It might appear odd as to why I decided to go to the south of Italy at the end of February when its still mighty cold outside, but unfortunately all my weekends are booked for the rest of the semester. Nonetheless, traveling south to Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Mt. Vesuvius, and Pompeii was absolutely marvelous. Yes, it would have been a lot nicer if it were warmer out, but on the plus side, there weren’t many tourists out yet. These next few paragraphs will encompass those ventures and hopefully shed a little light on the feel and culture of the south of Italy for those who have not toured there.
As I mentioned earlier, I will only be referring to Monday-Wednesday if something of significance occurs, and to describe and make everyone envious of the extremely delectable dishes we construct in Culinary. This week in cooking class we made two types of pasta dishes, a fresh one (common in the south, has eggs in it) and a dry one (common in the north and is just flour/water). For the fresh we made a type of three layer lasagna, titled Lasagne alle melanzane, where each layer had a piece of pasta that we just made, topped with a béchamel sauce, a slice of eggplant, a slice of mozzarella, a slice of tomato, and a basil leaf, and then layer that with more pasta and other ingredients until they are all finished and bake. Absolutely marvelous, the taste was so fresh and full of a new taste with every bite. The dry pasta is titled strozzapreti con spinaci, and had spinach, almonds, sun dry tomatoes, and fresh goat cheese. Unlike the lasagna, this was very light and a very pleasant to eat especially having been so full after the lasagna, not to mention I love goat cheese, well all types of cheese for that matter.
Other activities during the week mostly consisted of trying to plan my weekend trip while dealing with a nonexistent router in our house. So many days were spent trekking to the library where I spent many an hour reading through all my guide books, figuring out bus and train times, and trying to communicate with Courtney as I would be meeting up with them for these travels. As Jess and Britt had a fieldtrip on Friday, I met up with Courtney at the Roma Termini station as that was on the way to Napoli. Arriving in Napoli Friday around 10am, I was sent on the task of finding the Beverello Pier, which after talking to the very pleasant and kind woman in the tourist office, appeared to be simple enough. She directed me to which bus to take but did not tell me the stop to get off at, which left me very confused as I made almost an entire loop back to the train station and finally getting off when I saw water, figuring I’d just trek around there. The people in Napoli were nice enough and finally directed me to the ferry to get to Capri. Although I was exhausted, it was extremely heartwarming to once again be back in my zone on a boat gliding across the crisp ocean waters. Not entirely sure if it was because of lack of sleep, but I found it quite humorous how accurate my tour book was in depicting Capri, “an island where even before you dock tourists are taking postcard quality snapshots of the island.” After reading this I was slightly embarrassed that I shed my attempts at acting like a guy who’s temporary living in Italy and joined in on the tourist fun. But you know what, it was quite enjoyable and I’m sure all the locals didn’t notice my 6’3 frame amongst all the small Asian tourists around me. First impressions really do tell a lot about a person, well an object/land mass in this case, as the incredible beauty and perfection of this island continued through every street and every step you took. I immediately set foot to Anacapri (the Isle of Capri has two towns, Capri, and Anacapri which mean above capri) and man they are not joking around when they mean that Anacapri really is “above.” Obviously looking upward I knew that this island was very hilly, but looking at my map, it appeared to be a short distance to Anacapri from Capri and I didn’t believe that Anacapri was literally on top of the mountain. So unable to figure out where the bus pick-up was, I became impatient and followed my map to Anacapri. The image below is a perfect indicator of how high I actually climbed up, and having woken up at 6am, only had a croissant for breakfast, and had one last swig of water, climbing the roughly 2,000 steps up the side of a mountain is not my cup of tea. After over an hour of consistent climbing, I finally reached the top, absolutely exhausted and with very little endorphins or sense of victory. I then set off to find this small café that my book raved about, and after finding it I was extraordinarily distraught when I learned that it was under renovations. I then settled on the next restaurant that offered a caprese salad and lemoncello, the two most famous delicacies of Capri. After returning back to Firenze and learning in my culinary class that lemoncello is typically an after-dinner digestivo, I now understand why my server had such a puzzled face and kept asking me if I wanted anything to drink while I continued to say, “no thank you, I’m fine with just the lemoncello.” The salad was wonderful and so fresh, something I would not object to having for every lunch time, and the lemoncello was fantastic, but I can definitely see that it’d be much better after finishing the caprese salad, and the basic toast that the server kept insisting I tried, even though it wasn’t anything special as it was essentially just toasted white bread; at least it was free. My next stop on my journey through Capri was to reach one of the seven natural wonders of Europe, “The Blue Grotto.” I had not heard of this marvel until reading my guidebook so it wasn’t incredibly disappointing when I learned that the seas were to rough so the Grotto was closed for the day, but nonetheless, it was very disheartening. I made up for this travesty by taking a chairlift to the highest peak of Capri, which yielded an entire panoramic view of the Bay of Naples, and Capri. One thing I did discover though is that Capri does a very solid job at sucking your wallet dry, as I was consistently dropping 10euro bills left and right, for the ferry, for the chairlift ride, for lunch, for the return bus ride that was absolutely necessary in order for me to not pull another five hernias trying to scale back down the mountain. I tried to get Capri back to the best of my ability by stealing a lemon from one of the many lemon trees that dotted the island, and successfully brought it back to Firenze. Capri was the only place where it was slightly disappointing I was not exploring during tourist season, as it would have been much nicer if it were warmer and more stores and such were open. Nonetheless, Capri was perhaps the most gorgeous and glorious place I have ever stepped foot onto and I would return in a heartbeat even in the middle of December.
