To hell and back

When I left Napoli on Saturday I knew that I would one day return, I didn’t expect that day to be Monday. Hopefully in 7 hours I’ll be back in Rome with passport safely in hand and just going to pick a Vespa up. No hitches please.

With all the train travel today was a good opportunity for a Black Lips marathon, as I had 4 albums to give a listen, first up was the eponymously titled debut (that’d be Black Lips! then). It shows the great promise they had at the time as a garage-rock blues and punk outfit, but it’s just too erratic and the production is awful.

‘Let it Bloom’ is basically more of the same. Some half decent tunes but the it’s sounds like it was recorded in a trash can.

Next up was ‘Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo’ and, erm, same again. Except this is a live album, but with the production value of the other two I’ve mentioned so far, they may as well have been also.

Lastly, ‘We Did Not Know the Forest Spirit Made The Flowers Grow’ is just rubbish. There’s maybe a few tunes that are okay but on the whole it’s pointless. I do like Black Lips, the time i saw them live at The Deaf Institute was brilliant, but the only album of their’s I’d have any real interest in listening to again is ‘Good Bad Not Evil’.

Christ, what a complete and utter stress that was and it’s not over yet. The important thing though is that I have my passport back.

Getting it was a bit of a nightmare mind. My train to Napoli just had to be 15 minutes late didn’t it, meaning I had around 55 minutes to get to the hostel (which is probably at least a half hour walk each way at normal pace), pick up the passport and get back in time to make the train to Rome. If I missed that one the next one my ticket was valid for wouldn’t be for 3 or 4 hours meaning I’d be much too late to hire the scooter later and wouldn’t even get any evening at all in Rome.

So this meant I had to combine some serious power walking with sprints when there was enough room (space isn’t something you get much of in Napoli) and then run up the 6 flights of stairs to the hostel and do same all over again on the way back.

When I got into the main square where the station was it looked like I’d be okay for time and I even managed to spare 30 seconds to pick-up a Naples butty for lunch. Then when looking at my ticket I realised that in the usual tired and and stressed state this morning I’d stamped the Napoli – Rome ticket rather than the Rome – Napoli one. I thought well if I can show the other ticket and the stamps it’s pretty obvious what has happened and shouldn’t really be an issue.

Here is where the next problem arose, I could see the train on platform 11 and I had a good 3 minutes before it departed. What I couldn’t see were the little yellow boxes that you use to stamp the tickets, they are on every platform in Rome. I looked about but none were in view so I asked a group of staff and rather than just pointing me in the right direction the guy put his hand out for my ticket and asked where I was going, he would have seen that it was the wrong ticket and with only about 2 minutes left I didn’t really have time to explain so I ran off to look further myself. I found one but it was out of order, arghhh! I found 2 more opposite but there were some girls dawdling and when I did try to use the first one it made the right noises but didn’t print anything. The 2nd one just about printed something but it was barely ledgilble. It would have to do though as I then sprinted and only made the train by about 20 seconds. Napoli station is bobbins!

So now it makes it a lot harder to explain what happened with the tickets. I’ll just play dumb and handover the one I’ve just stamped and see how it goes, if the the inspector does say anything I’ll try to explain and if he does try to fine me I’ll just outright refuse to pay and take it from there. That’s my plan and I’m sticking to it! Maybe my ticket won’t even get checked, it wasn’t on the way here and there were inspectors on board then too.

I can’t wait to get on that Vespa later and ease the tension of today. It will be like a radox on wheels. Even if it is on the mental Roman roads.

Phew, just about got away with it. I thought I was okay as I gave him the ticket and he put it between the clipper before doing a double take and putting his glasses on. He was checking the stamp that you could hardly read, I don’t think he noticed that the from and to points were the wrong way round. He eventually clipped it so crisis over and €50 fine averted.

I picked up the scooter without a problem, a sky blue PX. The clutch is a bit off so I have to watch out for wheelies but it idles and runs well so that will do nicely for the next 24 hours.

