Well, we’ve hit Naples, and Naples has hit us, right between the eyes. Especially after three some weeks mostly in the sticks, it is just so full on. In a good way, but crazy. Loud, fast, crowded, brash, colourful, frenetic – it’s bleedin’ bonkers, Brian. Paul said it was like Saigon but more so, and if that’s an exaggeration, it’s in the right ball park. No offence to any Neapolitans paying a visit, but it does have more than a touch of a third world feel about it.
Traffic, for just one example, respects no rules, signs or anything else. You take your life in your hands every time you cross the road. The only real approach is the Saigon approach: choose a likely looking gap, go for it, hold your nerve and dodge the oncoming. It’s wild! But we’ve been here three hours and we haven’t died yet, so so far so good.
One very particular weirdness: Maradona iconography, which is absolutely everywhere. Wall paintings, flags and banners, busts in shop windows – in footie strip and in gold – like little shrines. I said to Jens, it’s quasi-religious; he said, well many called him God. By the looks of things, they weren’t being metaphorical.
We have to go out now in search of cardboard boxes, to pack our bikes for the trip home. Wish us luck…
Nerve-wracking box hunt. For starters, for such a famously cycle-centric country, Italy turns out to be amazingly short on places that sell the things. We could find only two within reasonable walking distance, both of which turned out to be tiny and no boxes to be had. One suggested we try Napolibike, which looked bigger, but was also miles away.
We managed to make our way by train, but Napolibike wasn’t much bigger than t’others and again, nope. No panic as yet…it’s only Tuesday evening, and we don’t fly out till Friday, but definitely not what we’d hoped for. Googling produced two nearby possibles-if-unlikelies, the first of which, an e-bike shop, seemed a long shot, but what did we have to lose. And since it was only half a k away we thought we might as well have a go before heading home in gloom and defeat.
Nope. No boxes. Ah well, grazie anyway. Smiles all round, albeit tinged in our case. Then a sort of hang on a mo as we turned to leave, followed by a rapid-fire conversation between the two cheerful guys behind the counter, one of whom then said they would have one box, on Thursday. Fantastic! It’s a start. Grazie mille! Then a bit more conversation, then ‘due’ – two! Two boxes, Thursday, six o’ clock!
Nerves remain jangled. They seem like very nice guys, and we’ve no doubt they’re genuine, but talk about eggs in one basket. That’s little more than 12 hours before we go to the airport, and as yet we’ve no plan b. Still, a massive improvement on our previous predicament. Fingers crossed.
Then back to town, and another top pizza in the old town backstreets, before coming back to our sixth floor garret and a view of Mount Vesuvius from the roof terrace. The reviews all said, pretty scrappy rooms, but the views from the roof terrace are to see Naples and die for.
