Now, brought on by my thoughts of canoli, I hope my readers will allow me a brief tangent on those foods that I believe all tourists should get while in Italy (aka, the best stuff I’ve had so far):
1. Pizza all over the place – the best pizzas I’ve had so far have come at the Irish pub in Rome where we watched the football game, the little restaurant after the botanical garden break-in/out and a restaurant just outside of Pompeii (you may think I listed all the places I’ve had pizza. You’d be wrong. So wrong. So much pizza). I didn’t love the pizza I got in Napoli, but that was the one time I departed from my usual margherita pizza, so that my have been the problem, after all, Napoli is the birthplace of pizza, how could it be bad?
2. Gnocci alla Sorentino (Sorrento-style gnocci) at English Inn in Sorrento – we found this place without the help of Rick and it was a spectacular discovery. The waiters are friendly and funny, with good English, and the food is delicious. The people who got pizza here loved it too, but the gnocci was the best thing any of us ordered. We ate here two nights, and the second night I got fagotini instead (more to be able to say I ate fagotini than because I didn’t want gnocci again). The fagotini was good, but the best part of the meal was when they made us extra gnocci and gave half plates to all of us for free.
3. Gelato from Gelateria Della Palma – This is a big gelateria two blocks in front of the Pantheon, and probably more worth going to this part of Rome than the Pantheon itself. They have over 150 flavors, and the all look delicious. In particular, I loved the mango and the mascarpone. The most exciting part of eating there may have been examining my cup and noticing that they seem to have a store in NYC. Something to look into.
4. Hot chocolate from Illy – Illy is a European coffee chain, sorta. They also sell alcohol, candy and, most importantly, hot chocolate. On a tip from another Nativer a bunch of us had our eyes peeled all trip for an Illy and we finally found one. The guy who made it for us slaved over the pot for about five minutes, including one point where he called over the store manager to help him – they are serious about their hot chocolate.
We left shortly after and took a taxi home because the public transportation system ends early. The next morning we got to the Termini early and boarded our train to Napoli (Naples). Before the Rome portion of my blog ends I want to mention one interesting thing I discovered there. The letters SPQR are everywhere – on buildings, on manhole covers, on street signs. We spent some time trying to guess what they stood for, but finally I resorted to Wikipedia. SPQR stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus - the Senate and the People of Rome. The acronym refers to the ancient Roman government, but is used today as well.
The train was long, but I passed the time by reading Rick Steves on Napoli and Sorrento by watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith and, of course, by looking out the window as often as possible. We arrived in Napoli (which Rick Steves, the Arbibs, and everyone we met said was a very dangerous city) and bought the Arte Card. With that, we would have unlimited public transportation for three days, as well as free admission to two sites (same basic idea as the Roma Pass). We headed right down to the Circumvesuviana commuter train (absolutely COVERED in graffiti like everything here) and boarded the line which terminates in Sorrento. We were on the train for about 35 minutes before we got to the stop Pompei: Villa dei Misterei.
When we disembarked, we went right to the ticket booth to get our tickets (free with the Arte Card) and store our luggage. Then we went back to the row of pizza places we’d seen earlier. We walked along each store checking prices until we got to the largest one. The guy there pulled us aside (when European shop owners see seven Americans walking, they REALLY want to make a sale) and asked us where there was room for a pizza kitchen in the other stores we passed. He had a point; they were really tiny. We went in and he gave us a pretty good discount. We each got a personal pizza (that seems to be the way they sell pizza here) and we bought lemoncello for the table. Lemoncello is a product of Sorrento, which is known for its lemons and other citrus fruit. It’s a dessert liquor, but we had it with lunch – it was pretty awful, but apparently it’s supposed to be served chilled and ours was warm.
After lunch, we went in to Pompeii which was really cool. We walked all over the city, with Adam guiding us with Rick’s tour. Many pieces of the city were closed off for renovations, and parts of the site had been converted to a cafeteria and gift shop. This was all a little annoying, but we still had fun exploring and climbing over walls and ancient ovens and things. I was especially struck by the size of the city. All other ancient cities I’ve been to (with the obvious exception of Rome and Jerusalem) have been little more than towns, Pompeii is HUGE. We finished our tour in the city’s amphitheatre, and took a nap on the grass in the sun in the middle of it. We did some last illegal climbing there and then hightailed it back to the exit.
Back on the Circumvesuviana we enjoyed the beautiful views of the Bay of Napoli on one side and Mt. Vesuvius on the other. The presence of mountains is an impressive feature in the backdrop, one to which I am unaccustomed. I am consistently feeling the tug of a heretofore-undiscovered desire to hike all the time – I think it has to do with these mountains in the not-so-distance. We arrived in Sorrento about 35 minutes later and schlepped our stuff to our hostel. The sign said “Deluxe Hostel,” and they were actually being serious. The lobby was beautiful as were our rooms and best of all there was free WiFi. We hung around for a while and then walked down the street in search of a place to eat. The first place we saw looked good, a place called English Inn. Dinner was absolutely wonderful. After we finished, we were exhausted and went straight back to the hostel. We went to bed early for a good night’s sleep.
In the morning we got up and went back to the Circumvesuviana and took the hour-ish long ride back to Napoli. We spent about and hour arguing over how to reserve tickets for the ride to Lecce and the night train from Lecce to Venice. Finally, we bought tickets and went for pizza. The argument was pretty mean-spirited and exhausting and totally unnecessary, but I guess this is what happens when seven 18-19 year-olds travel together. From the train station we walked a while to what Rick Steves described as the best pizza in Napoli. They had a line out the door so, consulting Rick, we walked around the corner to the best pizza’s rival. They had much more room inside, and their pizza was still very good. From there, we walked to the Napoli Archaeological museum, where all the really cool stuff from Pompeii and Ercolano (Herculaneum, a city nearby, also destroyed by Vesuvius), as well as other stuff, is now located. We had fun running through the museum and posing next to statues. Statues have gotten kind of old for many of us, though the big ones are still really cool. We tend to really enjoy frescoes and mosaics. Once we finished at the museum we were tired and still a little crazed, so we went right back to our hostel instead of climbing Vesuvius.
Once back in Sorrento we spent some time exploring the town (pop ~12,000). The place is really beautiful, with storefronts painted in bright colors, and tiny streets weaving their way through the town. The orange and lemon trees all over the place add even more color. We walked the streets of the town pretty aimlessly, stopping off every few stores. We finally ended up back at English Inn for dinner which was good again. I went to bed pretty early, because we knew we needed to get up at 6:00 a.m. to make it to the Napoli train station for an 8:50 train.
Everything seemed to be going right in the morning. We were out of the hostel by ten to seven and we made the right Circumvesuviana train to Napoli, projected to get in at 8:25. Only the train took forever, stopping for several minutes at several of the stops for no apparent reason. It became evident that the only way we were going to make out train was if we ran as soon as we got to the station. We jumped off the train at exactly 8:50, praying for our train to Lecce to leave late (our train from Rome to Napoli left 15 mins late) and sprinted. For about ten feet. Then we hit a solid wall of people and were forced to slow down to a crawl. We made it to the platforms at 8:54 – and the train was gone. After a pretty contentious powwow, we decided to ditch the idea of Lecce and instead take a train to Florence. We grabbed breakfast and boarded our train without a problem.
I'm finishing this post in my hostel room in Florence. We're staying in the same place as the girls. Hopefully everyone will get over their sulkiness enough so that we can do some sightseeing.
Talk to you soon,
Seffi
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