So I spent the next 3 hours or so racing round Rome, quite the terrifying experience really. I wanted to visit (at least to see the exteriors, if I’ve time tomorrow I’ll try for the interiors, but the queues can get pretty big and the stuff in Vatican City is priority number one) The Pantheon and The Colosseum (see pic below) and I did, eventually. The problem is that I’d work out a route on the map and then that would rendered obsolete within a turn or two by one way streets, it was also hard to check for the right junction while dealing with the truly crazy Rome traffic. So this often led to me ending up in scary and bendy high speed dual carriageway tunnels and such like, miles from where I actually wanted to be. I did get to see a lot of the city though and I had good fun doing it. Tomorrow will be even better in the day time.

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What a numpty!

On the way to the station today I saw those savoury delights that I had 2 of yesterday for tea. I can confirm that they are called a Panini Napoletani (or Naples butty to you and me, though my predictive text just tried to change it to Naples bitty which is something very different indeed). I’ve now had 3 of them in the space of 17 hours.

As per usual I just made the train, after getting my ticket via the machine and my cash card. I noticed it said remember to stamp the ticket before boarding, I didn’t see anywhere to do this though and as it was about to leave I just got on anyway. I played the dumb tourist (rather too well) and the inspector explained the process to me but let me off the €50 fine. Phew.

First task when I get to Rome, get a ticket for the match tomorrow. I’ve compiled a list of places that sell them, now I’ve got to hope one of them is close enough to the hostel for me to get there before it closes. Wish me luck readers.

On the train I’ve been listening to DeVotchKa who I’d heard of but never heard anything by before. An American girl in Montenegro recommended them so I looked them up on Spotify.

‘A Mad and Faithful Telling’ is an album that won’t be for everyone but it’s bewildering mix of styles and dark film score qualities appeal to me greatly. It’s a strange fusion of Balkans (the good kind!), Mariachi, French accordion, Russian folk, gypsy jazz (I may have just made that term up) and sweeping strings all fronted by someone sounding like a Feargal Sharkey. It’s blended together with magnificent results.

When I arrived in Rome my day begun to take a turn for the worse. As I checked into the hostel they asked for my passport and it then dawned on me that it was sat safely in the locker (together with my spare cash card and the paper part of my driving license) that I had handed the key over in the morning at my last hostel in Napoli. Brilliant.

It was lucky I had the card part of my license as I wouldn’t have even been able to check in to this one. I’ve spoken to the bloke at the one in Napoli and he has it waiting for me so I will have to get the train there and back again on Monday which will pretty much take most of the day leaving me only 1 proper full day (if I get to go to the footy tomorrow) to see Rome. It will also cost me another 20 odd Euros in fares.

Oh well, it could be a lot worse as at least I know where it is. That’s the problem when you’re tired trying and constantly organising loads of stuff though, at some point you are bound to make a mistake.

So by the time I’d sorted all this out it was too late to attempt to get a ticket for Roma vs Livorno. Now I have to hope that you can get them on the day from somewhere.

As was expected with the way things were going, my evening eating ventures didn’t work out too swell. Me and a lad from Australia (an Aussie in a hostel, fancy that) went looking for some cheap grub but with all the tourists about there aren’t too many places that fit the bill and you have to pay just to sit down in most of them. Eventually we found a little bistro doing spinach, ricotta and meat ravioli at a decent price (about €6 I think). What came was a tiny portion of pasta in a bit of cheese sauce and drowned in peas, I’m not a big peas fan. Not very filling or satisfying at all really.

So I got a slice of pizza on the way back and I even managed to bugger that up, what I pointed look like a meaty mother. It was actually meaty looking tomatoes, now I’m not keen on pees but I positively despise tomatoes that aren’t in a paste or liquid format. Mingin’. One of those days eh.

This hostel will be comfortable enough but I don’t really like it. It’s one of those that you can see that it’s more about the bottom line than a good hostel experience. Fair enough they are businesses but I’ve seen enough of them to know that they can be successful and offer a nice service too.

What I really feel like doing now is getting on a scooter and tearing round Rome on it. And with the help of these fellas that is just what I intend to do sometime soon. They do a 3 hour tour of Rome on classic scooters (some even from the 50s) but at €120 it’s well out of my price range. You can rent a PX though and I will try and do this for Tuesday, then I can get round all the sights quicker and have a good time doing it. It’s also quite pricey at €60 for 24 hours but I’d love to do it. I just hope I can get one on the day as they don’t have many and I’m not riding one of those ‘orrible automatics.

