The joke goes like this: Italians take a minute to heat up and the French takes 3 days to defrost. While that isn’t specific to Naples, I’ve been to Italy and France before so I do get the joke. Outwardly excitable and animated, my guide fills each silent moment with her gift of gab.
I love big cities - dirt, grit and all. Naples isn’t just rough around the edges - it’s grittiness permeates throughout the city. But Naples is many things: It’s the birthplace of pizza. Its the birthplace of Sophia Loren. It’s also home to the family of organized crime but as a tourist, you won’t see or notice this. While I wouldn't choose to make Naples my home base for exploring this part of Italy, I wish I had an extra day to explore this crazy, chaotic city a bit more. By comparison, Sorrento; which is a large town only a little over an hour by train possesses an elegant, reserved charm and order.
They say that the further south you go in Italy, the more intense it gets. Much more compact than Rome, pedestrians share the street with cars, trucks, and motorcycles. On wider streets and boulevards, cars weave around each other in traffic like mosquitos in a swamp. Yet neither seem to collide. Make eye contact with the drivers and cross the street along the shadows of confident locals. As in Rome, stop signs here are often viewed as mere suggestions.
I had my “Mama Mia!” moment when a Vespa buzzed by me as I step out of the train station.
Typical street in the old town. Trucks actually passes through here.
A monument in a square erected in honor of a saint.
Well!!!...
This wooden door is 800 years old, which is quite remarkably in excellent condition for being outdoors.
Local children playing in front of a church. Believe it or not, the marble doorway is quite colorful but too bad they don't have the funds to properly restore it. Look carefully at the doorway and you can see reds, greens and browns in the marble tiles.
This is a design I haven't seen before. It's called Diamond style due to the diamond shape of the stone façade.
The National Archeological Museum is an amazing place. The best of the mosaics, frescos, and statues excavated from Pompeii are here. There's also a fun to explore "Secret Room" where all the naughty stuff from Pompeii are displayed.
Ancient selfies :)
The main drag in Sorrento, a perfect home base for exploring the southern part of Italy: Naples (70 min by train, or 40 min by boat), Pompeii (30 min), the Amalfi Coast
The main square in Sorrento. We stayed here and used it as a springboard to visit Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast, and Capri.
Sorrento is famous for their lemons. Lemon groves everywhere and they yield 4 crops a year. No shortage of Limocello. This store sells limoncello and other products from their own farm.
The very convenient (and a pick pocket haven) Circumvesuviana train runs from Sorrento to Naples.