Happy Fourth of July! (Although it doesn’t feel like it at all!) I woke up on the sixth day in Italy ready to get out of Naples. Unfortunately, this port is not the nicest place to be – there is garbage and graffiti all over the place which is really sad because it’s a city right on the water and could be really attractive! For me, actually, the unattractiveness of Naples has less to do with the aesthetics and more to do with the uneasy feeling that I had while I was there. In every other port so far, I’ve felt pretty comfortable walking around – during the day and at night. In Naples, I didn’t even want to be out during the day! : ( It is just a pretty sketchy place to be for a tourist. The people there seem desperate for you to buy their goods and the taxi drivers are equally as aggressive. The city has the highest rate of crime in all of Italy. Tom (our Assistant Executive Dean) said that the pickpockets in Rome were taught by the masters in Naples, so I felt very defensive of my personal belongings when I was there as well. Also, they told us that Naples is where a lot of the mafia action takes place – which makes everything a little shady – although we’re told that they don’t really care about tourists.
Not wanting to spend too much time feeling uneasy, Erin, Amanda, and I jumped on a train to go to Sorrento, a beautiful coastal city about 1 and a half away from Naples. In Sorrento, we had lunch overlooking the water. I had the gnocchi, but I also tried a deep fried pumpkin flower blossom stuffed with mozzarella and ricotta, which was every bit as wonderful as it sounds. I had never had pumpkin flower before – it was really good! The girls had mushroom risotto which was also delicious. Also, during lunch, we saw a procession of boats go by. They were all honking their horns and following one bigger boat which had the icon of a Madonna or some saint on it. It was interesting to see a Catholic procession happening on the water. It was awesome and there were fireworks, too! (For the fourth of July!! Haha not really, but it was ironic!)
Afterward, we explored the town a little, doing a little shopping here and there. Around 3 PM, we hopped on a bus to go to the Amalfi Coast. Having just returned from Cinque Terre, I thought it would be difficult to convince me that there were more beautiful views of the coast, but…Amalfi really had the best views on my trip so far! We spent a few hours in Amalfi, which is a town right on the sea. We had some cappuccino and browsed through the town. I visited one cool little artist’s shop where they make paper. It was so cool because the artist was actually making it in the store while we were there! I bought some little note cards made with purple flowers. : ) It was also cool because I found out that Samantha Brown (from the Travel Channel) had been there before!
We grabbed the 7:00 PM bus out of Amalfi, then hopped the train back to Naples arriving around 10:30 PM. We went to a late-night pizzeria for some pizza before heading back to the ship!
No comments:
Post a Comment