Un Giorno Inimmaginabile (nel 79AD)

Today we had a thing at 2.30 pm. We'd booked and paid for it, but we had to get there first, somehow.  Still, we had a free morning and that made us happy.

Rather than buy a normal comfortable breakfast of cornflakes and yogurt and whatever, we planned

Breakfast - Hopefully not too typical

to eat more Italianly. So first up, we finished off last night's pizza. (Real pizza even microwaves really well.) So, Italian, yes, breakfast, no. So our second course was at a cafetteria nearby that had been recommended by our hosts. We chose a couple of pastries, and then some coffees that they had pictures of, up above the counter. They showed Grandad's Coffee and Dad's Coffee - among others, but those were the ones that we tried. However, the pictures were not true representations. The men in that family had really sweet teeth (tooths???) and must have died from diabetes with heart complications, because those concoctions were shockingly sweet and barely coffee. Mine was a glassful of the creamy bit of tiramisu, with a thick layer of Nutella lining the glass, and Stephen's was something else chocolatey with a touch of coffee and a big dollop of cream on top. From there Stephen and I split up, because he just wanted to buy some more walking shoes at a sports shop he

Another back street of Naples

noticed last night, but I wanted to wander round the streets and see what I could see.

So I went for a wander. There are 3 old streets running parallel down the middle of the Historic Centre, and the alley we're in runs between two of them. Last night we walked down the middle one, and I wanted to see what the other two were like. I was still a bit early (at 9.30 or so) for many of the shops to be open, but I enjoyed myself, taking more photos of the cobbled alleys, and some of shop displays. The first street I was on had loads of shops of miniatures: props and tools and toys to make miniature towns and landscapes. I'll try putting the video I took at one shop on here - I hope it loads okay.

I was home earlier than I expected, and earlier than Stephen too, in the end. Unfortunately he had the key, so I just had to wait. Then we rested up for our afternoon out.  The booking that we made a few days ago was for a guided tour with a real live archaeologist around Pompeii. Pompeii was the main reason we came to Naples. In the whole three years we'd been thinking about this trip, I never once thought about Pompeii, and yet, when I was younger I really wanted to see it. It wasn't till a travel show on TV a couple of months ago mentioned it that I remembered, Oh, I've always wanted to go there! Apparently not always though. Still, here we are.

We had booked the 2.30 tour. We were asked to meet at the gates 10 minutes before. We were also told that due to the unreliability of public transport, we should aim to be in Pompeii an hour beforehand. The train trip should take 40 minutes. The station was a 20 minute walk away. Adding it all up and including a fair amount of discretionary time, we left home before 12. We were walking to the station, but I'd read last night that so many people get on this little suburban train (the Circumvesuviana) to go to Pompeii that it's usually difficult to get a seat. So the trick is to get on at the station before Centrale, where the train actually starts from. There are plenty of seats there then. And indeed, this turned out to have been an excellent plan, and well worth remembering.

A main street of Pompeii

So we found the station, on foot, and we sat all the way to Pompeii. We had an hour to wait for the meeting, but we had a decent lunch just opposite the entrance, and when the time came we went over and met our guide. She had actually worked on the Pompeii site for 10 years, and had a lot of information about the site, the times, archaeological methods and how they figured out what they know about the people and the place. It was fascinating, and an excellent tour. It was supposed to be two hours long, but took nearly two and a half, although she said we didn't know how lucky we were, in that sometimes there is a 40-minute wait to visit some of the more restored buildings (like the brothel). The site wasn't too crowded - we got several pictures with no one in them. After the tour finished we stayed on in the grounds for a bit: Stephen wanted to get a bit more videoing done, and there were a couple more places with plaster casts for viewing. It felt very morbid and voyeuristic,

Poignant display. The guide told us that some casts actually show
 the folds of clothing and lines of sandals.

but it's the human element of a place like this that I think is so fascinating. I wanted to see them and think about the people and their final moments, and pay them some respect. You can't really do that to a plaque on a wall.  There was a room, actually outside the exit, with several plaster casts of dead and dying people, and it's very moving. I watched a couple of groups of people bowl up to see, then walk away a lot quieter and more thoughtful.

It was now after 6, and the strategy of getting on before the Pompeii crowds had worked so well that we thought we be cunning and repeat it on the way home. We came out a different exit, and planned to get a taxi to the station before Pompeii. Annoyingly, there were no taxis waiting at the exit, so we started walking. At a piazza, there were still no taxis. All we could do now was keep walking, as we were equidistant from three stations. We kept to main roads, rather than sneak down side roads as Google kept suggesting. We saw one sign for taxis, and went over to see: there were a couple of cars parked there although they didn't have signs on top. They weren't taxis. But we had arrived at a station. A different one from the one we wanted, a different line even, but it was a line to Naples. We probably couldn't use the return ticket we already had, but they had only cost 2.80 Euros each. But then one of the drivers from outside came running on for us to say a taxi had arrived, so we had to go with him. It took a while to tell them where and why we wanted to go, but finally they understood our plan and we had to go with the taxi. We paid the driver 13.00 Euro, and had about a 20 minute wait at a tiny, dirty station between a freeway and vege fields, but we carried out our plan, and didn't waste our return tickets. AND we had a seat for the 40-minute trip home.

We got another taxi back to the flat and refreshed ourselves a little, before heading out for dinner. From the taxi, and also on my walk this morning, we saw a place that has been recommended to us several times: the dal Presidente pizzeria. (They served Bill Clinton in 1994.) One of our taxi drivers in Rome told us we had to visit it, since we were coming to Naples. And indeed, we had a lovely starter and an excellent pizza. One between the two of us tonight - we were too tired to be hungry. But not too tired for dessert. Presidente didn't offer much for dessert, so we set off hoping we'd find somewhere between there and home. And right next door was a pasticceria and gelataria. I was just going to have a gelato (still need to confirm exactly what gelato is... beyond any doubt) but then another dessert caught my eye. Stephen had already ordered one, but didn't seem that keen on

Oh. My. God.

sharing, so I got one for myself, and a scoop of gelato with it. And now this is where I get to gush about the food. This was amazing! So many elements - I can't believe it hasn't already been on the Great British Bake-Off's Technical Challenge. It's called Sfogliobaba or something similar, and it involves flaky pastry as a vertical inverted cone, lined with chocolate, filled with a flavoured custard (I had orange, Stephen had strawberry) and a rum-soaked cake of some kind inside. Just as we were finishing a group of English people came wandering along the street, clearly wondering if it was worth trying this place for dessert, so I pointed to the picture of this cake that was outside and told them firmly that they really needed to come in and try that. And they did go inside, but I don't know what they ordered. We paid and left and were home in about 5 minutes.

Wandering around the streets this morning, I couldn't get that song out of my head: "I remember the back streets of Naples, two children begging in rags... Where do you go to, my lovely, when you're alone in your bed... I can look inside your head." I loved that song a long time ago. When I got home, this morning and again this evening, I found it on Youtube to play as background music for my thoughts. It's a good song for this trip.