One good thing about this hostel though, I saw the below on one of the walls. It’s the very same picture I once used for a custom t-shirt I had made.

Trouble magnet

There was a right storm last night. I went to sleep at 1 in the morning and there was thunder and lightning and then when I woke up at 5 it was still going.

I checked in to my new hostel this morning without any trouble. It seems not bad as well, very similar in setup to the other one.

So now I’m just hanging about waiting for my bus to Pompeii in 45 minutes. I doubt I’ll get to go up to Mount Vesuvius though as it’s another shocker on the weather front here in Naples, you weren’t allowed up when it was like this yesterday.

I think it should be about €10 to get into the Ponpeii site but a girl from my last hostel went yesterday and she stumbled in via the exit by accident so got in for free. I shall be attempting to stumble in via the exit on purpose.

Pompeii is without doubt worth visiting, it’s unlike anywhere else I’ve ever been. The site is really really big, I spent aobut 3 and a half hours walking round it and there was still plenty I missed. I’d just had enough by then though and the rain was very heavy once more.

Of course I picked up my obligatory fridge magnet outside the grounds. I got one for €3 after laughing at a vendor who wanted €5. The daft thing was that while I was looking he actually said in all seriousness “€5, not bad price huh”. €5 is the most expensive magnet I’ve seen on all my travels since the start of April. I’ve seen a lot of motherflippin’ fridge magnets in that time too. Then he said “Better quality than the rest though” at which point I went to the adjacent stall and bought the very same magnet for €3. I made a point of mentioning this to him as I walked past, well someone needed to give the chap a wee economics lesson.

When I get back to Napoli (I’m on a train now) I’ll try and suss out the trains/buses for Rome tomorrow (it’s a quiet little town in the middle) while I’m at the station. Then a mammoth plate of pasta is needed from somewhere, I’ve not had lunch as everything round Pompeii was rip-off tourist prices, like €5 for a tiny panini.

So there are 3 options for the train and not any as far as I can tell on the bus front. €45ish, €19.50 and €10.50 are the choices on offer with it very roughly being that the most expensive taking 1 hour, the middle 2 and the cheapest 3. I’ll likely go for the regional one at €9.50 as for the sake of an hour or two it’s well worth the saving.

Amazingly I struggled to find a restaurant serving pasta and I didn’t fancy another pizza. So I stopped into one of the many bakeries about and picked up a couple of these soft rolls with a little bit of cheese in them and loads of diced ham cubes. Very tasty, very cheap and very filling.

I’ve started to enjoy the ridiculous manner in which you have to cross the road round these parts. Half the time it’s just a blind leap of faith but it’s not without an element of skill attached to it. Modern art at it’s best.

This evening I conducted my first ever technical support case involiving a Apple Mac, successfully ‘n all. I sorted the wireless internet TCP/IP settings out for some lad in my dorm. I feel a bit dirty now.

Napoli is definitely a city I will return to one day as for one I’m very much enamoured with the city, but there’s also plenty I’ve not been able to see. Things that come to mind are Mount Vesuvius, the catacombs and a mafia hit.

Going to the mattresses

No sooner have I come up with a new travel itinerary than I’ve changed it again, don’t worry I’m not going to post it once more though and the modifications are only subtle. After advice from 2 mates and a sibling, I’ve knocked a night off Venice and am just doing 2 there now and won’t stay in San Marino either (I was already thinking about doing this anyway). The 2 extra nights will both be spent in Florence making it 4 there in total, which seems a lot but I will use it as a base for 2 day trips; San Marino and then Pontedera (where the Piaggio museum is) with Pisa in the same day.

I’ve also ascertained that Roma vs Livorno on Sunday is the only Serie A game that fits with my route and dates. I’ve sent a few email enquiries about getting tickets, Livorno are a small side so hopefully I will be alright. I’ve booked my Rome hostel for 4 nights, that took quite a while as the good decent priced ones are already booked up. The place I’ve got looks reasonable though.

