home about. From there it was only a few minutes' walk to my hotel along pretty deserted streets. I did take a slightly longer route to use a major street. It was only about 9.15 but the side streets were completely deserted. I kept reminding myself that fear is a mental state and divorced from reality.
I'm out of space. Sorry for the length, I'm too tired to be terse. Today was good, and Da Carmine was open for lunch and great.