Naploli e Capri

April 10-12, 2009

spent Easter weekend visiting Naples and Capri. On Friday I took a train down to Naples. The train was sooooo crowded that there was absolutely nowhere to sit. The kind of ticket I had bought didn't have a seat reservation so it could be used on any train from Florence to Naples but that also meant that no seat was saved for me. Usually there are enough empty seats that that doesn't matter; plus there are little fold down seats in the aisles, but every single seat was full. Even all the floor space in the aisles and any spot to lean on a wall was full. I had to stand in the tiny entryway of one of the cars. Even that was so crowded, with two other passengers and three policemen, that it was standing room only. Shortly after I got on, the policemen starting checking everyone's passports. I was really glad I had thought to bring mine even though I wasn't going to be leaving the country, because I'd never seen anyone check documents before. Eventually the policemen got off the train, and there was enough room for me to sit down on the floor in the doorway. I spent the entire five and a half hour train ride without a seat, getting up at every stop so people could get out the door.

Once in Naples, I walked to my hostel to meet up with Katie, Laura, and Pat. I stopped to see one of the castles and the Duomo on the way. When I had tried to book the hostel different websites were telling me different things about availability, so I e-mailed the hostel. They said they could make the reservation, just let them know how many beds I needed, but I never received a confirmation e-mail after I replied, so I really wasn't sure if I had a reservation or not. When I got to the hostel, I explained the situation to the man and showed him the e-mails. He couldn't find a reservation for me, but he said there was room. He showed me to one of the rooms, gave me sheets, and told me to wait a minute. When he came back in the room, he was carrying a bed frame and a bag of leg parts. He ripped open the bag and starting building me a bed. When it was all finished, with mattress and everything, he let me put the bed anywhere in the room. I was pretty impressed that rather than turn me away, he just built a new bed for me.

When Laura, Katie, and Pat got back to the hostel, we hung out there for a little while and met some other American kids and a Belgian guy. We all went out for pizza at a restaurant where Pope John Paul II had eaten. After dinner we went back to the hostel and met a bunch of other people staying there.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early to take the ferry to Capri. On the ferry we ran into Nadia who was also visiting Naples and Capri. Once on the island we took a bus to Anacapri to climb the mountain. Climbing the mountain was awesome. Before we had gone very far, we came to a fork in the road. We picked the path that looked more promising, but it quickly ended. We decided to continue on anyway, following an overgrown little goat path (or some other kind of animal path). We trekked along that for awhile until we had to start scaling the rocks. I don't think I've ever done legit mountain climbing like that before. It was so cool. When we got to the top, we could see how easy the other path would have been, but we were all definitely glad we chose the harder way. We could see almost all of Capri from the top. There was another slightly higher peak a short distance away, so of course we had to climb that as well. We took the real path this time, though.

After hiking the highest peaks, we worked our way over to the beach, hoping to rent some kayaks. Unfortunately, the beach was super crowded so we weren't able to rent kayaks, but Pat and I went swimming and exploring the rocks while Katie and Laura got a tan. There were jellyfish EVERYWHERE. I even got stung by one, but luckily it didn't hurt at all.

Late afternoon we started on our way to the other side of the island to visit the Blue Grotto. The Blue Grotto is a cave in the water that appears to shine blue. There's a hole in the rock under the water through which the sun shines, giving everything a blue glint. You're supposed to pay a lot of money to take a little rowboat into the grotto, but the boats stop at about 5:00, so we planned to get there after 5, so we could swim in. The bus stopped really far from away so we had to walk soooo far to get there. It was worth it, though. There was just this teeny little metal dock next to a hole in the rock and a sign saying absolutely no swimming but luckily I didn't see that until we were leaving. At the grotto, we met back up with Nadia and the boys from our hostel.

By the time we got to the grotto, the sun wasn't high in the sky anymore, so the cave was kind of dark. One wall was still glowing blue, though, and the water was shining a crazy bright blue. The cave was huge, but I didn't go in very far because it was so dark. Then Pat saw a jelly fish and we all freaked out and swam out. We were willing to brave the dark and the freezing cold and the waves, but the jellyfish was too much.

When we were back on shore and somewhat dried off, we all decided to go to the lighthouse to watch the sunset. It was kind of cloudy, so the sunset wasn't great, but it was still fun climbing on the rocks. When we finally decided to head back to the dock to catch the last ferry to Naples, we realized we had just missed a bus. As we were waiting for the next one, Katie and some of the guys started to talk to one of the men who was also waiting for the bus. He told them we'd never make it back to Marina Grande (where the ferry comes) in time for the last ferry of the day and that we better take a taxi. He was a little odd so we weren't sure if we should believe him or not but he was really insistent. No taxis come all the way out to the lighthouse, though, so we were going to have to take the bus to Anacapri (where we were supposed to switch buses) anyway. In Anacapri we sprinted to find a taxi. Luckily we found one pretty fast, but there were eight of us and the driver only wanted to take five. We really didn't want to split up (especially since that would mean each person's fare would be more), so we begged the driver to take all eight. He let us all cram in and he sped down the mountain to the marina. We made it to the ticket office with plenty of time to buy our tickets and get on the ferry. Maybe it wasn't really necessary to take the taxi, but we were all glad we made it and didn't have to spend the night on the island.

Once back in Naples, we walked Nadia back to her hostel and then headed back to ours. On the way we ran into an Easter parade, so we stopped and watched for a little while. Two of the boys (Neil and Teddy), Katie, and I lost the rest of the group so we explored Naples a little. We found a whole street stretching between two piazzas crowded with kids our age. Naples is pretty dirty and poor looking, with not a whole lot of people wandering around, but this street seemed to be where everyone comes at night. We also passed some sort of festival for Easter with Polynesian dancers. There seems to be a large population of Polynesians in Naples.

After getting back to the hostel and realizing that everyone else went out to dinner without us, Katie, Neil, Teddy, and I went out to get pizza on our own. Then we headed back to the hostel to go to bed.

Our original plan for Sunday was to go to Herculaneum. Then the plan changed to go to Sorrento, but neither plan worked out because of the limited transportation on Easter, so we stayed in Naples instead. We went to Easter mass at Gesu Nuovo. Then we wandered around and took the metro to go see some big park, but once again the limited public transportation foiled our plans, so we walked through a smaller park and went to see one of the castles. We took a nap on some rocks by the water. Although none of our original plans worked out, it was nice to see the cleaner side of Naples.

Eventually we headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags and go home. We had a little time to kill though, so we hung around the hostel for a little while. The people at the hostel were preparing for an Easter party, so we helped them make Sangria. More and more people joined us in the common room, so we polished off a good portion of the Sangria we had just made. Everyone who was there had to leave before the party was scheduled to start, so we kind of made our own party. Then we headed to the train station to go back to Florence.