44 Naples Pt 3 Napoli

Sunday 20th March 2011

We decided to take the train into Napoli (to give it its Italian name)  today.

We took the train from just outside the campsite. It was not a good start. We could only see out of one windows as the other was covered in grafitti. About 30 minutes later we stepped out of the station into a bomb site. 

Naples was a complete mess and so disapointing. 

For a start, it was mostly closed, being Sunday, but the place was covered in litter and grafitti. It looked like a once proud place that has been allowed to fall into decay and given up  its image to juveniles with multicoloured spray cans and litter bugs.

The Italians here seem to have given up of their personal pride. About half of the occupants of the motorscooters do not wear helmets and it was not rare to see 3 people on one bike.

If you look closely, there is a small child between the adults on this scooter.

We took this picture as it was the only thing worth photographing. We were so pissed off with the place that we did not even bother to see what it was.

Dunno what this is but it was outside a dilapidated government office of some sort.

We walked around to the docks area to see if there were any boat trips as Karen, you may remember, is desperate to get out to sea. Lots of ticket offices and moorings but no boats and the offices were closed.

We walked around till we found somewhere for a beer and a pizza. While seated I got chatting to an american airline pilot, who was an ex navy fighter pilot. Needless to say we chatted about the  air strikes by the Brits, Americans and French on Lybia earlier that morning. I mention this as it was the highlight of the day.

We then decided, after about 2 hours, to call it a day and walked back to the train station. We came across a market area that was equally dirty as the rest of Napoli, only a lot more smelly.

Smelly and dirty market area

 Naples.......shove it.

Karen's eternal optimism says that she cannot believe it does not get better than this.