Thursday 16/02/23.
Today we would be venturing into underground Naples. We’d originally hoped to be out of our hotel by 8 a.m. to avoid paying the parking meter, but 8 a.m. is a ridiculous time, so as Lynx was the only one awake, and the only one who knew where the parking meter was, she paid.
Bay Watch
We drove to the Bay of Naples, lured there by Castel Dell’ovo. Egg Castle. According to legend, the Roman poet, Virgil, placed a magical egg in the foundations to support the fortifications. He had a reputation for being a sorcerer and a predictor of the future. The egg and Virgil’s remains are still there. If the egg breaks, the castle will be destroyed, and disaster will befall Naples.
It was closed for renovations.
A couple from California approached us, wanting to take photos with us. This happen to us a lot. Russian tourists in particular like to have photos with us. We’re as much of a tourist attraction as the buildings! We walked around the castle, stalking and photographing cats that were the same colour as two of our cats back home, Phoenix and Storm. Phoenix is a tabby, while Storm is black. We did an impromptu tour around the streets, led by a sprightly black cat. Naples Storm. While following a cat seems like the easiest way to get kidnapped by fairies, Italy isn’t known for its fairy legends so we were probably safe.
We explored some of the bay, buying a Naples pin badge and a bag of sweets. We wandered through Molosiglio Gardens, finding a suitable lamppost for pole poses and went to take photos of Castel Nuovo. Some of the buildings had beautiful cacti gardens between them. We got back to Il Capitano the same time as the parking ticket ran out, and someone wanted our space.
Overground Underground
Next stop: underground Naples. We thought yesterday’s trek from the airport was stressful. This made that seem like a leisurely Sunday drive. SatNav was tormenting us, making us drive in circles through narrow, one way streets, with shops flanking us, and pedestrians and scooters bombarding us from every direction. Had SatNav tricked us into driving through a pedestrian zone? The scooters and signs for parking said otherwise. It should have been. The turns are 90 degrees. In Cardiff, they don’t usually let you take those turns. But this is Naples. There are no laws.
Cat got fed up and switched SatNav off, leaving us to navigate this hellish labyrinth alone. We wouldn’t have been surprised to find a minotaur waiting for us. One kind local guided us through a narrow passage after noticing we’d driven past him three times. A man with pizzeria leaflets directed us to parking spaces and offered us free pizza. Mi dispiace, signore, your pizzas are wasted on us. The pizza we tried in Venice still haunts us six years later. We parked Il Capitano in the first space we found, not caring if we had to walk for two hours. Dante can keep his circles of hell. We had an underground to explore.
Church of Skulls
We walked the ten minutes to Napoli Sotterranea (underground Naples), only to find we were an hour and 20 minutes early for the English tour. The English tours were 12 and 2. It was 12:40 p.m. SatNav’s trickery wasted a lot of time. Perhaps Italy does have a fairy problem after all. We tried to find a toilet, and failed as miserably as we failed to find a parking space. None of the eateries seemed to have them. To kill time, and to see if they had a toilet, we decided to visit a museum that was located beneath a church – Complesso Museale di Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco. Otherwise known as Chiesa delle cape di morte – the church of the skulls. We’re not religious, but if we were, that would be our chosen church. We were tempted to buy a tote bag.
A cemetery room lurked beneath the church, but sadly, photographs were prohibited. Stone steps lead to what looks like an empty church, devoid of warmth and worship, but beyond this is a passage, where ancient skulls and bones are displayed in niches. People make offerings in the form of coins in the skulls’ eye sockets, and photos of dead loved ones. In a room at the end of the passage, rows of graves lined two walls – earthy mounds with a single rose lying on each one.
Cult of the Purgatory Souls
Between the 17th-19th C, a large, nameless grave lay in the centre of the lower church. It contained the remains of locals too poor to be buried in the church. A cult, culto delle anime pezzentelle, adopted the skulls, cleaned and worshipped them to reduce their time in Purgatory. They hoped that when the souls reached heavens, they’d offer graces and blessings as gratitude. We guess it’s the ancient equivalent of getting regular updates and photos when you adopt an animal. The catholic church, despite its penchant for dismembering saints and gifting their bones as relics, eventually thought it was superstitious and put a stop to it in 1969. You can always rely on the church to ruin a good time.
The most famous skull, Lucia, wears a tiara. She was named after a neon sign left by her skull. People leave her gifts of jewellery and bridal bouquets. Legend states that she was an 18th C teenage bride who died of tuberculosis and thus became the protector of young brides. To think, we were looking for a toilet and found a cult of skull-worshippers.
