Naples : The Final Frontier!
Naples : The Final Frontier!Saturday (December 22nd) and our final day in Naples before our scheduled departure from Naples international airport at 7pm! That morning - after the wine and the grappa Steve and I found it extremely hard to peel ourselves out of bed. Our hotel room was also notoriously dark because of the several layers of insulation between the actual balcony window glass and the room itself...no natural light didn't exactly motivate you to spring out of bed!
Steve and I checked out of the hotel room around 11am and managed to get into the hotel breakfast before it closed. Breakfast actually looked lovely, a selection of pastries, cornflakes, fruit salad and natural yoghurt! Thankgod - natural yoghurt I thought. I didn't mention it before, but I discovered that the local water had a strange effect on my well - digestive tract and had found myself suffering from cramps in the evening and incredible urges to evacuate my bowels! Oh go on.. have a good laugh, get it out of your system.. FINISHED? Okay - deep breaths everyone. Needless to say the natural yoghurt I figured would help re-balance my insides and shoo off any nasty bugs that had been lurking around all week. Pesky bugs!
To be honest, I woke up that day feeling exhausted. I think it was a combination of everything the full days of walking, my spastic shoulder as well as the chaos that surrounded us from the minute we had arrived in Naples but by Saturday I was truly ready to get on a plane and head back to London. Still, we had a full day ahead of us and we weren't flying out until 7pm that evening so I summoned up whatever energy I had left and Steve dragged me outside! *chuckles* Just like the day before, we had been surprised with another sunny day. The temperature was quite ambient and topping around 14C that day and Steve and I got onto the only tram in Naples and took it across town to a part of Naples called Chiaia.
We took a stroll around Riviera Chiaia, and the park that lined it and came out the other side to be greeted by the Mediterranean Sea. Steve and I came across a Gelato stand and decided that it was acceptably warm enough to indulge in some authentic Italian Gelati. The weather all week hadn't exactly inspired the idea of eating ice confection despite passing some sort of icecream/gelato stand every block in Rome and Naples. It was now or never so we both indulged in a little tub of the Italian delicacy! With our little tubs of gelato in tow, we wandered along Via Caracciolo we reached Castel Dell'Ovo. Steve of course couldn't resist the urge to explore it because he has this fascination for castles! "Stupid Castles!" I spose, that's because he had such a vivid imagination. He can go back in those times and kind of imagine what it would be like to be protecting a fortress during the ages. Me on the other hand.. no imagination whatsoever... OKAY well I try.. I guess in this day of complicated living the innocence of our imagination is something we should hold on to...
Sorry - waffling, back to the castle... Steve enjoyed it thoroughly and inspected every single inch, nook, cranny, hole, brick.. well you get the idea.. while I dragged myself up to the top of it to enjoy the view and wait patiently for Steve to finish imagining he was a pirate ;o) At that moment, I felt suddenly tired and hungry and when Steve arrived I urged that we blow off the medieval castle and find something to eat.
Steve and I checked out of the hotel room around 11am and managed to get into the hotel breakfast before it closed. Breakfast actually looked lovely, a selection of pastries, cornflakes, fruit salad and natural yoghurt! Thankgod - natural yoghurt I thought. I didn't mention it before, but I discovered that the local water had a strange effect on my well - digestive tract and had found myself suffering from cramps in the evening and incredible urges to evacuate my bowels! Oh go on.. have a good laugh, get it out of your system.. FINISHED? Okay - deep breaths everyone. Needless to say the natural yoghurt I figured would help re-balance my insides and shoo off any nasty bugs that had been lurking around all week. Pesky bugs!
To be honest, I woke up that day feeling exhausted. I think it was a combination of everything the full days of walking, my spastic shoulder as well as the chaos that surrounded us from the minute we had arrived in Naples but by Saturday I was truly ready to get on a plane and head back to London. Still, we had a full day ahead of us and we weren't flying out until 7pm that evening so I summoned up whatever energy I had left and Steve dragged me outside! *chuckles* Just like the day before, we had been surprised with another sunny day. The temperature was quite ambient and topping around 14C that day and Steve and I got onto the only tram in Naples and took it across town to a part of Naples called Chiaia.
We took a stroll around Riviera Chiaia, and the park that lined it and came out the other side to be greeted by the Mediterranean Sea. Steve and I came across a Gelato stand and decided that it was acceptably warm enough to indulge in some authentic Italian Gelati. The weather all week hadn't exactly inspired the idea of eating ice confection despite passing some sort of icecream/gelato stand every block in Rome and Naples. It was now or never so we both indulged in a little tub of the Italian delicacy! With our little tubs of gelato in tow, we wandered along Via Caracciolo we reached Castel Dell'Ovo. Steve of course couldn't resist the urge to explore it because he has this fascination for castles! "Stupid Castles!" I spose, that's because he had such a vivid imagination. He can go back in those times and kind of imagine what it would be like to be protecting a fortress during the ages. Me on the other hand.. no imagination whatsoever... OKAY well I try.. I guess in this day of complicated living the innocence of our imagination is something we should hold on to...
