Why leave Italy??

I'm so excited - I had my first posting request!  Someone asked me to do our entire Italian vacation, day by day.  Since I don't have any shows this week (I'm seeing the last show at Encores on Saturday), I figured it was a good time to do it. 

When last we left off, my chums and I had finished the amazing Rome portion of our Italian adventure, so now it's off to Naples.  In case you'd forgotten, this trip took place in November, 2007.  Most of the photos are mine, though the really good ones were taken by a gal pal with a genius for photography.  Here we go!

TRIP REPORT - NAPLES, DAY ONE (and a half)

After two-plus glorious days in Rome, we were off to Naples.  It was a bit of a slog to get there, only because we had to drag our suitcases through the rain to catch bus #64, then ride to Termini Station, then take a train to Naples, then slog those bags through (seemingly) miles and miles of stairs and steps to finally get to our hotel.  By the time we got there, we were exhausted!  But it wasn’t because of any travel difficulties, really, just because of all the steps and transferring.

My first view of Naples was a tiny bit worrying.  We finally exited the metro and the city seemed deserted and dirty (it was around 7pm).  I asked a gentleman where the Archaeological Museum was and he kindly pointed to the big building not very far from where we were standing.  I guess I was just too tired to notice it.  It took us a few minutes to get our bearings enough to cross the crazy intersection, but we finally got it done.

We stayed at the Belle Arti Resort, on Via Santa Maria di Constantinopoli, near the Museum.  After reading on a travel blog that it could be a little hard to find, we really had our eyes pealed for the sign and actually had no problem.  Forewarned is forearmed!  Since we were a little late in our arrival, it took a few minutes for someone to answer the bell.  But once we got inside, we were transported.  Behind those enormous wooden doors is an oasis.  After you cross the courtyard and enter the hotel, they have rose petals and tea lights on the steps leading up to the reception area!  The desk clerk, Mohammed, calmed our frazzled nerves and checked us in quickly.  Once we got to our room, we were in heaven.  We were in an extremely large room where they placed four beds.  It was like a beautiful, grown-up dorm room!  We actually loved it.  The frescoes on the ceiling were gorgeous, the tapestry over our beds was incredible.  We really loved the room.  

After relaxing for a bit, we decided to go out and explore and have some dinner.  We had decided early on that since we wanted to check out the ‘best pizza in the world’ at Da Michele, that we were just going to have pizza everywhere else in Naples, too.  I mean, how else can you judge without comparison?  Since it was Sunday, though, Da Michele would have to wait until tomorrow.  So we walked through the lovely Piazza Bellini over to Pizzeria Vera.  After getting over the shock that the pizzas were only three euros each, we each ordered a different variety.  They were delicious! The proportions of sauce to crust to cheese to toppings were perfect.  We lingered in the restaurant for quite some time to unwind.  We were suddenly pretty tired, so after we left the restaurant, we just went right back to the hotel.  We would explore Naples tomorrow.

Of course, we overslept.  Those walls and windows must be really thick!  Breakfast was only supposed to be served until 10, but I called reception anyway to see if they could send up a little something, and they did!  Mohammed brought up the breakfast tray himself and gently teased us about sleeping in.  He was really quite charming.  The breakfast was simple, but delicious.  It was juice, coffee with warmed milk, yogurt, croissants, butter and jam.  It was exactly enough to start our day.

We had already decided we wanted to visit Caserta and the palace there.  Once we heard it described as the “Versailles of Italy,” we knew we had to go.  Before heading for the bus to Caserta though, we went to Capella Sansevero to look at the Veiled Christ.  After wandering through charming streets in Spaccanapoli, we found the church.  It is really a gloriously beautiful place, and the crowning glory is the Veiled Christ.      I couldn’t look at it enough.  Looking at it from every angle, I tried to imagine the courage and talent it had to take to sculpt that amazing piece from one piece of marble.  It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life.  I wish I had been able to photograph it, but I completely understand their ‘no pictures’ rule (this photo is cribbed from the 'net).  I think we would’ve stayed in the church longer to really absorb all of its beauty, but a school group of eager kids came in and once the volume in the church started to go up, we were ready to leave.  I will definitely have to go back there someday.