Going Underground
We still needed the toilet, and still had time to kill so found a gelato place, Salvatore Capparelli. The toilets were for paying customers only, so Lynx queued to ask if there were any vegan flavours while Cat snuck to the toilet. The strawberry and lemon flavours were vegan, so we bought a large tub of strawberry gelato each. Gelato is one of our safe foods, so we’re always looking for gelaterias when we go abroad.
We made our way back to Napoli Sotterranea. A chubby faced grotesque sits above the entrance, giving it an air of menace. Our tour group had about 30 people in it, which is 30 too many for our liking so we hung back to take photos, succeeding in not getting a single tourist in them. It’s not a particularly helpful gift, but when superpowers were handed out, we got ‘losing tour groups’. It won’t get us into the Avengers, but it does get us good travel photos.
Underground Naples
The entrance contains wire frames of workers and soldiers, with toy cars covered in stone dust. It looks as though previous occupants abandoned them. The tour doesn’t even cover the full subterranean area, as it’s massive, and the section with the old cars wasn’t open until Sunday. This was becoming an unwelcome theme on this trip. Narrow corridors leading to an underground pool meant people had to turn sideways to fit, but being of mining ancestry, we fitted perfectly fine. The pool area is stunning, with turquoise water in what looks like a cave. We could’ve stayed there for hours. Underground Naples is much calmer than overground Naples. It’s definitely not as above so below.
We emerged from the underground and headed back to Il Capitano. Finding him was easier than finding a parking space. Everywhere else on our list was closed (disadvantage in travelling out of season) so we bid farewell to Naples.
Disappearing Act
Next on the agenda was finding our home for the night – a villa out in the mountains. We drove through a lovely quiet town called Roccarainola, where we were staying. It’s a world away from Naples. No car horns, no scooters, no nearly dying behind the wheel. Drivers stop at stop signs and red lights, they don’t force their way through narrow gaps, and they took turns. It was so civilised. But we were still in Naples mode. We weren’t civilised.
We found a house that resembled the villa on AirBnb. The host hadn’t sent through any check in details, which was making us suspicious, so Cat messaged him and texted him. 45 minutes later, there was no reply. Cat phoned him. No answer. Lynx phoned him. No answer. Lynx took a walk to find the villa but returned defeated. An hour later, Cat contacted AirBnb and explained that we couldn’t get in touch with the host and he hadn’t sent check in details. They told us to find a restaurant and photograph the receipt. They would reimburse us £20 each for a meal. This was Venice all over again, except we were driving, not walking and lugging our heavy suitcase around, and sitting on the Settee of Despair.
Food for Thought
We found a pizza restaurant that sold vegan chips, which are another of our safe foods. We go to some culinary hotspots, but our ARFID (avoidance restrictive food intake disorder) means we generally live off fruit, chips and gelato. The waiter warned us that they were large portions and suggested we share. Hunger overrode reason and we ordered a plate each. We should have heeded his warning. The portions were large and we struggled to finish them.
By 11 p.m., there was still no response from our host or AirBnb so Cat phoned them again. AirBnb’s lack of communication really stressed us out. We were stranded in a random town with nowhere to sleep. They needed to learn from Luca, who looked after us in Venice. If you can’t get in touch with the host, fine, but at least let us know.
They couldn’t reach the host so sent through a shortlist of nearby rentals to choose from, with the promise they would refund us for the villa and reimburse us for the new place. Cat contacted a place that looked promising, but the host never responded. Yet he charged us for staying there! AirBnb issued another refund. We had two choices – hang around Roccarainola in the hope the host responded, or get a head start on our Pompeii adventure by driving there overnight.
Homeless In Pompeii
Seeing as we’d planned to spend our birthday in Pompeii, we drove there, arriving at exactly midnight – our 40th birthday! Valentine’s Day decorations bedecked the town, with heart lights and cupids above all the streets and a giant illuminated heart on the grass outside the Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii. We spent a while taking photos and doing poses inside the heart, instead of doing what our mum wanted us to do and look for somewhere to stay.
Being homeless in Pompeii wasn’t how we imagined spending our 40th birthday, but at least it was memorable. At 1:30 a.m., we decided that the sensible thing to do would be to find a hotel and spend the night. Option B was sleep in the car, but we wanted to charge our camera for our Pompeii adventure. We drove around, but being 1:30 a.m in February, most of the hotels were closed. Now we knew how Mary and Joseph felt! Unfortunately there weren’t any nearby stables for us to sleep in, and neither of us were close to giving birth to Jesus.
We finally found one that had lights on. Hotel Palma. It’s a 4 star hotel, a world away from our Naples accommodation. Through broken Italian, we asked if they had a room for the night and would they accept cash. They did. €129. He took our passports, with the promise to return them when we checked out. Is this a legitimate practise for expensive hotels, or were we about to be trafficked? But breakfast was included in the price. And we could charge our camera.
Read Day 1.
Read Day 3.