Day Sixteen - Jun 6, 2012

Naples, Italy to Night Train

High Point: Sketching and lounging in Naple's surprisingly quiet parks

Low Point: A couple of false starts before we zeroed in on an all park day

Miles By Foot: 12

Today's Antiquities: Not really that kind of day, be we think stumbled on the original arch of Naples

Today's Weather: Sunny, in the low eighties. Hot on the pavement, lovely in the parks

Tonight's Lodging: The night train to Palermo

Touristic Events: Naple's Botanical Gardens and Capital Hill Parks

Travel Tip: Checking our backpacks at the train station for the day turned out to be a great answer

Daily Didactic

We had given thought to heading to the Amalfi Coast today. Everyone has said we must. After looking at logistics for a day trip we decided it was just a bit much train and bus travel after yesterday. We decided instead to sleep in a bit and "take a day" in Naples. We checked out of our hotel at 11:00 and exited the "pretty cool to look at" University/Historic District. We checked our backpacks at "Left Luggage" in the train station and headed out into Naples without much of a clue. We started off a little unsuccessful in finding a bite to eat (Brian) or a place to sketch (Theresa). After a wrong direction or two we found ourselves yet another pizza (seriously, they are $3-$5 for an entire pizza, which they insist are for one person) and then stumbled upon the Naples Botanical Garden. This turned out to be a free and absolutely beautiful oasis in the middle of kind of crazy Naples. Sadly it closed an hour after we got there, so we were midday looking for another goal. We found another park on our map and headed, a little errantly, up the fairly steep hill behind Naples toward it. With some local guidance, we eventually found the Capital Hill park. It had an amazing view of Naples and a perfect lawn for sketching and lounging. Theresa did the former and Brian the latter for a few hours before we descended the hill back toward the train station. We took a stab and failed to find the port (we think it may be a little more industrial than scenic). We found a great little sidewalk dinner spot and then got our bags out of check. We killed an hour or so in the Naples terminal sketching and writing this before catching the night train to Palermo.