NAPLES

We were warmly greeted at our hostel by the owner, Giovanni, and wasn't he a special one!  After showing us around the hostel, he served us a plate of pesto pasta which he had cooking on the stove.  Usually we would have loved this, but being hungover, we had only just smashed a huge amount of Macca's and we were not hungry at all.  We felt really bad throwing out half our plates haha.

hostel reception area and common room

Giovanni was not done with yet though.......he then proceeded to take us through a tour of Naples, which lasted around 50 amazing minutes.  He had this routine down pat and went through everything from monuments, to restaurants, to bars, to nearby towns, to great walks, to shopping, to pick-pocketers, to the mafia, to reasons why Naples is the "most beautiful city in the world", to reasons why you don't need to bother going to the Amalfi Coast.  It was ridiculous the amount of time and effort he took to show us his city and to make sure we got the most out of the two days we were there.  He was absolutely horrified that we had just spent 5 days in Positano and now only 2 in Naples, it was so funny.  

The map that Giovanni prepared for us whilst moving through the "tour" was colour coded with different highlighters, it was so helpful.

Giovanni had obviously made such an impression with so many travellers that he had postcards and letters all over his wall from people who had stayed with him in the past.  Someone from Australia had even sent him a parcel of vegemite haha!

After both of us slept a few hours in the arvo, we set out to explore the city of Naples.  Our first impressions were not good.  Huge piles of rubbish, horrible smells, loads of graffiti and plenty of unsavoury characters lining the streets, it felt like we were in a large version of Collingwood!

Following Giovanni's map, we headed down towards the port of Naples and stopped for a wander around Piazza Plebiscito, which was built in the early 19th century under instruction from the then King of Naples, Murat (Napoleon's brother-in-law).  The church was built on the model of the Pantheon in Rome and the curving colonnade resembles St. Peters square, also in Rome.

We did a little shopping at Zara, walked around a bit more (with our hands firmly fastened to our pockets for fear of losing our wallets!) and then went to Pizzeria Sorbillio which is popularly regarded as the best pizza in Naples.

Although the term 'pizza' first appeared in Latin text in 997, it was in the 16th century when pizza was sold in the streets of Naples.  It was a dish for the poor people and was not considered a kitchen recipe for a long time.  In 1889, to honour the Queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, the margherita pizza was first created.  It was garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and basil to represent the colours of the Italian flag and this was the first time that cheese was ever added to a pizza!

It was absolutely packed inside, and equally packed outside, so we went for the take-away option. The pizza's were pretty good, but I am pretty confident in saying that we've had better in Melbourne.

We didn't actually end up eating until about 11pm, so we called it a night after that and woke up the next morning nice and fresh, ready for a big day.

Our first stop was Mt. Vesuvius, most famous for its eruption in 79AD which led to the complete burying and destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. It is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted in the last 100 years, although thankfully it is not erupting anymore!

Naples in the background

We were able to catch a bus to within 200m (vertically) of the summit which is at a height of 1,282m above sea-level.  It was then a tough 800m walk to the top, but we finally made it and were treated to amazing views down the outside of the volcano, and also inside the crater.

Although Vesuvius is currently not erupting, it is still regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of the 3,000,000 strong population living nearby and its tendency towards explosive eruptions.  It is the most densely populated volcanic region in the world.

the crater is 230m deep and hard a diameter of about 650m

The infamous eruption in 79AD is regarded as one of the most catastrophic eruptions of all time.  The volcano spawned a deadly cloud of stones, ash and fumes to a height of 20.5 miles, ultimately releasing 100,000 times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima bombing and killing an estimated 16,000 people.

Thinking about this as we walked along the edge of the crater, it was surreal to think where we were standing and hard to imagine this explosion occurring.

looking out over Sorrento

The bus dropped us back down at the train station in Ercolano, a small town about 9km south east of Naples.  We then walked about 800m down to the shore where the entrance to Herculaneum sits.  As mentioned earlier, Herculaneum was one of the towns completely obliterated in the 79AD eruption.

Giovanni had told us that Herculaneum is a far more interesting place to visit than Pompeii, so we took his advice.

