This year's Summer holiday was a return to Italy. We took a trip to Venice almost two years ago, and we thoroughly enjoyed that.
We split this visit across two cities, starting in Naples, just North of the famous Vesuvius volcano.
After landing at the airport a little after 10:30 local time, we collected our luggage and took the shuttle bus to the main train station in Naples. This was our first experience of traffic in the city, and the journey was quite exciting. Once at the railway station, it was time to eat, so we found an obviously popular restaurant. The service was good and the food equally so.
It was then that we heard the news that, on the previous day, Naples had suffered its largest earthquake in over 40 years. Could Vesuvius be waking up? Nobody seemed to be concerned; so business as usual.
Now we had to locate the hotel that we had chosen. Sadly, unknown to us, it was on a hillside above the city. Only 1.1 km direct, but a 1.8 km walk, which is not outside our capabilities. However, we had not planned for the route being uphill all the way, and the penultimate stage having 183 steps going up and up and up. Add to that the 35º C temperature, and we were quite warm once we arrived at the hotel with our suitcases, somewhat later than we expected.
But the hotel was quiet and far from the constant noise of scooters buzzing around in every direction, and the relentless car horns.
Once cooled off, showered, and relaxed, we were ready to work out a plan for the week.
Dinner at the hotel was not great, but as we had already enjoyed a large lunch, it was acceptable.
The next day, our plan was a visit to the nearby Castel Sant'Elmo. We booked onto the free shuttle bus that goes from the hotel to the 'historic' area of the city and were soon on our way, another white-knuckle ride into Naples centre. It seems that the rules of the road are simple; just get to where you are going using whatever means, lanes, or shortcuts that are available. White lines on the road are merely for decoration, they mean nothing to traffic. On the way, we passed the aftermath of a road accident where a scooter rider was going to be late for work, at least for that day. Yet so many people scoot around with no helmet, even carrying small children, frightening!
It took well over 30 minutes to reach the roundabout just past Piazza Dante; we could have easily walked there in 20 minutes, especially as it was downhill all the way. A shuttle bus going up to the hotel would be a brilliant idea.
A random street view with no moving traffic and only a few people.
After another strenuous walk to finally reach the castle with the aid of Google, we finally arrived and bought our entry tickets. Then we had to walk around the immense walls, built upon the base hacked out of the rock to make it quite impregnable.
Once inside, out of the blazing sunshine, the place was impressive. And, from the top, the views over the city were spectacular.
You can see a typical Roman road (as the black line running up the middle of the image) cutting through the city.
The clock on the roof of the castle has some rather large knife blades as hands, though it doesn't seem to work.
After the castle, we went to the nearby museum of ceramics, set in a large woodland park with shaded pathways. With further views of the city, we could see this rather precarious tower with a worrying crack down the whole structure. Presumably a result of previous earthquake activity.
Attached to the museum is a café where we enjoyed an afternoon ice lolly and a drink.
Accidentally got a personalised Coca-Cola, who knew?
We continued further downhill towards the harbour and the seaside.
Looking back up towards the castle, it's a long way.
While attempting to reach the seaside, only 200m across two roads and some land, we found it impossible to go directly there. The large park housing the swimming pool and the Darwin museum had no exits open on that side. We ended up walking at least 1.5km around the perimeter of the park to get to the 'beach' area, only to find it packed with people and was, in fact, just a man-made area with perhaps 50m of sand.
We skipped that and continued along the harbour front to find a restaurant for our evening meal.
Refuelled, and with the light fading, we headed for a metro to get most of the way to our hotel.
On the way, yet another castle.
Of course, we still had to walk almost 2km from the metro station and climb the million steps for the last 250m.
But the hotel was nice and quiet.