Tales From Abroad: Ciao Italia!

Ciao Italy!

Naples –The land of Marguerita pizza

My first stop of a week long journey through the land of Fiat and fettucine was Naples, a chaotic yet spectacular city, which sprawls noisily around the Bay of Naples on the Mediterranean coast. Once dominating the Mezzogiorno (the land of the midday sun) as southern Italy is so fondly known, Naples has a history for being a dirty, port city with seedy undercurrents fuelled by high unemployment, poverty and crime. Despite this reputation, however, I found Naples to be a wonderful city, full of vibrant colour and life and absolutely delicious food.

I was taken into her embrace as soon as I arrived - en route to my B&B, my taxi driver, Diego stopped at a little café in the port for ‘the best espresso in the city’ and it certainly lived up to its name! As we stood at the bar, sipping the scalding black liquid, I knew I had arrived.

I had booked into the B&B Alloggia Maria in the heart of the Centro Historico and on arriving, found it to be simple, yet comfortable and tucked away in one of the many cobbled side streets, it was in a perfect position from which to explore the city. After settling in, I found a tiny trattoria just around the corner from my hotel and tucked in to what has to be the best pizza I have ever eaten.

Famous for its pizza and the well-known tomato-based pasta Napolitana sauce, Naples teems with good places to eat if you know where to find them. Laying claim to inventing the classic Margherita pizza in 1889 to honour a visit by Queen Margherita (the red tomatoes, white mozzarella and green basil representing the colours of the then-new Italian flag), Pizzeria Brandi is a must for great Margherita pizza and a decent vino rosso.

The next day was spent exploring the city, wandering lazily through her myriad of tiny cobbled streets of the city, taking in the sights and sounds which make this ebullient metropolis tick. Although the centre of Naples is fairly compact, with the churches, convents and monasteries all situated around a few streets, stopping along the way for a cappuccino here and a Sfogliatella there - a delicacy of paper thin layers of pastry, oozing with butter, sugar, cinnamon, orange peel and ricotta cheese - took the best part of a day to take it all in. Must-sees are The Santa Domenica Maggiore, a Gothic church containing some of the finest Renaissance monuments and sculpture in Naples; the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, which houses one of the world’s greatest archaeological collections and the Quartiere Spagnoli (the Spanish Quarter), one of the city’s most densely populated areas. It is here that the archetypal Neopolitan scene comes to life, with brightly coloured laundry hanging high above the streets to dry and crowding out the sun.

The following day I made my way south to Pompeii to see the world-famous ruins of the once bustling Roman town. Nestled under the foreboding shadow of Mount Vesuvius, which still has the odd rumble today, the ruins of Pompeii show a city petrified in time and it was very humbling to walk through the cobbled streets and imagine what it must have been like for the residents in AD 79 when Vesuvius erupted. Pompeii can be reached fairly easily from Naples by train to Castellamare di Stabia or on the Metro line. After a wonderful day in the warm southern sun, I hopped on a train and made my way to Rome.

NAPLES

Quartiere Spagnola

Best cappucino in the world!

Standing guard - Italian-style!

Pizzeria Brandi - home to the birthplace of the Margherita pizza!

Unbelievable parma ham and buffalo mozzarella!

Spaghetti Frutti de Mare

POMPEII

Mount Vesuvius

Viva Roma!

While the age-old adage says that ‘Rome wasn’t conquered in a day’, the Ciao Roma hop-on, hop-off bus certainly allows you to do so. For around €20, you get a ticket valid for 24hr, which takes you to all the major tourist attractions and must-sees, allowing you to hop-on and off as you will and it’s a great way of seeing the whole city if you have very limited time as I did.

Beginning with the toll of the bells at the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, we made our way in a clockwise route around the city, taking in all the major sights, starting with the Ancient Centre, which includes The Capitol, the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome and the symbolic centre of the Roman world; Palatine Hill, where Romulus is said to have founded Rome in the 8^th Century BC; the Forum, once the focus of political, social, legal and commercial life in Rome and the Colosseum, the centre of entertainment for all Romans.

After a welcome pit-stop for the obligatory cappuccino, which is only drunk in the morning by locals, while caffe (espresso as we know it) is drunk throughout the day, we continued our journey through the streets of this sprawling city to The Vatican.

ROME

Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore