What to do in Naples? Italy YAP
- Matthew
- Jun 30, 2022
- 5 min read
1.0 Introduction
Hello and welcome back for another YAPtastic adventure. I apologise that I have not been very active in the last 2 weeks, this has been because I have been away in 2 different countries. I know scary right, for me it is anyway since I have never really been on 2 holidays one after another. However, on the bright side, this has given me something to talk about and we will start with the first trip which was to Naples.
1.1 Why Naples?
Could have gone to Rome, Venice, Florence or Milan but you chose Naples, why? Well interestingly enough as a child I used to have a fascination with Volcanos (god knows why) and when I learned about Vesuvius and Pompeii it always sparked my interest. So for me, it has been something I have wanted to do for a while, I asked my partner if she would come with me since I have no friends and that's what they are there for and she begrudgingly said yes. So just shy of a week and a half ago we started our journey to Italy to uncover the mystery of the volcano and its destructive ways.
2.0 Journey to which Mountain?
We arrived in Naples on a Sunday which gave us some time to prepare and get some sleep for the exciting morning ahead. As we awakened from our slumber we knew it was time to get to our coach for the time we booked. Yet this became very difficult because we never expected the horror of forgetfulness as we had to return to the hotel twice because we kept forgetting things. This made us late for our coach which meant that we had to take a taxi to the drop off point, ETA was 30 minutes and we were slowly nearing the top.
Just to clarify we did not walk from the bottom to the top because of the heat and we had other stuff planned. As the taxi took us up he referred us to some of the sights you can see, there were a few monuments and sculptures but my personal favourite was the face that you can see which is made from the peaks of the mountain. When we reached the drop-off point we walked about 2 miles to the top which gave some stunning views, you can see the crater and there is also a gift shop and café up there. No there is no lava in the crater unfortunately but there are some amazing sights. For entrance to the top of Vesuvius, it was 11 euros, for transport via coach to the drop-off which is by the entrance it was around £8.
2.1 The faded memory of Herculaneum
A lot of people tend to know of Pompeii even I was mainly interested in going to Pompeii (after Vesuvius of course). But not many know of Herculaneum which was the town that helped researchers find Pompeii. Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was a town village that was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius, but a lot still remains of the town. Buildings and utilities like stoves and shelves still remain, there are still some religious mosaic wall patterns and drawings on the walls of some of the old buildings. As we went round there was an audio guide that explained what the buildings were and who some important figures were at that time. Unfortunately due to the unfathomable heat, we had to cut our trip short as we were craving for air-con, but it was very insightful.
2.2 The Catacombs of San Gennaro
One of the other places we went was an underground graveyard, I'm not joking it's as creepy as it sounds. Fortunately, although we did not get haunted we did get to see what a Catacomb was since we had not been down one before and when your in Italy you have got to go all out. Jokes aside it was a rather interesting trip, with some pretty impressive ruins and tapestries. Our guide also spoke very good English and was very insightful and helpful, unfortunately the tour was not very long with it being a bit under an hour. Towards the end we were taken into a huge church which is currently under refurbishment, our guide told us that the money we paid was going towards the rebuild and that we could visit anytime for free over the next year. The tour costs around 11 euros each but we got a student discount which made it 6 euros.
2.3 There's more
One thing I would like to say about Naples is that their Metro and Train stations are simply sublime, where ever we wanted to go we could go with absolute ease since the the trains went everywhere. All's you had to do was tap your card at the turnstile and you could go where ever you wanted at such a small cost.
2.31 A sweltering excursion
Did I mention the weather at all, it was hot, very hot and because it was so hot some things got cut short but we did manage to do some bits on the days we had nothing planned. Since we were there for 5 nights we had the time to spare so we visited a few places.. We visited Municipal which was a town where the Royal Palace is located and the Galleria Umberto. We went to Toledo to see the beautifully Metro station that was made out of Mosaic tiles. We travelled to Piazza Amedo to go and see the Acquario di Napoli and the Mappatella Beach, although the aquarium and the beach were not that great as you all know I hate sand (Star Wars reference), but the town was nice. We got to see all this because of the brilliant Metro station, London should take note.
2.4 Where we stayed
During our week we stayed at the Grand Europa Hotel which is smack bang in the middle of Naples. Although it was a bit rough, we were a 2 minute walk from the train station and had a local supermarket around the corner. The hotel itself was quite nice, although in areas a little dated our room was lovely with air con and clean bed sheets and towels every day. All of the staff spoke English and were very helpful, the only issue was the elevator was a bit knackered but we managed quite well. Due to being next to the station it was easy to get a transfer to the airport as the Alibus (airport bus) went directly to the station.
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