Naples & the Amalfi Coast

Ancient, modern, crowded, lively. In other words, fun.

Hello ~ I’m Scott and welcome to your 5-Minute Vacation for Nov. 19th. I share these snippets of our travels in the hope that my photos and stories will allow you to go on a vicarious vacation and “get away from it all,” if only for a moment. I appreciate you inviting me into your inbox today.

In case you missed it, here’s the previous 5-Minute Vacation in Albania.

This relaxed fellow, accompanied by his little sphinx, rests comfortably while being safely protected from the surrounding construction. This is Naples in a nutshell (at least the one we saw): Yesterday coexisting with (and being protected from) the hustle and bustle of Today.

Naples. It’s the birthplace of pizza, so you’d be correct in thinking that this trip was a kind of pilgrimage for us. There was pizza ~ of course! ~ but there was also much more than that.

Naples, like everything in this part of the world, is old. It was founded by the Greeks in the sixth century BC as Neápolis (new city in Greek). Later, it was an important city under the Romans. Today, Greater Naples has a population of about 4.4 million and I think we crossed paths with at least half of them.

We’ve been to Italy many times. Naples is Italy, of course, yet it felt like it just more so. It felt like it ordered just one more shot of espresso in the morning while the rest of those other Italian cities went on about their morning business.

The narrow streets of the old city are filled with people, mopeds and graffiti, making it energetic, crowded, messy, lively. In other words, it’s fun.

Moped mirrors and graffiti.

Here are two things that are very important to Naples: their football team, who won the championship after a decades-long drought, and the church.

In preparation for a visit to Pompeii, we visited the National Archaeological Museum. It has a superb collection of artifacts from Pompeii plus it has many cool ancient Egyptian artifacts like these artificial eyes for a mummy. In my Halloween postcard, I included photos of two mummies in their collection.

We ended our day in Naples by riding a funicular up to the city’s highest point, Castel Sant’Elmo. We had a great sunset view of Vesuvius. These days, Vesuvius is fairly quiet but Campi Flegrei, a supervolcano west of Napoli, has been experiencing almost continuous earthquakes.

We interrupt our story for an aside about logistics:

We only had four days in the region, so we were determined to make the most of it by splitting our time between Naples and Sorrento. Pompeii is almost halfway between the two, presenting us with a conundrum: after visiting Pompeii, should we return to Naples to then only retrace our steps the next morning on our way to Sorrento?

We didn’t want to burn daylight like that, so the morning of our Pompeii tour we checked out of our Naples apartment and brought our luggage with us (we got permission from the tour operator in advance).

Our idea was to store our luggage on the bus and ask the bus driver to drop us at a train station on their way back to Naples. We thought we were being clever. We were wrong. The bus left us (and our luggage) at Pompeii and then drove off. We asked a local shopkeeper ~ the entrance to Pompeii is overflowing with souvenir shops ~ if we could stash our luggage with them. They agreed (so nice!) and off we went on our tour.

After the tour, we picked up our luggage and wheeled over to catch our next bus, one that would take us to a winery on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius. The bus, really a large van, eventually came and took us to the winery. Again, the bus was going someplace else after depositing us at the winery, so we had to store our luggage there. The winery staff were very accommodating. I’m guessing that we weren’t the first to need to store our luggage because they’d obviously had this request before.

After a fantastic lunch and four tastings of their yummy wine, we asked the winery staff to call a taxi for us (travel tip: ask a local to call a taxi for you. They always know the telephone number, the address of where you are, and there’s no language barrier between them and the driver). We parked ourselves on their veranda and enjoyed the warm, sunny afternoon while they plied us with more wine. After 45 minutes, they told us that the area’s only taxi was too busy to pick us up, so they would take us to the train station instead.

Which they did. Thank you, Carmine!

Moral of the story: pack light because you might do some unexpected schlepping. Second moral of the story: when you smile and ask nicely, most people will be more helpful than you’d ever expect.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Pompeii.

I’ve known about it since at least grade school and I’m guessing that you probably have, too. Still, allow me to set the scene:

Pompeii, perched atop a plateau 130 ft. above sea level and close to the sea (at least in those days; today the shoreline is almost a half mile away), was a wealthy town of about 11,000 souls in 79 AD. According to Wikipedia, the town had, among many other things, at least 31 bakeries, nearly 100 inns/snack bars, and 38 workshops involved in processing wool. It was a bustling city.

It was, at least until sometime in the last half of 79 AD when Vesuvius erupted for two days, burying the city under 15 ft. of steaming hot ash. For reference, a two-story (American) house is usually 20ft. tall. A 2023 Toyota Camry is 16 ft. long.

If you visit Pompeii, I recommend taking a tour. The city is mostly ruins (walls and some buildings with roofs, probably reconstructed) and without expert guidance, you’ll miss most of the context. Plus, Pompeii is very popular and hence very crowded, so a good guide will also help you navigate the streets.

One of Pompeii’s side streets. Since the streets also functioned as gutters, the raised stones in the street allowed pedestrians to cross the street without getting wet.

Centuries of cart traffic grooved these street stones.

The interior of one of the houses.

A wall painting rescued from the city and now displayed in Naples’ archeological museum.

This small statue of snuggling puppies is also displayed in Naples’ archeological museum.

After our tour, we made our way to Sorrento (see above). We spent a day there doing what we normally do: taking a walking food tour and sightseeing. The next day, we hopped in a van that took us up and over the mountains via the switchback roads to the other side of the peninsula to visit the beautiful Amalfi coast.

The Amalfi coast.

The Amalfi coast is known for many things: its scenic beauty, the many charming villages dotting the rugged coastline, the hiking trails, day trips on the sea, and the luxury vacation spots (upscale hotels, boutique resorts, haute-cuisine dining). It’s a very popular destination, which means it’s very crowded, but it’s fun and worth a visit.

The area is also known for its traditional ceramics and handicrafts. We loved the colors.

Today’s Travel Word

Sun-believable: The happy feeling you get when being in the sunshine.

To be honest, I’m not sure that “sun-believable” is a real word. I found it on a travel blog and immediately recognized the feeling. Being in the sunshine, or better yet in the shade on a sunny day, does make me happy.

I consulted “The All-knowing Oracle,” a.k.a the internet, and while I didn’t find an entry for the word “sun-believable,” I did discover a sunflower named “SunBelievable™ Brown Eyed Girl (helianthus x annuus).” Something to consider for our future garden in Texas.

If your pursuit of “sun-believable” leads to too much time in the sun, whether by lounging on the beach or perhaps tending your garden of SunBelievable™ Brown Eyed Girls, then sunburn might occur. In that case, this establishment on the Amalfi coast might very well have just what the doctor ordered:

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I hope you enjoyed your 5-Minute Vacation in sunny Naples and the Amalfi coast as much as we enjoyed our busy four days there. I’m glad we soaked up as much sun as possible then because now it’s the beginning of the dark and rainy time of year. But do you know what the dark and rainy time of year is good for? Christmas markets! The lights of the Christmas markets shine much brighter when they’re reflected off the wet cobblestones and somehow that makes the hot cider taste even better. So next time, we’ll go to a few Christmas markets (because y’know, it is almost The Season).

Until then ~

Tschüss!

PS ~ If you are new to my photography, you can see more at scottgilbertson.com.