3pm: sitting on the couch in my room for an afternoon rest sipping a Lemon Soda. Internet works on the ipod again but not on the netbook still.
Anyway, woke up and had breakfast. Today there was someone else there – hilariously enough a British guy living in LA working for the Getty villa as a curator so he is here for work. What are the odds LOL! Anyway, I finally took my luck with a bus and got on the R4 to go to Capodimonte. It's up a huge hill so there's no way i'd walk this one, and there's no metro access up there. Anyway, a French couple was getting off too and someone told them where to go so I just followed. It was still a decent walk around to the museum but at least the walk back would be downhill.
The museum is in yet another royal palace and garden complex. So it's part art museum, part royal apartments exhibition in a gorgeous huge building. Some special event is going on this month so the museum was FREE. Then with my artecard I got a discount on the audioguide so I got it. Because of that I actually spend over 90 minutes in the museum! It's mostly paintings by a variety of Italian and other artists, but there's a whole section of the royal rooms and whatnot.
Took my chance on an “M2” bus, which said it was going to the archeological museum, which has a metro stop on the line I wanted to take to my next stop. That worked out OK and I took the metro over to the Vomero district, another middle-class area that's cleaner and quieter than the main center. On my way out of the station I saw a Unicocampania info desk – that's the company that handles transport in this entire province of Italy. I asked if I could buy a ticket to Caserta there for tomorrow. Thank goodness I could so that's one less thing to worry about tomorrow morning when I leave!
For an interesting lunch I first had gelato (dark chocolate and tiramisu) at the other branch of Fantasia Gelato right in the square of the metro stop, and then I found a recommended fry shop and got a fried pizza stuffed with tomato and mozzarella and 2 baby potato crocches – total for that was 1.70. The crocches were even better than Di Matteo's. Smaller (and half the price), they had no cheese and were salted on the outside so they were a cross between a french fry and a tater tot and 100% delicious.
Made a hike up to Castel St. Elmo, which was only 1.50 because of my artecard. The views there of the whole bay were simply outstanding and worth the entry fee alone but there's not much else to see. Then walked down further to the Certosa di San Martino which is a glorious church/cloister/museum complex that was also half price (3 euros) with the artecard. There's some huge exhibit of the traditional neapolitan nativity scenes there, but I couldn't find it. Then instead of having to haul ass 20 minutes back uphill to the metro stop I found the “V1” bus that took me there in a few minutes. Hooray!!
Hopped on the metro all the way back to Piazza Dante, which is my “home” until tomorrow. Now i'm just resting for a while because frankly I've done more than I had even planned and figure there's no need to push myself further. Maybe by the time I get to Lecce tomorrow afternoon my feet will feel like new ;)
8pm: Back in the B&B and soaking my feet yet again even though luckily today they're not so bad. Wandered around the via Tribunali/Spaccanapoli area a bit more. It's one of those areas where you can walk up and down a million times and it feels like new because of the sights and sounds. Stopped in a mini-market and picked up a bag of little red hot dried peperoncini, some olive-flavored cracker/pretzel things, and 2 little packs of some dark chocolate hazelnut candy that looked too good to resist at 2 packs for a euro. Made it back down to Scaturchio and picked up some interesting looking little cake for later.
Just before 7 I made it to Di Matteo, the last of the pizzerie on my “must” list. I'd already tried their fried goodies but not the pizza yet. A bit of a mixup as the person next to me was initially given my pizza, it wasn't quite as piping hot as normal but it was definitely delicious. Maybe it was actually a little better because it sat a minute and firmed up, I don't know, but I think it was my favorite out of the ones I tried. Very close with Gino Sorbillo. And only three euros! Drink and service brought my dinner to an absurd 4.5. I then made it more absurd by buying 2 zeppole (basically just little blobs of fried dough which I thought would be sweet but weren't) for 40 more cents. Definitely unnecessary since I ate fried food for lunch too. Oh my!
Had as much of a conversation as possible with mamma and (I'm assuming) her daughter-in-law about when I should pay. They said tomorrow, even though I have to leave early. The train leaves at 8:40 but I'm nervous about it since it leaves from the underground station, so I want to get there early just in case. I HAVE to be in Caserta before 10 because the train leaves then for Lecce and I am excited about my 1st class ticket ;)
I survived Naples, fried food, pizza, insanity, and all... woohoo!! Next is Lecce, so-called Florence of the North, but in the deep deep south. I've refrained from buying any olives thus-far because I have a feeling I'll find plenty in Puglia!
Side rant of the day: honking. Everyone does it here, and they always honk twice. Especially the scooters because they're often driving on pedestrian-only streets so they honk at the pedestrians. What's funny is when they honk just when driving by someone who wasn't even in their way to begin with. It's like they honk just to have fun pressing the button or something.
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