Day 4- Pizza in Napoli

Ok, so about the Naples trip. We took a train ride to Naples from Rome-about 2 hours. We really did not have a plan, just thought we would follow Rick Steve's "Slice of Neopolitan" self-guided walk. We got off the train station, expecting to see this beautiful city with the Mediterranean sea in the back drop. What we saw was a bustling, gritty, polluted city. Anyways, we took the walk and got a little off track because street signs are so hard to follow. We ended up just exploring the city by foot-wandering around until we hit port. It was an amazing sight to see all the cruise ships at port. We saw Castel Nuovo and from there we could see a beautiful sight of the Mediterranean Sea and Mount Vesuvius. From their we walked to the the "Teatro di San Carlo"-Europe's oldest opera house. It was beautiful. After which we walked across the street to the Galleria Umberto. This is a shopping mall but no comparison to Crabtree Mall :-) It was incredible with tall arched ceilings and decorated with marble and granite and who knows what else. We then took a taxi up to Certosa San Martino- a former monastery, now museum, with a incredible view of the harbor, city and Mt. Vesuvius. And yes, if it wasn't for this view (and the pizza), we would have been really upset about making the trip to Naples. Speaking of the pizza-yes it was the best we ever had, as it should be since Naples is the birthplace of Pizza. Anyways, back to being at the Certosa San Martino- the taxi ride was the most insane ride I ever had. The driving is even worse in Naples than Roma. We went up and up and up and around and around and around until we were dropped off at one of the highest points in city. We were a little scared because it was 5:30pm and the museum was closing in an hour and we weren't sure how we would get back down. Thanks to the girl in the museum we got directions back by bus then metro and it only cost us 1 Euro verses the 15 Euro to go by taxi. We made it back and met up with John and JoAnne at the train station as they were coming in from Calabria. We took the cheap regional train home, which was a little scary. One thing I have learned is that it is worth it to upgrade to a better train. We were surrounded by a bunch of chain-smoking drunks. At one of the stops on the way a drunk guy threw a rock at a window in our train car and it shattered the window! Thankfully, we made it back to Roma safely. This trip to Naples made us all appreciate Roma so much. You can walk the streets in Roma without being scared and there is always people around. We didn't arrive in to Roma until 11:30pm and we walked back to our hotel room and crashed. Can't wait to tell you about our next adventure!