Travel Day: Rome to Naples

Okay, let's get back to recapping our adventure in Italy from September shall we? I went for margaritas with my sister yesterday and she reminded me how I sort of left it hanging after posting about our day at Vatican City. So here I am continuing on with a little bit more of our trip! Our next day was a travel day to re-position ourselves from Rome to Naples. But we started the day in Rome with time to kill before our afternoon train and we wanted to cram in some additional touristy things.

We booked tickets to the Galleria Borghese, a beautiful 17th century villa owned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese that contains an extensive art collection. For what it's worth, it has works of Bernini, Canova, Titian, Caravaggio, and Raphael, but to be honest I was more interested in the actual villa and the decor. It really inspired me to add some frescoes to our house. Lol. And the gardens were so pretty.

We spent about an hour and a half (the tickets are timed for two hour time slots) wandering the Villa and fantasizing how it would have been to live there looking at the artwork and statues.  I really liked one statue in particular called "David", a marble statue sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini depicting the moment before David overtook Goliath.

My overall favorite was "Venus Victorious", a huge marble statue sculpted by Antonio Cavona to depict Napoleon's sister Paolina Borghese Bonaparte. I kid you not, the marble looked like a legit cushion.

And just check out how opulent that room is! I think we might redo our flooring and walls in a similar fashion. Lol. Walking through the gallery was sensory overload with all the colors and textures but I'm really glad we fit a visit to the Borghese gallery into our trip.

We also saw Bernini's other famous works "Pluto and Persephone" and "Apollo and Daphne":

Then it was off to Naples. Did you know that Bernini was born in Naples in 1598??  But first we stopped at the Piazza Navona and had some gelato. Naturally.

Then it was off Naples. The train was only about an hour and a half or so but I love European trains because they always feed us snacks....and prosecco!

Before we knew it we were in Naples.

Now, brief story so no one repeats our mistake. Despite our hatred of taxis, we decided to take a taxi from the train station to our hotel. Our hotel was on Via Partenope and there is a fixed 15 euro fee for that trip. However, you have to ask for the "tariffa fissa"(fixed tariff) up front or else you end up paying more....like 22 euros. It's not MUCH of a difference but nothing makes you feel more like an incompetent American tourist than getting ripped off by a taxi driver...

So heed my warning, ask if there's a fixed fee before getting into any taxi. Also, take a photo of your taxi cab number or some form of ID in the cab in case you need to assert a grievance (which we could have done had I taken a photo of the taxi number).

Once we got to the hotel room we checked out the views from the balcony and roof:

Our hotel was right across from the Castel dell Ovo, a seaside castle that you can climb up to the top of and look out at Mt. Vesuvius to the left and Posillipo to the right. We didn't bother to visit the castle since we could already see those views from our hotel room's balcony. But seeing Mt. Vesuvius looming and stalking in the distance gave me butterflies. Everyone knows what Mt. Vesuvius is capable of!

To close out our first night in Naples we ventured into downtown Naples (beware: the metro is so shady and you are warned about pickpockets EVERYWHERE so you have to be reallllly careful in Naples--I didn't even bring my purse out with us). We settled on Pizzeria Brandi for dinner since it claims to be the birthplace of the Margherita pizza. The story is that the pizzeria opened in 1780 and its pizza maker made pizza pies for Queen Margherita that resembled the Italian flag's colors and she loved it and kept asking him to make more pizza every time she was nearby.

We considered Da Michele but it was insanely crowded because it was featured in Eat Pray Love (which I did not know but was pretty neat and now I want to watch the movie and it's a fun bit of trivia). We were happy with Pizzeria Brandi but it definitely seemed to cater to American tourists. Also, the pizza was good but not the best I've ever had.

We went to sleep somewhat early because we knew we had a long day ahead of us. I can't wait to share!

Have you ever been to Naples? What did you think? Were you put off by all the warnings about pickpockets and thieves??