Weekend in Naples Part 2: Buses, Art, Pizza,

Wrong South, but you get the idea

          In order to accurately write about the places I've been, I feel it's necessary to touch on the negative experiences as well as the positive ones, which brings me to Neapolitan transportation. The public transportation in Naples kinda sucks and it's really the only way to get around the region without a car or paying a ridiculous amount of money for a taxi. The trains are old, dingy and graffitied on the outside and look like they haven’t changed in 20-30 years on the inside. Both the trains and buses are dirty and a little scary. I felt like washing my hands and taking a shower after spending all day on the Metro. I admit I don’t like buses in general and I hate feeling dirty, so I might have a lower tolerance for this than some people, but I think the rest of group felt the same way. And that’s not to mention the sketchy people we were crammed in with. There was at least one instance of someone trying to pickpocket us and there were a lot of—let’s say, suspicious-looking people. I kept a tight grasp on my babies (my wallet and phone) the whole time.

The Italian teenagers we shared an uncomfortable bus ride with

On one bus ride, we were crammed in like sardines with a ton of rowdy Italian teenagers going out on a Saturday night (the drinking age is much lower here), which was, as you can imagine, unpleasant, especially considering that when the bus showed up, we had to literally run to the bus and push and shove our way through the door just to get on the bus. Thankfully, they only rode a few stops while we had to take it much farther.

            The one good story I have about public transportation is during the train ride from our hostel to Sorrento. At one of the stops, a group of musicians boards and played traditional music in the middle of the car. There was a saxophonist, a couple percussionists, a trumpeter, and an accordion player, I think. It reminded me of a mariachi band, but playing more Italian-style music. It made the train ride just that much better.

The metro station in Portici, where our hostel was

         The transportation is reflective of the different flavor Naples has compared to Rome. It reminds you that Italy has only been a unified country for 150 years and there are still clear regional differences. Naples has historically been a poorer, working class community and this shows. Once you get out of Napoli, the region reminds me more of how I imagined Eastern Europe than Italy.  There are also many older, dingy and falling down-looking buildings covered graffiti. There was also a lot of agricultural land, which I wasn’t expecting. I remember seeing a goat hanging out in someone’s backyard and saying, “Look, it’s a goat!” but no one really cared and the locals all looked at me weird.

Downtown Napoli

         On the final day, we decided to explore the city of Napoli. The different vibe the region has is also seen in the city. It was colorful and vibrant and definitely different than Rome. The shop employees seemed less likely to speak English and there are less upscale, touristy restaurants. Though it has its fair share of tourists, it's less glossy and Westernized and therefore seemed to show a more unadulterated view of Italian culture.

         I was totally fine with this though. Before I came here, when I pictured “Italy” in my head, the image I had looked a hell of a lot more like Napoli than Rome. Rome feels like a lot of other big cities I’ve been too, with certainly some differences, but Napoli, and really southern Italy in general, is where it hit me that I was unmistakably in another country. Don't get me wrong, I love Rome so far and I really liked Napoli, but they're different. I feel like I would've experienced much more culture shock had I gone to Napoli first.

        Since we were all carrying our heavy bags, we didn’t get to see the much of the city, but I really liked what I saw.

        We visited the Archeological Museum there because it was free for the day. It’s apparently one of the largest collections of Roman and Greek artifacts in the world. There is room after room of huge classical statues and art ranging from frescos to mosaics and it’s all amazing. My favorite thing there were the classical statues, for two reasons. First, holy crap, man. How do you go from a slab of marble to an insanely detailed and beautiful piece of art? Often times the sculptors didn’t go as far as the pupils in the eyes, but otherwise, everything else was so detailed, they might as well have just been marble melted over the actual people like in the cheesy 50s horror movie, House of Wax. I sometimes just stopped and stared at the statues and marveled at how intricate they all are. To create even one of them must have taken years of extremely hard work and a lot more patience and dedication than I have for art. Second, the faces are often amusingly expressive. Take these examples:

That was one of my favorite parts about the museum and general: the goofy quirks the artwork had. You can show me a picture of the Mona Lisa 100 times but I’d much rather see insane art like this: 

Like, what the hell is even going on here? There’s white and black people, that’s fairly obvious. But but one is riding a croc and another is killing a hippo and the hippo’s eating another one and then there’s just this dead body laying there. Oh, and everyone's head is disproportionally large. This painting is pure chaos. I looked and laughed at this thing for a couple minutes just trying to figure out what was going on. Needless to say, this was probably my favorite piece of art in the museum. 

Pizzaria Donna Sophia's Bella Napoli pizza

         Pizza was invented in Naples, so naturally we had to get a lot of it while we were there. Neapolitan pizza is wetter and the toppings are more liquid-y than in America. The best pizza we had was in Napoli, just before we left. I ordered a pizza with ham, fresh tomatoes, arugula, and local cheese. This thing has to be one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. The tomatoes especially were delicious. These were  some of the ripest, sweetest, juiciest tomatoes I've ever had. I at the whole thing, probably against better judgment, and left Napoli extremely satisfied.

       Overall, the places we went and things we saw were amazing, but getting there and getting around were less than amazing. Still a good trip in my book.

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