The Sicily Walk is beginning in Naples which I guess is rather silly and therefore appropriate in itself.
Rather less silly, let’s start at the beginning. We lobbed into Naples and immediately encountered a problem – one of us left a bag in the customs area and we were all outside. That is, we had entered Italy but one of the bags was not quite in Italy. So I and the owner of the bag had to figure out how to get back into customs to retrieve the bag. First problem – the doors only open from the inside so we had to wait until someone came out then we ducked in. Not very legal and we were immediately nabbed by the constabulary. After explaining the situation I was told to stay put and my companion was taken off to retrieve the bag in question. All done and noone was arrested. Goodish start.
That’s actually the third time I’ve done something similar. Once in India, at the boarding gate I was told that my carry-on had to have a baggage tag for the security guy at the gate to stamp otherwise why do you need a security guy at the gate. The tags were available at the check-in counter so I confidently (this is important) strode back out through customs and immigration then strode confidently back inside having secured a tag from check-in, and noone batted an eyelid. Another time I was sitting on a plane at Rio de Janeiro airport one night, having officially left Brazil albeit still sitting on the Rio airport tarmac but after many hours the plane didn’t take off due to a technical snag or more pertinently due to the guy who was supposed to fix the snag not being available. So we were all marched back through a darkened terminal with nary a customs or immigration person in sight. We were accommodated in hotels then returned to the airport the next day. On explaining the situation to the check-in chick, we were directed to an unmarked door which magically allowed us to skip immigration and customs again, as we had skipped it coming back in and viola, we were out of Brazil again.
So I haven’t had a chance to put a coherent flowing Naples narrative down up to now because we’ve been having too much fun. So here are some random thoughts to begin with.
The CB and I were in Nepal (that’s not a typo) a few years ago, just after the covid gates were slightly cracked open, and on the bus trip from the Katmandu airport terminal to the plane I was offered a seat by a young Asian lady. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or offended. Something similar happened again a few days back. We were in Pompei. The old Roman roads there are about 40-50cm below the narrow footpath so I was waiting to step up from the road onto the footpath as a stream of tourists went past. One of them, again a rather attractive young woman stopped and asked me if I needed a hand getting up onto the footpath. It was a warm day and we had done quite a bit of walking so I probably looked a bit frazzled…..but really. I think I’m doing okay for my age – won’t be climbing Everest anytime soon but still more than capable of doing…..this and that. But apparently I look pathetically hopeless and helpless to attractive young women. If I could produce that look on demand it’s a skill that could prove useful in another life in a parallel universe, but not now.
Never take short-cuts you haven’t first tested yourself. The CB and I and one of our mates decided to visit the Naples Archeological Museum which is 1.9km from our hotel and a 27 minute walk according to Google maps. After an hour of our unintended Naples walking tour we were 13 minutes away – half way – yea! And isn’t that railway line supposed to be on our right and not on our left?
We got there eventually and it was well worth it – it seemed like every statue and every fresco from Pompei and Herculaneum had been looted and deposited in the museum. One could assume the towns themselves are empty shells having been stripped bare. No, that is not the case and is a mightily unfair assumption because notwithstanding a lot of their stuff being removed, Pompei is now up there with my world highlights along with the Acropolis in Athens, the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, Niagara Falls, the Himalayas and that lap-dancing place in the Valley in Brisbane (speaking of stripped bare).