Surrounded by volcanic rock, its location gives you a far clearer idea of the magnitude of the eruption.  While roofs in Pompeii collapsed under the weight of falling ash, only a few centimetres of ash fell on Herculaneum, causing little damage.  Subsequently, there was a succession of six flows of boiling mud which then solidified, gradually buying the city's buildings from the bottom up, causing relatively little damage.

Suffocation was the main cause of death to the inhabitants of Pompeii, whilst in Herculaneum, the 300-odd skeletons that have since been recovered suggest that they died of thermally induced shock from the 500 degrees temperatures of the hot gases that passed over the city.

By the time we left Herculaneum, it was about 3pm and so bloody hot that I thought we were also going to fall into thermal shock.  Luckily we managed to find some water and rehydrate before we became victims.

view of Mt. Vesuvius from Herculaneum

That evening after a well needed rest and recuperation, we caught the train north to the station of Mergellina and then a funicular up the hill to San Gioacchino where we were treated to amazing views of the Naples harbour and Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Unbeknown to us, the walk back into town was at least 3-4km long and by the time we sat down to dinner, it was almost 10:30pm!

Although being in Naples, the home of Pizza, we were craving soy sauce and found a great Japanese restaurant on the water.

Giovanni had told us that we really shouldn't be outside after 11:30pm, so we ordered and ate our meal pretty quickly and got home as fast as we could.  This proved to be harder than we thought and we worked out that from the top of the funicular, all the way back to our hostel, we had walked about 10km!

The next morning we found a little cafe' that had great coffee and made us some amazing croissants full to the brim with nutella, a great healthy start to the day!

We then went to visit the Naples Sotteranea (underground city).  Here lies a labyrinth of tunnels, tanks and cavities that form an entire city, the complete opposite to what is on the surface.

Our first stop was a 1st century BC Roman amphitheatre, which can only be partially viewed because today it is embedded within later structures.  It includes a Neapolitan family's home which is literally built amongst the Roma ruins.

someone's bedroom window that looks into the backstage area of the amphitheatre, amazing!

We then left the amphitheatre area and went back to the entrance to the other underground world.  42m down a long staircase, it is a world where civilisation after civilisation came and went and left some fascinating footprints.

This underground system was created in 500 BC when the Greeks quarried stone to build the city above which they called "Neapolis" (new city).  Romans then used the space left by the Greeks to build an amazing underground system of aqueducts, running about 250 miles, where water circulated under the entire city for more than 2000 years.

Only in 1885 (after a terrible epidemic of colera) was the old system of water distribution replaced by the new system that is still in place today.

Christians then turned the underground caves into places of worship, before the entire underground became a huge garbage storage.  The Neapolitans took advantage of the empty space and dumped all their garbage down there.  The horrible smell became a problem after a while and so the garbage was entirely covered with sand.  So when we were walking around all these passageways, we were actually walking on years and years of old garbage!

you could actually see the unevenness of the ground and it was not hard to imagine the garbage we were walking on 

WW11 changed the face of the underworld dramatically as Neapolitans escaped from air bombings.  They made it their second home, living there for months at a time without any sun or fresh air.

Going deeper, we were shown a secret cave where Neapolitan nuns hid to produce and drink wine:

A very dark and narrow passageway linked to this cave was supposedly used by priests to meet these nuns and share "secret moments" away from everyone's eyes......dodgy bastards, what would God think pppffftttttt!

An hour and a half later, our tour of the Sotterannea concluded.  It had been another fascinating insight into Naples' history and one I'm glad we forked out the cash to do.

We had one more thing on our list before we had to pack our bags and head for the airport, visit the Capella Sansevero.  Here lies a sculpture of such sublimity that it seems as if the artists' hands were guided by a divine force.  The "Veiled Christ" was created in 1753 by Guiseppe Sanmartino and is of such delicacy, that it manages to transform solid marble into the finest fabric, resting gently over the contours of the body beneath.

I can't believe that I am talking such crap about a sculpture, but it truly was remarkable and I was so impressed by it, that i even bought a poster!

the Veiled Christ - leaves Michelangelo's David for dead I reckon

After a hectic few days in Naples, it was time to leave Italy for the first time in 4 or so months and embark on the next leg of our journey.

Italy has been the most amazing country and we have been so lucky to see so much of it.  In fact, if we had another 2 weeks here, I wouldn't even know where to go, we have done it all!

view of Mt. Vesuvius out the aeroplane window