Naples, Italy - Mar 29, 2013

Naples, is the principle town of the region of Campania, it lies on the north side of the Bay of Naples. Naples is laid out in a semicircle grid with the silhouette of Mount Vesuvius gracing its background. This is our fourth visit to Naples and I must say that with each visit I come to like this city more and more. Our first visit was a blow by on a bus tour where our guide told us to basically stay away from Naples, that it was just a crazy place. On our second visit we used it as a transfer hub as we were listening to the advice of our previous experience but we did get to know the city a little bit as we had some time to wait for our ferry and this is when we did not think it was such crazy place after all. Last November was our most recent visit where we gave the city a chance by staying in town the full day with the Hop on Hop off experience (see our prior posts for this visit) where we found this city to be very interesting with its streets, people, shopping and food. Today with barely a map in hand we ventured on foot into the throat of Naples and had just a great day. We wandered into a couple residential areas with all the high-rises with local shops in the tiny streets, we took the funicular to one of these areas where we also visited a 16th century castle giving us commanding views over the city, Mediterranean Sea, Vesuvius and the Isle of Capri - just magnificent. We had a late lunch at The Rossa Pompadour (The Red Tomato) where we enjoyed Pizza of course and to close the day off we did some retail therapy where I got involved for once and purchased a nice pair (my opinion of course) of shoes. All aboard time was 5:30 pm we clocked in at a comfortable 5:25. Rome tomorrow, not sure what our game plan is as of the time of writing, with Easter celebrations going on it may just be too crazy to visit Rome this time around - we will see. Anyways, here is our day in pictures...