We need to talk about Naples. The City. Ok, we checked in to our hotel at about 10.30 on Thursday night and at 2.35 the following afternoon we were on a ferry to Ischia. So our experience of this fine city is… a bit limited. And our experience can be pretty much defined by: “stayed in a fab hotel, but not the best part of town”. Unless you would describe a building site, 6 months after demolition, 3 years before building due to start, currently used as an ad hoc rubbish tip, as ‘the best part of town’. And everyone we spoke to reported the same thing: “I don’t think we were in a nice part”. So if you add up all the parts which weren’t nice, in sufficient numbers, at some point you have to accept that Naples is just a dump. Filled with mafiosi, cut-throats, pick-pockets and murderers.

This photo of Mel was taken on the walk from the tube station back to our hotel and I think, is the ‘picture that paints a thousand words’ about Napoli.

However, it is an access point to two true wonders. Pompeii, which we went to about 20 years ago (though its ‘changed a lot’, since, I’m informed. Like, really? The whole point is that it is as it was in 89 AD when Vesuvius shot a big load) and Herculaneum, which is ‘the other one’. The town on the other side of the volcano. Which was also totally wiped out in the eruption, but thanks to God’s eternal mercy, although no people survived, some of the buildings were saved in much better condition than in Pompeii. And Herculaneum is just fab. Brilliant and fascinating and, like Pompeii (in July/August) hotter than hell. And we’ve wanted to visit it for ages, and now we have. And in the ruins, they found the world’s oldest pizza. Honest. They were invented there. And Naples. Florence. New York. Chicago and Rome. Though we really have to burn those places to the ground to decide who was really first. One petrified cheese and tomato sandwich tastes just like another, right?

Ischia is something else. This is no-one’s rubbish tip. Its beautiful. Ain’t big. We drove round the entire island today in a Smart car and it’s less than 2 hours to get round it. Though we stopped, obvs, you can’t eat ice cream without stopping, FFS. And on slow, mountain roads most of which are the width of one and a half Smart cars. Interesting drive. Amazingly beautiful island. More about that tomorrow; ‘wedding day’!!!

Happy Saturday

A xxxx