One thing that is a bit of a pain is that this hostel in Naples is fully booked tomorrow night so I’ll have to change hostels in the morning (I’ve just booked one they’ve vouched for) so I’ll have to be up and about early (I’m not very good at that) to give myself time for Mount Vesuvius (I keep wanting to saying Vesuvio, it’s Artie Bucco’s fault) and Pompeii, which is supposed to be massive.

Man, I’ve got a really sore back. I’m not sure if it’s down to sleeping on the ferry floor, lugging my bag around all day yesterday, or a combination of the 2. I’ll have to be careful though, if any rival button men out on the street spot my disadvatage, they might well try and use it to theirs.

Being in Italy has made me think of this film, I’m nearly blubbering already. Great movie.

Reet, let’s be havin’ ya Napoli.

Ahh, maybe not. It’s raining very heavily, I’ll give it a little while and see if it eases off.

This is very very frustrating, I want to go out and see stuff but like in Pogoricia (though I wasn’t really bothered then) it’s torrential. If you go out out for a minute you will be saturated never mind walking round for hours. Bored, bored, bored.

Eventually there was nothing to do but brave it, a bit risky with just uno pair of jeans available to me. I did get caught in a few nasty downpours but while still being rainy, it wasn’t too bad later in the afternoon. I’d bought an umbrella by this time as well, a distinctly unmasculine one with flower motifs all over it. I just thought it was navy blue until I opened it. Real coolio.

The first place I visited was Quartietri Spagnoli which is supposed to be okay to walk about in the day of you’re discreet but better avoided at night. I loved it, countless winding uphill narrow streets with the natives talking ridiculously loud, scooters constantly nipping at your heels and laundry dangling everywhere. It had bags of character.

Then I walked down one of the main shopping streets over to the Spaccanapoli area in the heart of the old town. There’s loads of grand old churches round there and it’s a very intriguing place to knock about.

There was one shop called Amodio that unfortunately appeared to be the only one closed, I saw some beltin’ good quality and cheaply priced Vespa souvenirs in the window. So close yet so far readers, I could have bawled like a little rugrat I could.

Another street had a whole load of music (instruments I mean, not CDs and your ye olde vinyl) shops on it, maybe 20 or so. I’m never sure how they can all compete when it’s like that.

Next up was a visit to the Duomo. I found the interior to be stunning, the only building I’ve been more amazed by in my life is the Sagrada Familia. I find it incomprehendable how humans can create such things, the sheer level of craftmanship and dedication that must be required to create such intiricate detail on that large a scale is completely staggering. I remember seeing a documentary years ago on San Gennaro and how passionite are lot of Neapolitans are about the legend, which is why I really wanted to see the Cathedral and the crypt within it for myself.

I’m now just killing 90 minutes in Caffe Delle Muse as there’s a pizzeria I really want to go to which is not open to 19:00. I asked the bloke in the furniture shop opposite what time it opened by pointing at my watch and then at the restaurant, he responded with “sette”. To be fair to myself I did ask if he spoke English (in Italian) or French (as my basic French is just about good enough to ask what time somewhere opens) first.

This cafe is a basic but nice little gaff, I’ve been here for an hour now and everyone else who’s been in and out has been a local which I like. It’s only €1.20 for a Peroni which gets a thumbs up from me, especially as they are €2 in the hostel. My golden rule of hostelling is that they should always have the cheapest beer in a 15 mile radius.

So I was waiting outside the restaurant (Gino Sorbillo) for it to open when I bumped into an American couple (well one is German, but he sounds American) who were part of a handful of people who’d been in the airplane style seating area with me on the ferry from Greece, I’d spoken to them very briefly after we’d got off the ferry. Quite the coincidence. So I got talking to them and we shared a table. Then there was an Aussie (what else!) girl from my room in the hostel by herself so she ate with us too, I’d say that was a big coincidence as well but the hostel recommend the place as being the best pizza house in Naloli to their guests so it wasn’t really.

It’s hard to say if it was the best pizza I’ve ever had but it was certainly well up there. Massive and really good value at a bit over €4. It must be a good place as the locals were queuing to get in when we left.