Sorry - waffling, back to the castle... Steve enjoyed it thoroughly and inspected every single inch, nook, cranny, hole, brick.. well you get the idea.. while I dragged myself up to the top of it to enjoy the view and wait patiently for Steve to finish imagining he was a pirate ;o) At that moment, I felt suddenly tired and hungry and when Steve arrived I urged that we blow off the medieval castle and find something to eat.
For a more comprehensive history lesson Castel Dell'Ovo : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castel_dell%27Ovo
Orright, so I don't appreciate these magnificent structures as I should - perhaps they will grow on me. I suspect as we travel through Europe there will be many more of them. Steve and I made an executive decision to slowly find our way back to our hotel who were thoughtfully minding our bags for the day. It was late in the afternoon and we grabbed our last meal in Naples before considering on how to get to the airport. We spent a little time warming the couch in the hotel lounge room before bravely asking the concierge to get us a taxi (and risk death) from our hotel to the airport. As I explained in earlier posts the Neapolitans do not have much consideration for traffic laws and we thought getting a cab would be risky - but on the contrary. I myself felt hell of a lot safer in one of these Neapolitan Taxi's than I would in a Melbournian one.
The airport in Naples was chaotic as on the outside, but inside everything seemed to run smoothly. Steve and I checked our luggage in for our flight home to London and proceeded to check out what the Duty Free man would allow us to take with us. What we didn't know was the potential suspicion it would arouse to Airport Security. Steve and I had both decided on purchase of a bottle of Chianti (red wine) and a bottle of our friend Mr Grappa as well as a little chocolate. On purchase we realised we had to squeeze into our backpacks somehow so we could take it aboard the plane and sat on a bench outside the duty free store to repack each other's bags. It actually didn't click to us until after the event, but at the gate we were asked aside JUST before boarding of course and searched. I probably should explain - for my birthday Steve had gotten me one of those mini type speakers that you dock your IPOD on and presented it to me in Naples. He had to pack it in London so it had to come home with us from Naples and during our repack to put our liquor in he had to pull it out of his bag and squeeze things into it. We figured that maybe airport security cameras had picked up on it and they desperately wanted to know what it was - because it was the first thing they questioned when we were searched. How weird though. They looked in my bag a bit and the security officer insisted on seeing my purse and jiggled my left over coins around.
Anyway, a few minutes later and invaded Steve and I boarded the bus that would shuttle us across from the gate to our little BA Jet. As polluted as Naples was, I think that the airport was even worse. The flights that come in are running all the time all day and the buses that shuttle passengers between the gates and the planes run ALL DAY... it's totally smog central and you can't see through the thick haze. As we took off.. I looked out my window and waved to smoggy, smelly Naples and settled into my seat for the flight back to London - Gatwick!
The airport in Naples was chaotic as on the outside, but inside everything seemed to run smoothly. Steve and I checked our luggage in for our flight home to London and proceeded to check out what the Duty Free man would allow us to take with us. What we didn't know was the potential suspicion it would arouse to Airport Security. Steve and I had both decided on purchase of a bottle of Chianti (red wine) and a bottle of our friend Mr Grappa as well as a little chocolate. On purchase we realised we had to squeeze into our backpacks somehow so we could take it aboard the plane and sat on a bench outside the duty free store to repack each other's bags. It actually didn't click to us until after the event, but at the gate we were asked aside JUST before boarding of course and searched. I probably should explain - for my birthday Steve had gotten me one of those mini type speakers that you dock your IPOD on and presented it to me in Naples. He had to pack it in London so it had to come home with us from Naples and during our repack to put our liquor in he had to pull it out of his bag and squeeze things into it. We figured that maybe airport security cameras had picked up on it and they desperately wanted to know what it was - because it was the first thing they questioned when we were searched. How weird though. They looked in my bag a bit and the security officer insisted on seeing my purse and jiggled my left over coins around.
Anyway, a few minutes later and invaded Steve and I boarded the bus that would shuttle us across from the gate to our little BA Jet. As polluted as Naples was, I think that the airport was even worse. The flights that come in are running all the time all day and the buses that shuttle passengers between the gates and the planes run ALL DAY... it's totally smog central and you can't see through the thick haze. As we took off.. I looked out my window and waved to smoggy, smelly Naples and settled into my seat for the flight back to London - Gatwick!
Photo's from the silly Castle : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/CastelDellOvo
