Napoli was where I stopover for a couple of day after my trip down to Amalfi Coast. When I dragged my suitcase out of the train station, heading to my Airbnb that supposed to be not far. I was quiet surprised the map took me to such a neighborhood. An area of massive blocks of apartments with balcony full hanging clothes. But this one was not as clean or good-looking as those I saw in Venice or Rome. This one was more chaos and kinda dodgy. Or should I say more local?
It took a while to find my AirBnb, I looked up to the balconies where I spotted a woman staring at me, she asked me in Italian which I guessed it is something like where I was heading. I smiled and asking her the house number I looked for. She pointed out the other direction which then I followed. The room I rent in AirBnb was apparently a big one, very clean, with a very nice host. Totally different than how it looked like from outside.
The reason why I wanted to stay in Napoli is because I wanted to meet my friend, Cyntha. She used to be my colleague in the office back in Jakarta. Currently she lives in the suburb of Napoli, she got some kind of english teaching voluntary project for school kids.
Cyntha has explored Napoli for few times with her friends, so I asked her to show me around this time. She actually was very insecure to be in Napoli again, the last time she wandered around the city with 2 other friends, each of them got similar experience of ‘almost’ getting robbed on their backpack. Luckily none of the robbery were succeed, one of her friend only lost her power bank which was not very crucial. She then warned me a lot about this, to always watch my backpack. Dully noted!
I didn’t have certain things I wanted to see in Napoli so I would follow wherever she take me to – which turned out so enjoyable!
Napoli is interesting in its on way. They don’t even beautify the city, just let it be the way it want to be. Be chaos – be sleazy – anything. If I tried to impersonate this city, it would be a person who just want to be himself, doesn’t care about what other say. Despite its bad side or good side, he just want to live as he wanted to.
It was just a half day wandering but quiet content. We went to some ancient buildings in the old town..
Got to visit this very gothic cathedral..
Found my favourite Italian snack -Canoli on the way..
Managed to stroll around the famous Toledo Street..
Experienced the famous Margherita Pizza that originally came from this city..
My Italian friend in Australia said that this pizza first created to welcome Queen Margherita to Napoli. A very famous pizza chef at that time specially made a pizza that colors resembling the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil). And they named it after the Queen – Pizza Margherita.
Also my first time trying Gnocchi version of Pasta, Ulaa..Mamamia!
Then kept walking to this gorgeous piazza with a very authentic Roman building
Ended up at this port where we could see the shy Mt. Vesuvius..
So far my trip was safe – Thankfully!
But, when I was waiting for the bus to airport. I talked to a Japanese old man that happened to travel by himself. When he turned around, I found his backpack was widely open but luckily nothing got stolen. Geez! I did noticed someone stood behind him but I didn’t really pay attention because I was focusing to the old man. That was close! and a bit funny because I finally got to witness it myself. Haha..
P.S : A random person I met in the hallway of apartment greeted me with ‘ciao’ .. Here I realized the word ‘ciao’ is basically for both greeting and saying goodbye.