On the way back we had a glimpse of the shadier side of Naples. I’m not sure entirely what happened but some woman was screaming like a demon (really) and then a long haired man was sprinting and went flying into a car (which had luckily braked nearly completely) and a dog which I think was his was darting about somewhere amongst all this too. Then a nasty looking bloke who had been chasing the other guy gave him a beating for 20 seconds or so until a few other people convinced him to stop. I think the first guy might have tried to rob the demon screamer lady’s bag but I’m far from sure. Madness.

Completely unrelated to anything but I watched this before. Ali Benarbia is one of the finest footballers I’ve ever seen (and I don’t care what level it was at, genius is genius). I think he won French footballer of the year twice and still no one had heard of him, he should have been a world star.

Am now just back at the hostel now and spending the age it takes to do this ruddy blog, it will be infinitely easier when I get a netbook and don’t have to do it on a phone. You should notice a huge reduction in typos and spelling errors too!

I like the staff here. Very friendly and animated in a way that only Italians can be. Luca is a character. Apparently I’ve restored his faith in Englishmen after a bad experience with a bloke from Leeds being a bit of a drunken plonker when they were out.

In fact I really like Napoli in general (and I expect that will extend to all of Italy, though I get the feeling Naples is a different beast). Despite it’s loudness, erraticness and all the grime, it’s a very pretty place underneath. There’s a lot of beautiful architecture. It’s definetely one of my favourite cities so far.

Search of the day – ‘it buggers the mother of his pot’.

PS For some reason this post from when I was in Turkey/Bulgaria never made it to the site properly. Have a look if the fancy takes you, it’s only a liccle ‘n.

Va’ fa Napoli!

I slept not too badly last night considering. I tried spreading myself out along 3 or 4 seats but that wasn’t working out very swell, too lumpy and narrow (that’s the seats, not me). So I shifted my blow-up pillow and sleeping bag to behind the back row of the seats and slept on the floor (which wasn’t dirty and I wasn’t touching it directly anyway). Not amazingly comfortable but I was tired so like on the couchette coming from Macedonia the other night, I slept anyway.

I was initially told when I got my ticket that the ferry would get in at 09:00am. So I presumed this to be local (Italian) time (like it would be for a flight). Last night I double checked with reception and he told me that it actually gets in at 08:30am Greek time. Greece is an extra hour ahead so this would be 07:30am Italian. It actually got in at 08:05am local. Confused? Join the club.

Before disembarking, I sneaked a quick ham and cheese omlette in, €4.

So, Italy and with it country number 23. This is the nation I’ve been looking forward to most, there’s just so much to see and I’m only going to be tackling a small fraction of it. One thing I do need to get on when I get net access, is to check the Serie A fixtures, would be great to take a game in.

Right now though I need to figure out where one would find Bari’s main bus station, or at worse, train station. Though I already know that there isn’t a train I can take until about 5 hours off, I hope to be well on my way to Naples by then.

It was well sign-posted to the train station (I know I wanted a bus but I thought there would be a good place to find info) up until the point where the signs stopped without said station and a road splitting 3 ways. I made my best guess and 10 minutes later with a couple more turns I stumbled upon the station and the tourist info point outside it.

The bus takes about the same amount of time as the train but at €19, it’s nearly half the price, plus it leaves an hour earlier (at 12:50, getting in at 16:30). So that was an easy decision.

So as I’ve got the best part of 3 hours to kill before my bus, I may as well have a look at Bari. From what I’ve seen so far (I’ve pretty much done 2 hours walking already, bag ‘n all) it seems quite interesting. I’ve seen a sign for the a football stadium (Bari’s I presume) so I might go and have a look at that.

I’ve been putting my extremely basic Italian into practise this morning. ‘Mi scusi’, ‘Parla Inglese?’, ‘Buongiorno’, ‘Grazie’ and ‘Ciao’ have all had an airing, I’ve even been on the receiving end of a couple of ‘Pregos’. I expect when I get to Naples it won’t be long before I get a couple of ‘Consigliere’ job offers. You may well say but you’re not Italian, two words for ya: Tom Hagen.

Long dark hair with big sunglasses and a scarf appears to be the Italian look this October, male or female.

