Wednesday May 26, 2004

I woke up at 7:00 and wrote some more on the balcony. The hotel view is beautiful. Sarah got up at 7:30. We were showered and out to breakfast at 8:30. Breakfast consisted of our first thick black brewed coffee since Paris, yogurt, cakes, home made jam and a couple of rolls. As we'd paid for it anyway, we both filled right up. We went back to our room and packed our bags which the hotel staff kindly looked after for us. We left the hotel at 9:30 and started out walking around the island. We eventually found the Mediterraneans sea. We have pictures of us standing in the sea! I tasted the water, it was salty! Very cool. The sand was much grainier than I had expected, it felt great beneath our feet. We walked along the beach, passing by many tanning tourists. (Many of whom were tanning topless and perhaps shouldn't have...)

We left the beach and continued our tour, leisurely returning to our hotel to get our bags at about 11:00AM. We left the hotel for good and caught a bus that snaked around the island before returning to port. What an experience that was! This plain old municipal bus offered a breathtaking tour of the island. The ride was part silent tour, part amusement park ride. Anyone traveling to Ishcia really ought to spend the 1.20 to take this ride! The route took an hour and a half and went to the top of the mountain. We took many pictures, I hope they come out because the ride really had to be seen to be believed. The roads were barely big enough for the bus, and more than once I wondered if we were going to make it back to the port. As Sarah said, OC Transpo drivers really ought to consider themselves lucky, as they have it made compared to these poor drivers!

We eventually made it back to port and bought our tickets back to Napoli. We then set out to find a hotel. We called about four places before finding one that had room. We were lucky too, it was the last room and the last hotel recommended in our guide! We booked the room for $60 and quickly grabbed a cheap pizza before rushing back to the ferry. We were both feeling a bit bit disheartened by the hotel fiasco, but on the way back I stumbled upon a 50 euro note in the road! I grabbed it and used it to pay for the majority of our night's accommodation.

We arrived in Napoli at about 4:00. We managed to cross the busy streets with all body parts intact, bought a pair of bus tickets, and made our way back to the square at the train station. From there we hopped off the bus and found our hotel.

Street signs in Italy are sketchy at best, the main street from the train station simply isn't marked. It's like that in Napoli. Very odd. Anyway, we consulted our map and made an educated guess. We got it right on the first try! We found our hotel without difficulty and checked in. The hotel is run by a family, they all seem very nice. The room is new, clean and well made. The shower and bathroom are top notch. We have decided to stay here the second night.

Once we checked in, we both showered and headed out on the town for dinner. We were accosted by a few street merchants, but are already learning how to avoid that. Italy is very different than France. It turns out that Turin was a nice, gentle introduction to the culture. Everyone in Napoli seems to be hard. No one smiles, and everyone is rushing off to somewhere. Despite this, it seems to be a very alive, bustling metropolitan center.

We found a pizza place that has been operating since 1870. The pizza, while simple, was unlike anything I'd tasted before. It was delicious! It was a very flat crust, very simple tomato-based ordeal. It took about a minute for them to prepare and then another 5 minutes to cook. We each had a pizza and a beer, the bill came to $9.90. Awesome.

When we got back to our hotel, we sent out another message before going to bed. Here's a copy of the e-mail:

Naples!

Hello again everyone,

We're mailing this from our hotel room in Naples.  We first arrived on
Tuesday but immediately left for Ishcia, an island in the Bay of Naples. 
Ishcia was unlike anything we had seen; imagine a small semi-tropical
island an hour and a half away from a huge bustling city.  It was amazing,
we took about a roll and a half of film.  (We're starting the fifth roll
tomorrow, so don't worry, we have lots of pictures.)

We managed to find Yandu and Pat in Turin on Sunday.  We spent a lovely
afternoon and evening with them.  We visited the Shroud of Turin, had a
lovely Italian supper with a good bottle of wine, and finished off with
the best gelato of the trip.  They left us at the train station and here
we are!

We arrived back in Naples this afternoon.  We had some trouble finding a
hotel, but lucked into a very nice room that's about five minutes from the
train station.  We went out for dinner tonight to a pizzeria that has been
making pizza since 1870!!  We had a pizza and a beer each, the bill came
to a whopping $10!  We then had gelato (Italian ice cream) and canoli
(tubes of chocolate pastry filled with sweetened ricotta cheese.)

We'll be touring Naples tomorrow and then leaving for Rome at about 12:30
on Friday.  Rome is only two hours away, so we'll have part of Friday and
all day Saturday to explore Rome.

Alright, that's enough for now.  We'll try to mail once more from Rome,
but if we can't find a place, we'll send a wrap up message from home. 
Thanks for all of the lovely messages,

Ben (Hall) and Sarah (Whittaker)

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