Weekend in Naples, Part 1: Pom-paiian' the Cost to Coast

Yeah, I know this song isn't technically about lemons, but just roll with it, ok?

        As you may be able to tell from the title, I went to Naples for the weekend with a group of people from my program. I preferred to make two shorter posts than one really long one, so I broke it up for you. Part 2 is here.
        Naples is a region as well as a city. It's like Los Angeles in that Long Beach, Pasadena, Burbank, Encino, etc. are technically part of the LA area/metropolis, but are not the city proper. To avoid confusion, when I say "Naples," I'm referring to the region and when I say "Napoli," I'm referring to the city.

         The first thing we did after checking in at our hostel was go to Pompeii, which was about a 30 minute train ride away. Pompeii was absolutely amazing. For those who don't know the story, it was a thriving city in the Roman empire that got completely decimated by a volcanic eruption. Though the inhabitants left or died, the city ruins remain. It' s huge too. Just when you think you've seen it all, you find another huge area to explore. We spent about 4 hours walking around and we still didn’t cover everything, even with a fair amount being closed for construction. There was some original Pompeiian art in the form of wall paintings that had somehow survived all these years. It was an incredible experience to be walking in a town that’s 2000 years old and still remarkably intact. I would go again in a heartbeat. I’d consider it a must-see if you’re in Italy.

         The next day, we took the train to Sorrento, about an hour south of Napoli, and then a bus around the Italian coast to the town of Amalfi. The bus was completely packed when I got on. For the first half of the ride, I had to stand, which was not fun. Here’s how my body works: I can ride the most insane, gut-wrenching roller coaster, yes the ones that throw you upside down and all over the place and I’ll be totally fine. But get me in a car or a bus? Forget it. I get motion sick unless I stare out the window and focus on something fixed, such as the landscape or the horizon, which is hard to do when you're standing and you're 6 feet tall. Thankfully, people started to get off and I was able to get a seat for the last half of the trip. I got some pretty nice views too:

The drive along the Amalfi coast reminded me a lot of driving along California’s Big Sur. The coast was a lot more jagged and rough than from what I remember in California, which gave it a different feel. The architecture was also a lot older and much more European. The coastal communities were built right into the cliffs, as the cities existed in layers. If you wanted to visit your neighborhood supermarket, you’d go down a few stories instead of going down the street. These communities extended several hundred feet, all the way to the water at the bottom and up past where the highway was, which was usually in the upper half. I think this was the moment it finally and fully hit me that I’m in another country, and specifically that I was in Italy.
           Though the views are unbeatable, the drive there is scary. You drive on a two-lane road squeezed between the cliffs and ocean on either side. The only thing that separates you from dropping several hundred feet into the Mediterranean is a small railing and the trust in oncoming drivers to not run you off the road. There are also a lot of blind curves, and the only way to navigate them safely seemed to be to honk your horn a few times before going around them. To add to this, cliffs, parked cars, and storefronts came right up to the side of the road. There were very few places you could go if you had to pull over.

Amalfi

  Now if you think that’d be a scary drive, imagine doing this in a huge bus and you’ll understand my admiration of these bus drivers. The bus routinely missed obstacles by a couple inches or less. There was even one time where, on one of the curves, we stopped and started to back up. No one knew what was happening until we stopped and saw another bus of the same size coming the opposite direction that had to fit by. The other bus went past at a snail’s pace and it very briefly scraped our side on the way past. It’s a little scary to have another object RIGHT THERE outside the window, but this is the only time on either ride that the driver scraped anything other than a branch. How these drivers do this on an everyday basis, I don’t know. I wouldn’t do it once in my little Corolla.

Downtown Amalfi

         Amalfi itself is a lovely coastal town. Like the other coastal communities, it's built into the cliffs, but the center of town is pretty close to sea level. It has a small town center and a couple major streets that winds up the cliffs to the more residential areas. Downtown is beautiful, but also very touristy. The restaurants were more expensive, there were tons of gift shops, and a many of the signs had easily accessible English translations, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I really liked it. It may seem like I bash touristy places a lot, but I can really appreciate them at times. It reminded me a lot of Avalon, the town on Catalina Island just off of the SoCal coast.

As you can see, I clearly took 
this picture  

        The Amalfi coast is famous for its lemons, which you can see growing in all the coastal towns. Every gift shop is filled with lemon-related products. The local specialty is a type of liquor called limoncello. It’s supposed to be drank after a meal to help with digestion. We got a complimentary shot at the place where we ate lunch, so I gave it a try. Let me try to convey the experience of a limoncello. Think lemon. Like, lemony lemon. Like, lemon to the highest possible degree. Lemon entering your mouth and consuming your head. Lemon overtaking your tastebuds, coming our your ears, eyes and nose lemon, occupying every empty space in your head lemon. There is no world outside the lemon. Only lemon. And did I mention lemon? This is all just with a tiny sip too. That’s all I could do just because the flavor was so strong. I didn’t even notice the alcohol because of how much goddamn lemon was in this thing. Overall, I'm glad I tried it since it was a local specialty, but I probably wouldn't drink it again.

         There was a beach there too, so I can definitively say I've put my feet in the Mediterranean. The beach was a lot smaller than what you'd see in California. Because it's surrounded by cliffs, it was only a few hundred feet long, but there was still plenty of space. The water was about the same temperature as you'd expect from SoCal beaches in the early summer: cold, but bearable after a few minutes of getting used to it. There was also no fine sand. It was made of coarse rocks. It's rough on the feet, but you get used to it.

Want to hear about buses, pizza, and classical art? Look no further than PART 2