There’s Vespas absolutely everywhere, I’ve seen some right crackers. I’m yet to spot a Lammy though. I can’t wait to get back on my scoot, though December isn’t exactly going to be the ideal month to do it.

There are actually signs for 2 different football stadiums and I’m not sure which is the right one, plus I’ve been heading the way one of them says for quite a bit with no luck. They’re quite vague directionally and there’s no indication of distance so I’m giving up on that plan. In fact I’m just going to go and sit and wait for the bus now. 4 hours is enough of walking around with my bag on in a busy city, not to mention the fact that there appear to be a lot of Italians who dawdle and are spacially unaware, a poor combo.

I remembered why I don’t use the GPS on my phone, it appears to only track you when you have input the direction query while you previously had data access (like I did for the cinema the other night). So unless I pay the ridiculous roaming fees (seriously scandalous, iPhones are only usable data wise when abroad, for the rich) it’s no good for on the fly when you’re lost.

On the bus now, I can’t wait to get to the hostel. Athens feels like weeks ago.

Strangely, the fella from Adelaide sat next to me on the bus has been in my hostel room at both Sofia and Skopje.

On the way into Naples you go right past Mount Vesuvius very cool (or hot even). You can see little clouds of smoke coming out the ground for quite a while before you get there, is that normal? I’m going to try and get up there tomorrow.

That Australian bloke was going to the same hostel as me and I know this doesn’t sound very nice, but he gets on my nerves. Everything you say he is pretty much contrary to and he’s just quite aggravating in general. Like he asked about 4 people the way to the hostel even though we had pretty simple directions to follow then he asked me if I was in a hurry as I was walking slightly fast and missing the city, well after about 30 hours straight travelling and with a large backpack on, I thought getting to the hostel for a shower and that might be a decent idea. He still just dripped about so I walked at my own pace withot paying heed to where he was and arrived at the hostel 5 or 10 minutes earlier than him.

He’s the same bloke I avoided having to go exploring with in a ‘group’ in Skopje because I knew he would rub me up the wrong way, it’s always best to just try and stay clear of people who have that affect on you I reckon.

My first impressions of Naples, complete chaos. What I was expecting really.

The Hostel of the Sun where I’m staying seems pretty good, well apart from the older America guy in my room sat talking to himself (I mean properly as well), I don’t think he’s noticed I’m here. I’ve just informed him of my presence and I think he’s a touch embarrassed.

Nothing much on the agenda tonight as I’m reet banjaxed. A big fat authentic pizza might be worked in though.

As it happens I didn’t get the early night or the real deal pizza as I was up until very late sorting out technical problems with the blog. They’re finally resolved now so I’ll say goodnight, apart from one last thing. I’ve changed my route yet again, the travelling has been pretty hard going lately and I’m not getting enough time to relax or enjoy places and I really want to savour Italy. Also after looking in a bit more detail at distances between destinations, I think it would still have been a bit challenging to fit it all in. So here’s the latest:

Wed 21 – Napoli
Thurs 22 – Napoli
Fri 23 – Napoli
Sat 24 – Rome
Sun 24 – Rome
Mon 26 – Rome
Tues 27 – Rome
Wed 28 – Florence
Thurs 29 – Florence
Fri 30 – San Marino
Sat 31 – Venice
Sun 1 – Venice
Mon 2 – Venice
Tues 3 – Milan
Wed 4 – Milan
Thurs 5 – Turin
Fri 6 – Turin
Sat 7 – Monaco
Sun 8 – Nice
Mon 9 – Nice
Tues 10 – Montpellier
Wed 11 – Andorra
Thurs 12 – Andorra
Fri 13 – Madrid
Sat 14 – Madrid
Sun 15 – Madrid
Mon 16 – Seville
Tues 17 – Seville
Wed 18 – Lisbon
Thurs 19 – Lisbon
Fri 20 – Bilbao
Sat 21 – Bilbao
Sun 22 – St. Jean D’Angely
Mon 23 – St. Jean D’Angely
Tues 24 – St. Jean D’Angely
Wed 25 – St. Jean D’Angely
Thurs 26 – Bayeux
Fri 27 – Bayeux
Sat 28 – Paris
Sun 29 – Paris
Mon 30 – Paris