After leaving the church, we wandered more through the wonderful little shops and booths in Spaccanapoli.  I’m a sucker for Christmas and decorations, so I was in heaven!  Creches everywhere!  Finally, we had to walk with more purpose to the Piazza Garibaldi to catch the bus to Caserta.  We wanted to be able to wander there as long as possible.

It took a couple of inquiries of ticket sellers at the Piazza before we found the bus to Caserta, but it wasn’t a big deal.  The bus was very large and comfortable so we settled in.  The trip was longer than we expected—we read Caserta was less than 20 km from Naples, but the trip was a good 45 minutes each way.  Not a huge inconvenience, but just longer than we expected.  You get off at the last stop, which is the Caserta bus station.  There isn’t really a direct route from the bus station to the palace (which you can see, you just can’t walk right to it), so you have to walk in a roundabout way through the little town a bit to get there.  Again, not a huge inconvenience.

They haven’t turned Caserta into the tourist attraction that Versailles is, which is good and bad.  There were a lot of rooms closed at Caserta because of the season and we couldn’t see the gardens at all.  They did give us a significantly reduced rate, though, so we couldn’t complain too much.  We were very disappointed, though, that we couldn’t see the chapel or the theater.  Opening those two rooms up would’ve made our stay there infinitely better.  But we did enjoy touring the palace.  Each room was more ornate than the last and the ceilings and fixtures were stunning.  We were nearly the only people there, which was fun.  

It was amusing to watch the employees run ahead of us a few rooms at a time.  And they didn’t bother to stop cleaning or repairing while we were touring, so it was a very low-key afternoon.  The last room you enter, after the libraries, is amazing—it’s an enormous crèche in the center of the room, which you can view from all sides.  It was just incredible!  The crèche was amazingly detailed and just gorgeous.  I highly recommend taking a look at it. 

The gift shop was excellent, so we purchased a few things, including a guidebook and postcards of the gardens (since we didn’t get to see them).  We spent a very pleasant few hours at Caserta and would love to go back another time when more of the palace is open.

After taking the bus back to Naples, we then took off for Da Michele.  We had the street address, but kept getting confused.  Luckily, I had seen a photo of the restaurant sign, so we just sort of came upon it!  Good thing I had seen the photo of the sign before, or else we may have kept walking.  And it was also a good thing we went there because the pizza was out of this world!  They weren’t really busy at all, so we sat down and had our pizzas in just a few minutes.  Oh, so delicious!  All talk stopped at our table so that we could eat and enjoy that amazing food.  I wish I had one of those pizzas right now!

The employees were sweet.  They somehow had us pegged as New Yorkers right away, and (after eating our pizzas) we struck up a conversation in their limited English and our limited Italian.  We discovered they make 800 pizzas a day there!  I’m sure each one is as delicious as the last.  They move so fast, I couldn’t get any clear photos, but the blurry way the pictures turned out sort of represents Da Michele.  Very cool and moving very fast.  

After we sat and tried to decide if we needed another pizza (we didn’t), we left and just wandered around.  We window-shopped and generally had a lovely evening.  We also stopped in several churches, just to look around.  I’m sorry I didn’t write down any of their names, because they were of course all lovely.  It was just a nice relaxing way to end our day.  There was one scary moment—not for us, but scary nonetheless.  As we were walking, we saw a car hit a scooter and the scooter went down and the driver went sliding away.  It looked really painful.  And the car just kept on going.  The scooter-ist got right up, though, to prove he wasn’t really hurt, and lots of locals came to his aid to help him with his bike and packages that had fallen.  He seemed to be unshaken, so we kept going.  We were happy to see so many people come to his assistance, though.  We found all of the people in Naples to be very generous.  There was less English spoken, but they were all perfectly willing to speak slowly and use gesturing to help us understand what they were talking about. 

Before heading back to the hotel, we decided we needed gelato.  I thought we would have lots more gelato in Italy than we did, but when we did have it, it was incredible.  So we stopped at a little pastry place and had gelato in their back room.  I wish I had gotten a photo of the sweet back room.  But the gelato was lovely and just the right way to end our evening.  Back to the hotel for a little rest and tomorrow: train to Sorrento!!