Naples = The wild wild west

After 2.5 weeks of peace and tranquility on the San Cassiano farm we headed for the most opposite environment we could possibly find, aka Naples. The best way I can think of to describe the city is "gritty," but with Italian style. Think beautiful monuments that are centuries old covered in crude graffiti. The kindest people you could ever meet with zero regard for things like personal space or traffic lights. The most delicious custom made panini sandwiches being served from a tiny deli in a back alley that kinda smells like pee. You get the idea.

Case in point

A portion of a Nativity scene. This traditional art has been hand crafted in Naples for hundreds of years and the scenes are quite beautiful and intricate.

Castello Nuovo - one of several castles in Naples

The inside of Galleria Umberto I - the prettiest shopping mall you've ever seen

The view from our box in the Teatro di San Carlo opera house in Naples. We saw their orchestra perform Sostakovic and Rachmaninov

Squeezing through passageways during our tour of the Naples Sotterranea (underground tunnels)

While in Naples we decided to try out some couch surfing, and it was a great experience! We stayed with John, an American who's been living in Naples for the past year. He came exploring with us and we had a blast!

John, Brice (another awesome French couchsurfer) and me on the Amalfi coast, which runs south of Naples...

...where we got to see beautiful views like this!

On our way to see Pompeii we met Fabio, an awesome Italian who also used to live in Spain (this seems to be a theme). He introduced us to Sfogliatella (a delicious Italian pastry) and reminded us that "la vita è bella!" Amazing guy -hopefully our paths will cross again in the future!

Awesome jars for holding food at one of the restaurants in Herculaneum (sister city to Pompeii)

One of the main roads in Pompeii. See the two indents that run down the street? Carriage tracks!

The view from the top of the city wall of Pompeii. One guard was posted at each end of the major roads and they could monitor the whole city that way. Note Mt. Vesuvius in the background

We climbed it! It's still smoking because it's an active volcano.... Um, dangerous? We like living on the edge!

John also took us to watch the Super Bowl at a pub on a NATO base (Naples is the headquarters for NATO in the Mediterranean) and we instantly felt like we were transported back to the USA. This is probably the only place in Naples you will see a Budweiser sign.

We had a great time exploring Napoli, and I personally don't think the city deserves the bad rep that it usually gets. If you make peace with the fact that you're stepping into Italy's version of the wild west, there's a good time to be had and a lot of cool things to see.