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| That dock on the far top left is where I started from, and I'm no where near the top from this point |
Departing Capri around 5pm, I took the ferry across the Bay to Sorrento where I was greeted by a very sketchy and empty pier. There were several stores open along the pier so I went into a Tabbaceria and bought a 3euro map as I had no idea where my hostel was from my current location. My first encounter of Sorrento was a deserted pier, but I soon began to discover that the people of Sorrento were extraordinarily warm and welcoming. The lady at the store pointed out exactly how to get to my hostel on the map, after having two lads who worked on the pier attempt to direct me by pointing aimlessly. After having to scale another mountain, well this time a giant wall that had over 500 steps (not the happiest of campers as I was still recovering from my Capri adventure) I felt like a yokel for buying the map as Sorrento is basically composed of one long drag and a few side streets off of it. After checking into my hostel, I put my map to at least some good use as I ventured off to find a restaurant that my guidebook recommended. The disappointment in finding the restaurant in Capri disappeared as I successfully found this restaurant, Il Giardiniello on Via Accademia 7/9, where I was greeted by an extremely friendly and pleasant elderly gentleman who showed me to my seat. Not only was the elderly gentleman charming, the entire restaurant was as well as it held a very Italian family-style theme to it. After ordering, the man brought me a cola, as the wine was well out of my pricerange, and complimentary bread, olives, and toasted bruschetta. I almost considered merely paying for the cola and service charge as this was plenty for me, but out of curtosy and my desire to have some fresh seafood from the Bay of Naples, I waited it out for my sciallatielli ai frutti di mare, a seafood pasta with some of the best homemade pasta I have ever had, a red sauce, prawns, little necks, squid, and by far the freshest muscles I have ever devoured. Perhaps the best meal since I’ve been in Italy, this was also a fantastic way to cap off my night, as I then retired back to my hostel, and went to sleep.
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| Sorrento was incredibly beautiful |
The following day Courtney and I walked around Sorrento for a tad, walked around the beach, contemplated taking a dip in the ocean, then didn’t take a dip in the ocean, and finally boarded our train to Pompeii. Reaching Pompeii we were supposed to meet up with Brittney and Jess in a couple hours, so I decided to hike up Mt. Vesuvius while Court nestled in a corner to read while she waited for them. The department of Italian tourism really have their act put together, as I have not once ever encountered an issue when going to the info desk and asking for help. The pleasant man kindly directed me to where the bus picks you up, and it’s a convinent 50min journey up to the mountain where they drop you off about 2/3rds of the way up the mountain, and then you climb the remainder to the crater. Now I typically follow my guidebook word for word and they have never led me astray, so I was slightly nervous when I was on the bus to Vesuvius and they warned that it would be quite a bit colder at the top then in Pompeii. After reaching the top, I realized I had every right to be nervous as it was actually snowing and all I had on was a sweatshirt and my wind jacket while everyone around me looked like they were about to go skiing in Canada. Nevertheless, the cold really didn’t bother me five minutes after stepping out from the bus, mostly because my entire body was numb from the wind, so the climb was actually quite enjoyable. Reaching the crater, I was slightly saddened to learn that lava was actually not flowing around freely, but it was pretty awesome to see all the steam seeping from the crater, and barren wasteland with only one tree for vegetation, collecting several rocks for myself and to bring back to Court and co. for souvenirs, and of course buying a postcard from Mt. Vesuvius. After numerous snapshots, playing charades with a Swedish couple so they could take my picture in front of the volcano, and just breathing in the beauty of my surroundings, I trekked back down the mountain where the bus picked me up. Upon my return to Pompeii, Britt and Jess still had not arrived so I decided to start venturing off around Pompeii solo as Court had already toured Pompeii back in high school. There’s not entirely much to say about Pompeii as aside from Pisa and the Coliseum, is perhaps one of the most visited and renown destinations in Italy. It was just so remarkable how well preserved everything was and how much information the