To Naples and back!

May 7, 2015

Ciao!

Just back from dinner at the local Indian restaurant!  We seriously are not at all tired of Italian food, but the Bombay restaurant just down the block from our flat looked too good to pass up.  We went out Wednesday night about 8 p.m. and looked to be the second party there.  I have to admit that ordering Indian food in Italian sounded like a big challenge, but fortunately, we knew many of the foods and there were even some English words on the menu!

So … have I mentioned how much I like Indian restaurants that serve beef?  

Indiano Bombay Restaurant

I know that sounds truly oxymoronic, but, well, I do – and this was one.  We started with sparkling water and a lovely bottle of local white wine; just excellent.  For appetizers, we had eggplant pakora and vegetable (potato & pea) samosas.  Really fresh and excellent, with great sauces – one plum, one a green yogurt, and a third sauce, very spicy, that Robert liked a lot.  Our main courses were Chicken Tikka (which was good) along with a beef marsala dish, and wonderful roasted eggplant for vegetable – all served with garlic na’an.   So…a wonderful meal, and we very much enjoyed it.  Back to the apartment about 9:15 p.m. and I’m set to go to bed – early day tomorrow, catching the train for Napoli!

m

xxx

So…we made it back from Napoli!  Our trip there was for one reason only – to finally visit their Archeological Museum, which contains treasures and artifacts excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum.  But to start from the beginning…

I didn’t have the greatest sleeping night last night, which was surprising to me, as by night three of a Europe trip, I am generally over whatever jetlag I might get (because I do NOT sleep on planes at all).  However, I got up about 1:15 a.m. and seemed to be up for hours … only to be awakened at sometime before 6 a.m. this morning, feeling like I had been hit over the head; I was exhausted!  But we did have our tickets, and the plan said “Napoli” for today, so up and out we got.  We took Linea A from Piazza dei Re de Roma station (just a few blocks down the street) right to Termini and located our south-bound train.  No problems at all, and we found our seats – windows facing each other, in car 3.  There was some confusion on several people’s parts, as they confused “car 2” with “2^nd class” which began at our car (which was actually “car 3”).  Helpful Italians stepped in to guide visitors to the right places, and we took off right on time at 7:26 a.m.  It was a two-hour trip there, stopping occasionally, and there we were, Napoli.

Off the train and up to the station entrance, and looking for Metro Linea 1 to Museo stop.  We found the right place, but did have an interesting time with the one ticket machine that was available – even though we were getting instructions in English!  As it turns out, one has to press “proceed” at every step of the way, (which isn’t clear) or your money won’t be accepted.  With some helpful advice from a nice young man, we were able to get our 2 tickets for 3€ valid for 90 minutes. 

So, on to the platform Linea 1, toward Museo.  An empty train pulls in, and in literally 25 seconds, it is filled to overflowing.  So…we are now on a train heading from Garibaldi to Museo…or are we??  The overhead route map does show Museo, but it does NOT show Garibaldi (where we got on)!  The first stop we pull up to is Toledo – and guess what?  That’s not on the map either!  By this time, we are really wondering what’s going on, as every other metro map in the world lists ALL of the stops along the particular route!  Of course, this is Napoli…So…next stop – Universidad – and guess what?  That’s not on the map either!  WHERE ARE WE, we’re wondering, deciding that if we didn’t hit familiar “on the map” markings by the next stop, we should get off and try again.

Mosaic column!

So…next stop?  Museo!  How convenient!  And wow, how confusing!  Off the metro, and up the stairs.  At the top of the stairs there is an actual large room with museum materials, very well done – then outside to the street to look for the museum.  And there it was – standing right behind us up more flights of stairs!  We found it! 

Musician with instrument

In to the ticket queue, which didn’t take but a few minutes, and then into the museum itself. 

TINY little tiles!

And I really liked the pig...

There were several very loud student groups, mostly of high-school age.  One group, in fact, either had brought their own musicians – mostly lyre playing, but quite good – or had hired them to help lead them through the museo.  Every once in a while, they would break out into music followed by lots of noise and ending with clapping.  Very fun, although it didn’t add that much to the museum, in our opinion. (R did take a couple of pictures of the students holding hands and dancing among the art work, which I will definitely include.)

Athena was beautiful!

R's favorite -- plumbing!

