Naples is one of the oldest cities in Italy. This is evident because of the architecture and the monuments in the city. It sits about two-three hours south of Rome and the two cities both have a bustling city feel. In Naples though, street lights and pedestrian signs are mere suggestions as locals walk into the middle of the street dodging cars and ignoring honks from the cars/vespas/and buses that have to slow down for the pedestrian. Another noticeable difference of Naples is the trash that is lined up on the street and the graffiti on the buildings. It is obvious that the city has delved into a lower socioeconomic class but I was surprised that the local people would allow the city to get so bad. One of the locals that I talked to said that the mafia has an influence over the city so that contributes to the trash and the graffiti all over the city.
Since Naples is famous for its pizza I knew that would be the only thing I would be eating there. While walking around the city we stumbled across the pizzeria that Julia Roberts ate at in the movie “Eat, Pray, Love.” The restaurant, Pizzeria da Michele only gave two choices for pizza: margherita and marinara. Apparently in Naples when pizza was first invented these were the only two choices so the restaurant keeps the tradition which makes sense since it’s been a family business since 1890. The pizza was 4.00 euros and it was huge! It was big enough to share with another person and be stuffed for the rest of the night. The other pizza place that we went to during our time there was Troians. This pizzeria had three floors and a firebrick oven on each floor. The firebrick oven on the floor that we ate at had mosaic tiles covering it. The chefs were all very nice to us and invited us to take pictures with them while they were making their pizzas and transporting it into the oven. The pizza was deliziosa!
Pompeii was a graveyard of old ruins that have survived the elements for 2,000 years. Mt. Vesuvius was looming off in the distance and unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to see the volcano since Pompeii itself was so massive. I was very surprised at how things like the amphitheater, the bath houses, and the theatres held up for such a long period of time. It is hard to describe just how incredible Pompeii was. Although some ruins were just big mounds and it was hard to picture exactly how the city looked like, it was evident the damage that occurred when Vesuvius erupted. We paid 5 euros to get the handheld listening device that told us things about Pompeii and I would highly recommend it because I learned about things in Pompeii that I would never have learned from a textbook.
andreadame 