Monday, November 16, 2009

Naples

On Halloween my friends and I caught an 8:30am train to Naples. A couple of us had to go to the National Archeological Museum there to take some pictures for a project for one of our classes, so we decided to make a day out of it.

To be completely honest, Naples was definitely my least favorite city that I've seen so far (yes, even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Milan, Naples was definitely worse, in my opinion.) First off, Naples is very dirty...way dirtier than New York, and not very pretty. It did have a nice view of Mount Vesuvius, but as for the city itself, I was less than impressed. It was so noisy, full of crazy traffic, there was garbage everywhere, dumpsters overflowing, etc...so gross.

However, I did like the old-town feel of the city...the streets were super narrow and the piazzas were some of the tiniest I've seen, just filled with a few shops and statues.

We started our morning with a sfogliatella and cappuccino from Pasticceria Scaturchio, a famous pastry shop in Naples. It came highly recommended from my guide book, and it did not disappoint!



Sfogliatella means "many layers/leaves" and it's a pastry with an orange/citrus flavored ricotta filling. Naples is famous for these pastries, and I can understand why...the one I tried was delicious :)

After we finished eating, we saw the Duomo


Walked down some tiny, narrow streets


Witnessed some crazy traffic


And finally found our way to the National Museum


I'll spare you most of the pictures I took inside the museum since they were for my class, but here's a few...


Pan & Daphne


Puppies


Sucks to be this person


Crazy big statue


Cute


Ana & I representing TCNJ (our mascot is the Lion)


Inside one of the gorgeous rooms in the museum


After the museum, we walked around the city more for a couple more hours, then had dinner before we left. Since we were in Naples, we had to have pizza...Naples was the home of the very first pizza, and it is still said to have the best pizza in all of Italy.


Because of that, I am not ashamed to say that we each finished one whole pizza on our own...yes, they were that good!

After dinner we headed back to the train station and hung around while waiting for our train home. Overall, it was a good day...I'm glad that I got to see and experience Naples (and taste its amazing pizza!) but it is definitely a place that I am not dying to go back to. My guide book referred to the city as a place that "you'll either love or hate" and while I think that 'hate' is a strong word, I'd say that description was pretty accurate for how we all felt about it.

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