Naples & Bari

NAPLES & BARI

DoDgY aS f… Naples is seriously a scary place. It sounds so beautiful though, right? ‘The Bay of Naples’ – more like the ‘Bay of Rapels.”…

The train trip was a nightmare! Some guy that smelt like piss and BO put this card on our seat which was like “I’m so poor I have to feed my brothers, pls give me money PLS’… and then stared at us the entire trip (which was 2 hours). We had to swap trains and he followed us to the station and watched us get on the train. NO MONEY FOR YOU GLEN COCO. Then, on the second train some dodge as dude was sitting in my seat asleep WITH HIS EYES OPEN. Not cool. Once we got there we had to catch a few metros and walk to our hotel which was in the middle of nowhere… luckily the place was an oasis in the crazy, loud city. It was quiet, had a nice bar etc. and if it wasn’t for the fact our room overlooked the highway (and also got the noise from the highway), it would have been perfect.

Our first night there we met this American guy who was a professional kayaker and was planning to kayak from Naples to Crete (which he said was 3000km, not sure because my sense of directions sucks but yeah he said that). He also said back at home he went for 25km runs everyday, went on 3 day hikes, played the piano and the drums and was basically an all round psycho. Pretty impressive though and made our lives look pretty bleak and inadequate. We booked a day tour to Pompeii for the next day (the only reason we actually came to Naples in the first place) and then went to bed.

The next day we woke up early and went on our Pompeii tour. It is so sick how well preserved a lot of Pompeii is and it was really cool to see how well they managed without the technology today and how happy they were as a society. The best part of course was the brothel which still had it’s original ‘menus’ in tact. Basically, clients would come in, point to a frescoe on the wall detailing which sex position they would like that evening and then they went to it. New to the city and need to find the brothel? No probs! Just look for the dicks painted on the road that point in the direction of the whorehouse. You’re set! Seriously though, the people of Pompeii had the most chilled lives. They would wake up, work for a couple of hours and then hit the spa from 12-4.30pm… then hang with the fam for a bit, see their mates and then go get some sex. Win. 

 

Getting excited to learn some fun facts

One of the items on the brothel menu

 Follow the big cement penis Dorothy

The tour was great except for some typical loud and obnoxious Americans who would stop the tour guide in the middle of his spiel to ask “but what’s THAT?” and who held up the bus for about 20mins because they needed to get ‘a roadie’ – babes I think you can wait 10mins for your beer! When we got back from the tour we went to a place recommended by TripAdvisor for amazing pizza (pizza was invented in Naples – it’s one redeeming quality). The pizza was amazing!! So fresh and delicious, definitely the best in all of Italy. So for that, we say thanks to you Naples. Other than that, we were keen to leave.

Next was on to Bari, the town from which we were to catch the ferry to Greece. We weren’t expecting much from the place, we just needed somewhere to stay but it turned out to be one of our favourite places in Italy. We stayed in a cute hostel run by a young couple in the Old Town, surrounding by what you could only call an authentic Italian neighbourhood. Right around the corner from our hostel there were little old ladies making pasta by hand, and men stringing their fishing nets. You could walk the whole town in little under 15 minutes, and see some pretty cool stuff along the way. The church there has the remains of Saint Nicolas (Santa Claus), and you can walk along the city wall and get a great view of the port and town. Whilst we were there, there was a wedding taking place and lots of houses had pink and blue bows on their doors in celebration. During the time of the wedding, what seemed like the whole town came to watch. The bride looked so beautiful and the day was perfect, it was lucky we were there to see it. Also, the food was incredible – some of the best we have had in Italy. The gelato was cray – I had cheesecake, nutella and caramel/coffee and Rosie had coconut, nutella and dark chocolate. It was homemade and sooo good. We were also recommended by the owners of the hostel to go to this little bakery and order focaccia, and I’m so glad because it was probably the best thing I’ve tasted in Italy. So crunchy but soft and just ugh amazing. I would definitely recommend to fit a day in Bari to anyone going to Italy! The day we were to catch the ferry was our last day in Italy, and as sad as we were to say goodbye we really needed to give our waistlines a rest from all our carb up days and finally get to the ocean. Cue the 16 hour ferry ride to come… which I shall explain in my next post on Zakynthos! 

 

Saint Nick

 

Bari Walls

 Epic Gelato

 Best foccacia in the world

Bye bye Italy! We loved you!