Naples

On our trip to Italy we had decided to stay in Naples and make a day trip to Pompeii. A bit of a mistake that as it turns out we should have done things the other way around - stay near Pompeii and take a day trip to Naples.

Why? Naples is a dirty, grubby city, full of crime. It's not a nice place. We took a taxi ride once, from the outside the car looked like a taxi, but inside the cab it was just managing to hang together. The seatbelts didn't work and literally every surface was bashed, dinged, completely worn out. I've never seen any car like it and certainly no taxi. The driver was a happy enough chap, like most Italians he'd learned to accept his fate.

We didn't get to see Herculaneum. A decision had to be made as we ran out of time and I read somewhere that Herculaneum had been stripped of anything interesting. That must be right as our visit to the National Archaeological Museum in Naples seemed to confirm it. What we could read in English often provided the note 'from Herculaneum' or some such. And that English is sporadic at best, at some point all English just evaporated. Everywhere was like that in Italy, they make a half-baked attempt to explain things (and please don't email me saying I should learn Italian, I'm quite happy to learn some, but I'll make a concerted effort when Italy start winning wars <insert sound of crickets chirping>).

The museum in Naples is really the only place worth visiting. We saw the Alexander Mosaic. Kind of Yay, it's not that impressive really. The Numismatics room was closed so we couldn't see the Augustus gold coin or medallion. I believe that these random shut-downs occur all the time and so be warned, the very thing you went to see may be unavailable on that day. Good luck trying to find out if it is (available that is).

Verdict on Naples: it is hard to believe this place is the third largest city in Italy. Its much vaunted pizza is worse than all other pizza in Italy. The world heritage inner city is a dark featureless place and presents an ideal location for muggings. I'm sure you'll be mugged at some point if you stay there too long as criminality appears widespread. And I'm not talking about refugees and migrants. They're mostly well behaved and clean, they're too concentrated on surviving to be worried about committing crime. No, the lowlifes will be locals I'm sure.

Some areas of Naples are complete no-goes after dark. You wade almost ankle deep in blood, vomit, broken teeth, and animal and human faeces (intentional exaggeration to make the point). These places are really bad and they're everywhere. The best thing that could happen to Naples is it gets bulldozed quick smart and then rebuilt modern and fresh.

Naples has a sort-of Chinatown, but they serve up spaghetti as noodle. So that wonton noodle soup is wonton spaghetti soup. Just so you know, you know?