Napoli

One of the few truly planned stops on my Euro adventure was to meet some good friends of mine in Italy for 10 days. Originally, I had planned to spend a few days making my way down to Rome through Austria, but I was having too much fun in Prague, so instead I caught a flight down to Napoli (aka Naples), to spend a couple days checking out the city before meeting my friends in Rome. I found a great deal with a budget airline called WizzAir (this name should have been a red flag, but $80 for a direct flight was something I couldn’t turn down). I arrived at the airport at 4:30 am for my 5:30 am flight and promptly learned that the flight was delayed until noon, which was annoying. Apparently however, the EU has cracked down on budget airlines frequently delaying flights significantly, so I was entitled to a 250 euro payment from WizzAir for my flight being delayed over 4 hours (not a bad deal for an $80 flight). Unfortunately, the refund was issued in WizzAir bucks, which I will never use as I vowed to never take that stupid airline again.

Eventually, I made it to Napoli and checked into my room, which was one of the stranger rooms I’ve stayed in during my trip. This is saying something, as I’ve stayed in some interesting accommodations throughout the trip, from weird airbnbs to sketchy hotels. I generally don’t really care, as I don’t spend much time in the room and really just need a bed (and preferably AC in the hot summer months) and I’m on a budget and trying to keep my accommodation costs low, especially in Europe which is the most expensive leg of the trip. Anyway, I checked into this room and found out that I had accidentally booked some weird romantically themed room. Everything in the room was red, the headboard of the bed was made of red leather and shaped like a giant pair of lips, and even all the lights were red, making it feel like I was in a dark room or the red light district or something. It was very bizarre to say the least, and I did my best to not think about all the weird things that had gone down in there 😂.

I liked Naples, I feel like it gets a bad wrap for being a rundown or dirty city, but there is so much cool history there and the food was sooo good. You could definitely draw some parallels between Naples and my favorite city on earth, New Orleans. My first priority in Napoli was the food, specifically the pizza, after all Napoli is the birthplace of pizza. I got a great rec from my Airbnb host for the best pizza place in town that the tourists don’t know about and had an amazing pizza. From there, I spent the next 2 days walking around Napoli and checking out the city. This included the Piazza del Plebiscito, the Basilica San Domenico Maggiore, San Gregorio Armeno church, and the Santa Chiara Cloisters. I also went to the Museo Cappella Sansevero, which houses the famous Veiled Christ sculpture. Probably the most impressive sculpture I’ve ever seen. It depicts Jesus after he was taken down from the cross and a sheet was placed over him, and is carved from a single piece of marble. The level of detail was absolutely insane. Photography was strictly forbidden in there, so linking a photo from the internet here.

After spending a couple days checking out Napoli, it was time to meet up with my friends so I caught a train up to Rome and met up with the rest of the crew.