In fact, we were very, very underwhelmed by the museum overall; not just our inability to find it.  We enjoyed the mosaics, most of which were wall decorations in Pompeii and had the smallest tiles (only about 2 mm square) we have ever seen.  How anyone set them without a magnifying glass is my question; most of them were quite lovely.  But then came what seemed to us (or me, at least) to be miles and miles of flat art – wall paintings that had been removed from the buildings at Pompeii - and, while there was the occasional explanation panel in English, it was definitely Italian-English, and was very difficult to read, if it was there at all. 

That's one TALL statue!

There was a good sculpture section that we finally found on the ground floor, but somehow, looking at all the Pompeian artwork – they were mostly copies of busts and statuary that had been done by Greek artists centuries before and merely copied by Romans!  (Yes, I guess I am becoming a statuary snob.  I prefer to see original work.)

Finally, about 12:30 p.m. we had had enough, and decided to head back to the train station and possibly catch an earlier train (we were scheduled to return at 4:30 p.m.).  So…back down the front steps, and through the museum exhibition room and down a level to find Linea 1.  This time, the only ticket machine at the station didn’t work at all, but right next to it, a lady in a tobacco shop asked if we needed tickets – and so we paid – 2€ this time, for what we think was the same ticket we came out on.  Whatever…found the right track (we hoped) to get us back to Garibaldi (the main train station), and eventually a train pulled in and we got on.  (Note:  The frequency of trains running seems to be very sparse; it was surprising.)  And, with this particular train, it actually had ALL of the stations listed!  What a concept!  (Am I sounding cynical yet?) 

We left Museo and made it one stop – to Dante.  There, the doors open, the train shut off, and announcements were made – at which point everybody but us rushes to get off the train.  What’s going on, we ask?  Turns out that apparently our train is NOT going to Garibaldi, and will now be heading back the same direction we came from – Museo!  So … what to do?  Finally, a very nice lady took pity on us and indicated that we needed to get back on the train, and back to Museo, where we could change from Linea 1 to Linea 2 and take that to Garibaldi….whatever! (I’m saying that a lot, aren’t I?)  So…back on the train, but of course it was 10 minutes before it moved, giving the entire car the opportunity to burst from the seams with people.  We made it back to Museo, where the nice lady indicated we needed to get off (all without any English, mind you) and we started following the signs to Linea 2.  This is where it gets a bit complicated, because there were no diagrams of which way on Linea 2 we wanted to go, as all the instructions I had brought had us going directly there and back via Linea 1.  Finally asked a guy in a tobacco shop which way, and boy, that guys was expressive!  Our problem was being able to figure out “track” 1 from “Linea 1”, but we eventually found it – lots of pointing and wringing of hands (his not ours).  The train finally pulled in, and in one stop – voila! There we were at the train station.

We went to the Trenitalia office to see if we could change our tickets, but of course we could not, as we had a “special” fare.  We decided, all things considered, that rather than wait around the train station (with no seating available that we could see) for three hours, that we would just buy new tickets and head back to Rome.  This time, our 2 p.m. train was an express, and we were back in Roma in just about an hour!  Off the train and to the metro and back to our flat by about 3:30 p.m., and very happy to get there.

We are napping now, but will be heading out shortly looking for pizza and gelato – probably in that order!  I also want to see a few sights by night, like the Trevi fountain, which is always a mob scene, but great fun to see! 

More later!

m

xxx

Just back from dinner, and I think we both lost some fillings rumbling along these crazy Roman roads!

R's artichoke

My prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella

Tonight we went to dinner at the same place we went on evening 1, as I found the place in Rick Steves latest Rome guidebook, and it said “try the pizza.”  So, we did!  Got there about 8:30 p.m. and ate inside again – way too much smoke.  R had their hot artichoke – he thinks it’s first boiled and then sautéed.  Whatever, it was great.  I had their prosciutto salad with buffalo mozzarella, and it was tremendous!  Then we split a pizza margarita – cheese and tomato sauce only; wow; think as a sheet of paper, but oh, so good!  Then back to Blue Sky where for once I tried something new!  I tried fragola with frutti di bosco. 

Paper thin pizza

Really good, but I’ll still stick to stracciatella! 

Yum!!!

Then across the street to wait for the bus…which f-i-n-a-l-l-y came and bounced us back to St. John Lateran, and then we walked the rest of the way.  So!

More tomorrow!

m

xxx