Well, I must admit, my driver might’ve been right. I woke up on Tuesday and was pretty sure my calves were a solid block that wouldn’t flex or relax no matter how hard I tried. Luckily Connor was experiencing the same phenomenon so it wasn’t just because I successfully fit two days worth of stuff into one very eventful day… Anyway, Tuesday I got to sleep in! It was such a novel concept that I actually woke up at the regular time and just stayed in bed because I could. We had thrown around the idea of going to Ischia and having a spa day but I thought our original plan of getting some pizza and going to the archaeological museum sounded good. Turns out I shouldn’t have trusted my gut there because everything is closed on Tuesdays. No museums, no palaces… no tourist activities involving learning of any kind. By the time we realized this we were actually already on our way to Naples so we decided to just drive downtown and go to another one of the pizza shops that was on Netflix.
I didn’t know that Connor also had a local experience tour planned for the day – driving in downtown Naples. It’s absolutely amazing that anybody can get anywhere around there. It’s like somebody took an ant farm, layed it on its side, and decided that would be a good layout for a city. It totally makes sense why smart cars exist. I think the hallways in many houses are wider than some of the streets we drove down… We did manage to successfully find parking though. We pantomimed with the attendants that we wanted to park for two hours and they valet’d the car. We then meandered out to get some Antillio’s pizza – I ordered a bufalina and Connor got a regular margherita. The pizza was very tasty and by the time we left there was a sizeable line to get into the restaurant.
Our next adventure was to find some Gay Odin chocolate of some kind. To quote Todd, we used our fearless sense of direction to find the store. Which means we couldn’t find it until I looked up and said “Oh, it’s right there.” Which was exactly where we thought it would be it just wasn’t as big. We got us some incredibly rich and delicious chocolate pudding (the best way to describe it) with a wafer in it. We paid for both things by weight, which makes me wonder how much variability there is in wafer size that they need to weigh them. After making it back to the car and successfully navigating our way out of Naples (which was easier than going in, it only involved one flagrant traffic “maneuver”) we got settled in for a night of war games and merriment. Well, Connor took a super long nap and I watched TV…
Wednesday we had a little more planned – we woke up a little early and drive to the other military base in the area to be picked up for a small group “Best of Naples” tour. Our guide was an awesome Italian man named Aldo who walked us through some of the history of Naples and just why some things are they way they are. Namely how MANY CHURCHES there are. Like 500-1000 churches. He showed us one that was basically hidden with a pedestrian mall. Like an ornate church with marble floors was just hiding. He obviously had a passion for his tours and I learned a lot, not just about the region but about how everything came together.
By far the coolest part of the tour though was a stop at the Chapel of San Severo. Here there are three sculptures of note – The most prominent being the “Veil of Christ.” It’s an absolutely amazing marble sculpture of Jesus on a bier covered in a veil, and the detail is so vivid that it 100% looks just like that. Aldo told us the proper way to view the sculpture to gain the proper prospective on things. He also told us why many of the pieces within the chapel carried multiple meanings – the prince who was the patron of the chapel was also the Grandmaster of the Freemasons of Naples. My favorites were not the Veil of Christ though but the two flanking it. One (Disillusion I believe) included marble fish nets that were carved from the same block of marble as the rest of the piece. It was absolutely amazing. The other stature (Modesty) was of a veiled woman holding pretty amazingly carved roses and just an all around amazingly done sculpture. You weren’t allowed to take pictures there, probably because the line to get in was already like 20 minutes. I can’t imagine what it would be like if you could snap some selfies.
We then made our way to the Naples underground – basically a city under the city where all of the quarries are for building materials. I’m still not 100% on what the order of creation of the underground was, but suffice to say I think it is as extensive as the city itself. Which means it’s absolutely ginormous. We saw a small section of it and how the Roman aqueduct runs through it (I still don’t get why the aqueduct is 90 feet below ground). After finishing up in the underground, Connor and I grabbed one last helping of pizza. This time I got a diavolo and Connor got a bufalina – his was definitely better looking. This pizza shop wasn’t a Vera pizza shop but that didn’t mean it wasn’t good. Just not part of the cool kids club.
The Naples Archaeological Museum was next on the chopping block so we headed there and began to explore and learn about a bunch of statues and stuff. The numbers were incredibly difficult to find for the audioguide though… like they were almost purposefully hidden. The most unique exhibit was one where the X rated from Pompeii was sequestered all into one room by the king. It might be survivorship bias for historical relics… but it definitely seems like the Romans had a strange fascination with penises. Like pictures of them were everywhere.
After our second day of adventuring in downtown Naples we headed back to the base for some leftovers and more wargames. The next day I got to… sleep in! Connor and Allie had a birthing class or something along those lines so I hung out at the apartment. Achilles and Teddy were confused because a miscommunication led to them hanging out in their crates. Whoops! Sorry guys :/ After a quick lunch Connor and I headed to Caserta Palace – the palace of the Italian monarchy. One of the staircases was in the Phantom Menace so we had to walk on that (even though it’s not the BEST movie, still had to do it). Many of the rooms of the palace were still furnished so we got to see a little bit of what it would have been like to live there. Needless to say it would have been extravagant. After the inside tour we rented some bikes and biked around the “garden” – which was really just their own personal forest. The guy we rented bikes from must’ve thought we biked slow because he said we definitely couldn’t make it to the top even though we made it there and back with time to spare. After the jaunt to the palace, we made our way back again for some delicious bolognese cooked by Allie and some prosecco. My flight left at around 10 am on Friday so I said my goodbyes and Allie dropped me off at the airport. Overall an excellent trip, even the sleeping in part!
