Naples (Napoli), Italy - Day 3

Hi everyone!!

So today is the blog for the third day of me and my boyfriend's (@schillaci) trip to Naples Italy! In case you missed the other two posts, so far we have explored Naples, found fantastic pizza, and taken a ferry to Capri, Italy, where we explored and stayed overnight!

So without further ado...hope you enjoy!!

DAY 3

CAM: NikonD5200 and iPhone 7+

This picture was actually taken the second day of our trip, but we were in the same area for the first half of the third day! Plus I just like this picture haha.

To begin this installation, I'll tell you about the hotel. I didn't want to end the last blog on a negative note, which is why I'm just including it now (don't worry, it gets better from here). I had made the reservation at an Air BnB, and had reserved a room for one person, not realizing that in Europe, you have to select two people if you want a room for two (in America, you get one room and just select one, but it can house anywhere from one to four people). So, we took a taxi down from Ana Capri to the hotel, which was in 'normal' Capri. We had to walk down an alley to get there, and when we finally found it, it took the owner about 10 minutes to come outside and check us in. He showed us the room, which was minuscule, but seemed fine, then said "You know, this room is just for one person". I said, "OK...?" and he replied, "OK, so what is HE doing here?!" and motioned at Andrew. At this point, we both had looks of shock on our faces, both from his rudeness, and from the fact that we had discovered a huge centipede crawling around in the toilet in the bathroom. I explained that we were American and hadn't known the way that you're supposed to book hotels in Europe differently from the way you do in the states. He continued to give us an attitude, but eventually let up (kind of), and forced us to pay $40 more for both of us to sleep in the room. I shook it off quickly, silently calling him an asshole as many times as I could in my head, but Andrew was furious. So we changed and got out of the hotel as quickly as possible so that we could go enjoy our wine and try to salvage the rest of the night.

When we woke up in the morning, it took the owner another 20 minutes to come outside to check us out of the room. He said that he had brought us breakfast, which was really just two very small espressos and some rock-hard croissants. Whatever. I thanked him and we practically ran away. The one thing that made the hotel positive at all was that it looked over a valley with a clear view of the cliff on the opposite side.

This is the view from the Air BnB.

After leaving the place as quickly as our legs could carry us, we got on a bus to go back up to Ana Capri to see the church, San Michele, that we had been unsuccessful in finding the day before. We quickly found the right way to go and paid our two Euros to go look around. And the church did not disappoint:

I've seen a lot of churches throughout my time in Europe, but this one was different than the others. The entire floor was a painting of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (seen in the picture above), and the whole scene seemed centered around a unicorn in the middle of the floor (I was very excited to see this - I LOVE unicorns).

After spending about a half an hour taking in the church, we decided to look through the town's shops (mainly all owned by craftsmen) one last time before leaving. We happened upon a ceramics store, where I bought a tile, and were even able to see the man making the gorgeous goods painting his current piece in the back of the store!

Here is the artist painting his latest creation...

And here is a picture of some other pieces he made!

After watching him for a few minutes, we left the store and made our way back to the bus stop to catch a ride back to the harbor. It was time to go back to Naples.

I fell asleep for the entirety of the ferry ride back, but Andrew tells me that he caught a nice view of Vesuvius from the boat.

After what felt like years of travel, we got back to our hotel in Naples and took a much-needed rest and nap.

Post-nap, we set out to have a nice dinner. We had decided to make a big deal out of it and got dressed up and styled for the occasion. While walking around Naples this time, we actually found the ancient city center that we had been searching for previously. And it was stunning. I do not exaggerate at all when I say that there were at least two major churches/cathedrals every single block - each was relatively unassuming on the outside, but completely gilded and painted, with inlaid marble floors, on the inside. Here are some pictures of my favorite one that we found:

This picture is taken from the outside, which was a dull gray covered in stone pyramids that stuck off the building...

And this is what it looked like inside...

Pretty damn incredible!

At this point, we were starving, so we found what looked like a popular place and sat down to eat. And the food was to die for!

Here's a picture of my meal - the fish was cooked absolutely perfectly (although I recognize the fact that a full fish on your plate might turn some people off haha) and the pasta was homemade, thick, and delicious!

Once we had finished our meals, we decided to explore the city a bit more and try to find a cool bar or club to hang out at:

A picture of Andrew in a gorgeous square we found off of an alleyway...

The streets all looked like this...

And a pretty, classically European square we happened upon!

We got hungry again, so we sat down at a pastry shop/gelato place. I got my favorite combo - one scoop of melon gelato, one vanilla - and Andrew got his first real Italian canoli!

A picture of him considering his canoli (lol).

Eventually, we found a bar that we stayed at for the night. I got a bit too drunk off of a cocktail called "Adios Motherfucker", which was just as delicious as it was alcoholic:

After I had consumed 2.5 of these to Andrew's 1.5 (I got perhaps a little too ambitious), we decided it was time to turn in for the night, as Andrew had an early-ish flight the next day to London (where his tour was departing from), and I was joining him at the airport to fly back to Zurich about an hour after his flight left.

Though this was our last day, it is not the last post from this adventure....tune in tomorrow to hear the horrors of the Naples airport!

As always, leave me any comments/suggestions/questions, etc. and feel free to hit me up with an upvote, resteem, or follow!! ;) :D

And don't be afraid to check out Andrew's page (@schillaci)! He's a great writer and businessman and puts up some pretty phenomenal content (and I'm not just saying this because I'm biased)!