This is for fans of Black Books (Dan!!).
When we first arrived in London, the first thing we did was to go visit the physical filming location of one of our favorite shows, Black Books. The outside of the shop is actually a real book shop called Collinge & Clark. The inside of the shop on the show is a set, but it was awesome to see the outside of the shop that we have come to know and love.
We ventured via train to the famed dead city of Pompeii. I still find it incredible that there are 3 million people housed around Mt Vesuvius (which is still an active volcano)....doesn't anyone ever learn from the past?? Anyway, so Pompeii was destroyed in a volcanic eruption from Vesuvius in 79AD when it was buried under about 7 meters of ash and crud. However it wasn't just Pompeii. Herculaneum (a neighboring town) was also destroyed in the eruption, but not by ash, but by lava. LAVA! Much more epic but much less famed.
We were kind of expecting to walk through the streets of Pompeii and find the preserved bodies all over the place doing what they were doing when they were covered in ash.. However we didn't realise that almost everything in the city has been removed and placed in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. So..we got to see a couple of bodies in Pompeii...but missed out on a lot as we didn't factor the Museum into our time in the city and didn't get to see it. But that was our fault for being spontaneous / disorganised. But the city was great, the many brothels were cool (can't believe how small the beds were!) and we enjoyed the whole thing.
We very much wanted to walk up Mt Vesuvius, however the last bus up the mountain was at 2pm...and we didn't get out of Pompeii until 3.30pm. So again, our fault for being spontaneous / disorganised.
Whilst staying in Naples, we jumped on a ferry out to the island of Capri (home of the Capri pants we believe). Capri was beautiful, largely a tourist island but still beautiful. We had cocktails then jumped on a big chair lift up to the top (which turned out to be pretty frikin high!). It was a lovely, relaxing day and we are very glad we escaped the garbage of Napoli to go see it.
We arrived in Naples Friday afternoon. As an indication of things to come, we were offloaded into a re-purposed airplane hangar to go through customs which comprised of one dude whose eyes both focused in different directions, simply making sure that you were holding a passport and waving you through. I got a stamp in mine, but Isaac didn’t.
We’d booked 4 nights in the cheapest hotel we could find, and we knew that it was in a dodgy part of town so we were ready for the un-easy walk through the slums. However the amount of garbage piled up in streets and the scent of urine in the air was surprising. Michael said that even Istanbul was cleaner, and has upgraded Naples to the filthiest city he’s ever been to.
We didn’t have a pleasant experience last time we came to Italy, however we only went to Rome so we were willing to give it a second chance but we didn’t arrive with high hopes. The people here a typical Italians – unhelpful and high and mighty. However people do seem generally a little nicer than in Rome. The couple of cab drivers we’ve had have been quite nice.
We’ve been very disturbed by their inability to grasp what a ‘bar’ is. There are signs everywhere saying ‘Bar’ but they are just cafes. We’ve found it really bloody hard to find somewhere to drink! Finding Vino in Italy, I thought, should be like finding chips on the floor in Maccas. We’ve had pizza and gelati everyday we’ve been here, and it’s quite hard to find anything else. I ordered a side of grilled mixed vegetables with dinner last night, and I got a bowl of grilled zucchini and mushrooms, sitting in about 2cm of oil. It’s true what everyone keeps telling us, Europeans don’t do vegetables. Nor do they do real coffee or cider. Oh man do we miss Foxy Bean coffee!!
Our first day here, the boys thought it was a good idea to sleep until 12. So…we didn’t get moving until late. We rode a filthy train for a few stops and went for a walk through the outskirts of the city and up a big hill to find the Catacombs. We took a guided tour of the Catacombs, which was worth doing. Basically there is a honeycomb under the city which used to be a pagan place of worship before Christianity took over. Then they started using it to put the bodies of the dead, the richer people got their own little ‘chapels’, and the poor people got put into the ground. They didn’t bury them, but rather made a little space for the body then put a bit of marble over the top. Probably the most interesting thing about the place is that they only opened it for tourists 3 years ago. They always knew it was there, but no one really cared that much about it. And the stupidest thing about it is that they have (probably because they needed funding) put up a modern art display all through the catacombs. The art display, frankly, is just confusing and annoying. It takes away from the experience and makes no sense. The guide had trouble explaining it to us in English, except once she said ‘Thiz sculpture iz…not very good. Zee artist..didn’t want to stay in Naples’.
After the tour, Google maps helped us trek through a particularly run down part of town to find an enormous deposit of human bones, aka Fontanelle cemetery. The suburbs are so similar to Hong Kong – cramped dilapidated apartment blocks, clothes hung out of all windows, scooters with entire families piled on them zipping around just honking at everything instead of following any sort of road rules, and piles and piles of garbage everywhere (the garbage trucks, if they have them, must come every 6 months).
The cemetery was a hidden gem. So amazing and yet no one really knows about it. There were only a few people in there when we went and it was free. Really weird though, in the middle of the ‘Inala of Naples’ was this massive cave filled with 40,000 human skulls. Opposite the cave mouth and on either side of it were dilapidated units and garbage everywhere. But it was really quite amazing, and a little creepy. Apparently the skulls have quite a cult following, there is an Adopt-a-skull program where you get allocated a skull to look after – clean, talk to, spend time with, pray to, play hand ball with, etc. Pretty cool.
Also Naples has a castle, which is possibly the best castle we've seen to date.
Today we leave for Naples and Venice for a week.
We are eternally grateful to Alice & Xtian for putting up with us for a week. They have been incredibly generous and awesome, and we can't thank them enough. You guys are awesome!!!!!!!
Last night we all had dinner at The Greedy Cow (really good bugers) with Rhys who lives in Wales & London. Once again, just like everyone said, Rhys is ridiculously nice too. Next time we go through Wales, we will definitely drop in to see him, Sian & the kidlets.
We look forward to seeing you all again soon :)
