Naples < Capri

Naples

Yes, I am still blogging but haven’t been very good at keeping up, so my blog for Switzerland is still in progress. However, blogging about my trip this weekend should be much easier.

This weekend we went to Naples. Not knowing much about Italy before getting here, I learned most of the geography of Italy while being here, I’m not going to lie and say I knew prior to that. In terms of Naples, it’s name was familiar to me, so I assumed it would be just as cool as the rest of the places we’ve been. Anddd in my opinion it wasn’t. Still very cool to have visited it, but from the moment we got out of the train station, I kind of wanted to get out of there.

Upon arriving, we got directions to our Airbnb which was about a mile away and began our walk. Not to our advantage, I was hangry and it was hot. Not the best combo, but had to rock with it. It seemed like we were kind of dodging scary situations left and right until we got to the main street the tourists were on. There was laundry hanging from all 6/7 stories in this alley which was super cool because of how different it is for us in the US. We passed by tons of shops along the way. When we were about half way, I decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer and got the first sandwich I saw at the most accessible and not crowded shop I could find. BEST SANDWICH EVER. I think it had bacon bits, ricotta cheese (honestly could have been a different cheese), and I’m not sure what else, but I literally just pointed at it and basically counted the seconds until I could take a bite and it was worth every second.

Getting into our 4th floor (so US 5th floor) flat, we immediately fell for the bed that had a single sheet on it. We didn’t talk or move for about an hour and a half. Once the tiredness passed, it was time to get up and use the short time we had in Naples. We walked down to the water and saw a cool castle!

Then it was dinner time. On our walk to dinner, we stopped in OVS. We stopped a cafe and got one sfogliatella and one babá, which you can see in the photos below. We walked pass some live music, cool bars, and many strayed cats. Finally, at the famous pizza place, Gino Sorbillo, we decided we weren't going to wait to eat for 2 hours, so we proceeded onward. We walked down three shops and went into a restaurant with basically the same name and got seated immediately. Not so sure how this was going to compare, we had low expectations, but we’re happy we were getting food. All food in Italy is good food.

Delivered by an adorable little boy, who seemed to be the owners of the stores son, the pizza arrived! To our surprise, it became our favorite pizza we’ve had maybe ever. It was perfect. It had the right thickness of dough on the inside and a beautiful thick outer crust that was obviously freshly made. I love crust and it was the most perfectly made crust I’ve ever had. It was so fluffy, yet crunchy, just great (if it was enlarged, it probably would have been way more comfortable than any pillow I’ve slept on in Italy). We saved our leftovers in hopes of enjoying it Saturday night as well.

After dinner, we decided to have an early night because we had to get up at 6:30 to go to Capri on an early ferry. Sleeping was so hard because we were right next to the street where everything seemed to be going on. I think there may have been a concert or something because they were going till 4 am. It was the worst sleep we got on a trip, yet.

Capri

Ferrying to Capri went quite well. Haley and I had our croissants and cappuccinos and we were set for a great boat ride.

Arriving at Capri, we set off to explore the town. We walked nearly all of the side of Capri we were on. We explored the shops, restaurants, and the ports little mini beaches. We got lured into a restaurant by the employees who were obviously trying to target us, tourists, but we didn’t care because they had pina coladas and drinks in a whole watermelon. We sat there and were entertained by the staff because we were some of the only customers at the time. We didn’t have anything planned until our boat ride so it worked perfectly. They also seemed to be entertained by us so we were all having a good time. The staff guessed I was 20 correctly and made fun of me for ordering a virgin pina colada. I wasn’t the only one who got made fun of because they guessed Haley’s age as 11, haha. The one bartender who was talking to us, who I call the pirate because he looked like one, decided to ask us about our types. We joked around with him here and there and after a little, he ended up deciding I was his love. Haley snapped a great picture of the two of us. But don’t worry, it was all jokes and he wasn’t the creepy type. He just seemed to like to joke around so we weren’t scared or anything. I just kept telling him no because I was a child. You can see in the photo he Is fake kissing my cheek because I told him he couldn’t actually kiss my cheek. Also, side note, the lemons were huge.

After leaving our new friends, we went for a beautiful boat ride all around Capri. It was so nice to get to tan and relax. There were a few times that Haley and I felt like we were about to fall out because of the huge waves. The beach we stopped at to swim in was gorgeous and the water was clear as day. I knew I loved Capri on this boat ride. It was unbelievable and only made us think about Gods glory.

After the boat ride, we went back and had lunch with our friends and asked them for suggestions on what to do. As we were trying to figure it out, I saw a large man with a Lakers jersey on and he looked familiar to me, but not as if I knew him personally. It took me a second to realize it was Chase DeMore from Too Hot to Handle, a Netflix show. He wasn’t exactly a great character on the show. I was surprised I recognized him after not watching that it for so long. I didn’t fangirl or anything, just wanted to blog about seeing him. Next, we went to get gelato at the top of the island, which we had to hike up to get to. The beautiful stone walls and vines made it not such a bad thing, but we definitely were breaking a sweat. The gelato was delicious and not generic - so worth the hike. We got to see all of the island from there and it was so pretty. Being from California, it reminded us of Catalina island but definitely bigger and had not as colorful of buildings. We walked around in more shops at the top of the hill, even venturing to the luxury area and then it was time for us to go.

Back in Naples, we were excited after a long day to go back to our leftover pizza from the night before. After a long walk back from the port, our prized pizza had disappeared. The housekeeper took it when she came and we were livid. Long story short, we went back down to the shops that were thankfully very close to us and Haley got a burrito and I got a pita sandwich. You could say we survived.

This morning, we had a late afternoon train and had already decided we weren’t huge fans of Naples, especially in comparison to Capri. So, we were going to try to fill our day doing things like shopping in stores we are familiar with and sleeping in. Then, I was scrolling through stories and saw that two of our good friends, who are studying abroad in another part of Italy, were in Naples. We instantly packed up and headed to where they were because they only had an hour layover in between their flight and train. So, we Ubered to the coffee shop and got to see them which was so sweet. It felt like home and a little taste of normal.

After they left, Haley and I decided we wanted to go to the train station because we were so close to try to switch our train to earlier but there weren’t any available. We found a spot in the food court where we could do our quiet time and wait the train out.

On this train ride home, we were very efficient and organized our week long break we have coming up soon, which I can say will be quite awesome. Overall, Capri is definitely one of my favorite places I’ve been. Naples had some of the best food I’ve ever had. This trip was short and sweet. Back home to Rome we go.

Catch ya later ♡,

Monroe in Naples