archeologists had dug up. After several hours of traveling through the ruins with my map in one hand, pocket book that described what everything was (I’m not the biggest fan of guided tours) in my other hand, and my camera around my neck, I left to meet up with Court, Britt and Jess outside the gates. Unfortunately for them, they took the wrong train stop and by the time they got to the ruins the ticket office was closed so they had to wait around an hour while I finished touring. But, don’t feel to sympathetic towards them as I had carefully planned out my end of the journey through reading several tour books, and explained to them in a very detailed message that when they take the train to Pompeii, they must get off at the Pompeii Scavi stop as the earlier Pompeii stop is for the city. Of course they did not read my message carefully, nor did they know the word “Scavi” means ruins in Italian, so they were left to just examine the outside walls and my photos I had just taken. On the plus side, they saved 11euro, enjoyed the volcanic rocks I gave to them from Mt. Vesuvius, and got to hop onto another train after spending all day traveling on trains.
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| Thoroughly enjoying the bitter wind |
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| One of my favorite pictures I took of Pompeii |
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| Courtney, Britt, and Jess, not the most chipper tourists after missing Pompeii |
If there is one thing I have to say about Naples, unless you are using this as a pit stop on your journey to another town or home as I was, I would not recommend putting this as one of your destinations. I was slightly confused to being with when Courtney, Jess and Britt has mentioned to me that they were going to visit Naples and Pompeii this weekend as besides the pizza and the mob, I have never heard any other information about it. Of course that night upon reaching our hostel and resting for a few minutes, we then ventured off to find a pizzeria, resulting in this being the highlight of our trip. For whatever reason I forgot to update my journal after Sorrento so I forget the name of the pizzeria, not a huge dilemma as there are dozens just layering the street that I assume are of equal or greater value, but the pizza was heavenly as I got one with a red sauce, olives, artichoke, cheese and maybe several other minor ingredients. My visit to Napoli also got significantly more exciting when Court couldn’t finish her entire pizza, a four cheese pizza, so I was able to enjoy a couple slices of hers. The night got even more riveting when we made the decision to get three different slices of desert, a tiramisu, nutella cake thing with coconut topping, and this absolutely incredible something that had a flaky crust and such a smooth and sweet inside to it. All in all, this meal alone has the ability to actually change my opening paragraph. We then retired back to our hostel, chatted for a bit and hit the hay. The following morning we ventured off through the main touristy sections of Napoli where there really was not much to see, a few cool things here and there but the history of Napoli is seriously lacking any major significance or interest to me. Mostly renown for its pizza and being a major port, those were by far the only riveting aspects as the port was very nice and reminded me of the beach as I was able to watch the waves crash into the rocks as rowboats streamed on past. We spent most of our afternoon starring off into the Bay of Naples and passing boats, walking along the watersedge, and finally finding a castle where we climbed to the top. The ocean’s edge was actually very enjoyable and we all had a lovely time, but this was one of the few aspects that was actually worthwhile, and I’m sure heading a few hours south to the Amalfi Coast would be entirely more rewarding.
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| My incredible pizza |
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| The three desserts we decided upon |
Nevertheless, I’m glad I had the opportunity to tour Naples as one of my main goals while studying abroad is to see as much of Italy as possible, and as I still have several months remaining here, there was no time lost. I was able to enjoy another weekend with some close friends, delicious pizza, ruins, active volcanoes, lots and lots of lemons, and the opportunity to explore the south of Italy. I actually enjoyed it so much I considered for a while taking one of my weekends in April to spend time on the Amalfi Coast with a few of my housemates and tour Capri/Pompeii again, but alas, money is always a barrier while a college student and there are so many other areas of Italy/Europe that I don’t even have time to visit within my semester.
