Day in Naples, Italy

The Italian place I had dinner.
see all photos »

The ship land around 9:30am with the one hour time change, so it was a little more than 16 hours on the boat. I had to catch a bus to the train station. There was a Canadian couple that was on the ferry and also waited for the bus to the train station. I talked to them a bit about my travels and theirs. It turned out they were going to Sorrento, but had to go through Naples, so they had to catch the same trains as I did. I had a few hours to burn when I got to the train station, but it had be raining all day so I wasn't really up to exploring Bari. I also had all my bags, so I just grabbed some lunch at a cafe near the train station. I got some Focacha, which was bread with tomato sauce and whole green olives on it and a soda. It was pretty good and it only cost me $2.50 Euro for a whole lunch. I just waited in the train station and read my book for a couple of hours until my train left. I ran into the Canadian couple as I was getting on the train, so I sat next to them. They mentioned that they were going to be in Rome for Easter and I then realized why it had been so hard to find hostels in Italy. I was in Italy for Easter weekend. The couple also had a travel book for Italy, so they let me look up Naples. It had alot of warnings about pickpockets and scams, but local authorities had beefed up security and it was supposedly safer now. I guess Naples use to be a really shady area. It was still early and I only had to ride the city train for a few stations. I found the hostel, La Controra, but it was a little bit of a challenge since it was up this alley and around the corner from this old rundown church. It was a pretty nice hostel that had recently been renovated. It had laundry machines, so I was able to finally wash my clothes. I had not been able to clean any clothes since I was in Australia. I started a load of laundry and then headed out to get so dinner. The lady at the front desk gave me a map and pointed out a few areas that had some good resturants. I hopped back on the metro and headed for one of the places on the map. There was a large piazza, plaza not pizza, with a large statue in the center and huge old building with a clocktower just behind it. I don't know the name of it, since it wasn't on the map, but it looked historical. There was an Italian resturant right next to it called Rossopomodoro Pizzeria Trattoria, so I went in and got some dinner. The whole menu was in Italian and the waiter spoke very little English, so I picked something with words I kind of recognized. I ended up with this massive calzone stuffed with salami, fetta cheese, and motzarella. I was only able to finish about half of it, but it was really tasty. After dinner I cruised around the area a bit more and found a few more piazza with fountains and some old buildings, but again I had no idea the names of anything. It was getting kind of late, so I headed back to the hostel. They had wireless internet connection in the lobby of the hostel, but the lady at the front desk didn't know the Encription Key, so I couldn't log on to the network. She let me use one of Internet terminals for free, since I couldn't use the wireless. I booked my hostels for next few day and checked my e-mail before the lobby closed. I finished up my laundry and went to bed.

It had alot of warnings about pickpockets and scams, but local authorities had beefed up security and it was supposedly safer now.