Thursday May 27, 2004

We woke up early at 7:00 and lounged in bed. We showered and snacked on a few pastries that we had purchased the night before.

We were still dressed and out the door by 9:30. Napoli was slightly less bustling than it had been, though it was still busy. We went to the cafe across the street and had cappuccino and croissant for breakfast. Everything seems to go at an amazingly fast pace in Napoli. It's invigorating for a few days, but there's a reason everyone in the city looks hard. It's strange, no one looks you in the eye here.

After breakfast we made our way to the historic center. This section of Napoli houses the majority of the cities churches. We went into one and it was beautiful. We then stumbled upon Duomo. This church simply has to be seen to be believed. I was taken completely aback. The experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.

The building was massive, every inch of it exquisitely decorated with sculptures, gold, marble and paintings. There were mosaics from the 4th century. Beneath the church was a rather massive archaeological project showing early Christian ruins and Greek mosaics as well as Roman plumbing. (Lead, of course.)

We spent an hour and a half in the church, much of it just sitting and taking it in. It was a very moving experience.

We left the church and visited a few more throughout the day. One had a sculpted tomb by Donatello, but for me, none compared to Duomo.

We decided to take a proper sit down lunch. We stopped at a restaurant overlooking a busy street. I ordered Spaghetti, Sarah had We ordered a half liter of wine to go with the meal. The pasta arrived steaming and delicious. The pasta here is very simply made, but tastes better than any I've had in Canada. Sarah pointed out that the tomatoes are smaller and sweeter than the ones we tend to buy in Canada.

Lunch was delicious and Sarah got a bit tipsy. This made for an interesting hour or two as we slowly made our way to the port again, our destination: The huge castle.

We arrived at the gates and walked right in. It turns out that the castle tour was free. The castle featured art from as early as the 1600s with topics ranging from portraits to battles, sculptures of prominent politicians and of course, many religious works.

After walking around the castle and taking in the view, we made our way over to the Museum Reale, passing a lush park area on the way.

Reale honestly took us by surprise. It was a huge museum filled with gorgeous works, and it was free! This structure was the Royal Palace. It showed the opulence of the Italian monarchy and had room after room of furniture, paintings, sculptures, tapestries and more. It wasn't overly busy, so it was very enjoyable touring around.

On the way out of the museum, we stopped and picked up a book on Napoli. It is in Italian, but features fantastic pictures of what we saw and what we missed. Napoli really is a beautiful city.

From the port, we made our way back up to our hotel. On the way, we stopped in an Italian... Mall! No, it really was something to see. The building was gigantic but only had a few large stores in it. There were a few clothing stores, a china store and a cafe with excellent gelato. We stopped to eat a gelato and then carried on towards dinner. As Sarah had done no shopping, we decided to make our way to the same pizza restaurant, stopping at any shoe stores she wanted. We stopped at many stores but Sarah was unable to find what she was looking for. We got to the pizzeria and once again had pizza and beer. We then returned to the hotel room. Sarah organized our things, I wrote some of this and then we both went to sleep.

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