So the Burnetts just toured the greater Naples area in three days. We were time-limited, as we had some guests to meet in Sicily. So the following may be a bit biased, as we exhausted ourselves power-touristing in three days through all of the main sites out of our base at the massive (900 berth) Marina Di Stabia. Normally we rest more.
So Naples is a shithole. The Burnetts have never been in a city that couldn’t care less about anyone other than Italians. The trash. The smells. The dirty and rundown buildings. “Is the whole town the BAD part of town?” The traffic. The lack of fast and reliable public transportation. The complete lack of parking complexes next to major sites. The lack of good signage to the major sites. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR: DON’T GO TO NAPLES. Mel listened to a podcast that talked about the Italian chaos, and how we should embrace it. The slow pace of life, the lack of traffic rules, the Mediterranean diet — they live longer than Americans. But Mel is resistant. It sounds too much like a dysfunctional relationship — why should one love something (Naples) if it doesn’t love one back?
Pompeii was cool, even though half of it was roped off because of ongoing excavations. Understandable. Herculaneum was cool. And the Archaeological Museum in Naples, where they collected all of the cool stuff from Pompeii and Herculaneum, was really cool, even though you arrive totally pissed off, no matter which way you chose to get there. After we saw the fantastic accomplishments of 2000 years ago and drove through the massive embarrassment of the present, we ate our fantastic Neopolitan pizza, AND GOT THE HELL OUT.
We are now in Messina, Sicily, entertaining our first guests in a long time! So far, the Sicilians have been far more approachable for some reason. Us cruising folk just take better to island folk, I guess. Even if it is a pretty big damn island. Here are some pics of Pompeii. Oh, we also went to a creepy death cult place in Naples, so there are lots of pics of that because it seems like it would be the coolest HALLOWEEN PARTY PLACE EVER. So that was cool. Mel always looks on the bright side!
BTW, the Strait of Messina was the most overrated strait passage ever! We went in with a supposedly unfavorable current (North) and 10 kts of wind. No whirlpools, no massive waves, no massive current — nothing! Scylla and Charybdis were on siesta. Trust me, Homer was nothing but a blowhard!
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