"We stood out on the balcony, the cool summer's evening breeze gently
blowing through our hair. 
The
lights of Naples sprawled before us in every direction as if a star had
fallen from the sky and exploded beneath us. 'Wow' was the only reaction
the kids had as they stepped out on the balcony. 'Amazing' was all
I could say." Sounds like the beginning of a book. Ended
up being the ending to a rather nonplused first day for us in Naples.
It is late August. It is also amazing to me how different southern Italy is from our northern habitat in Trento. We got off the couchette train this morning. I awoke at 06h10. I knew that because we were stopped in a train station and I could see the clock on the platform. The kids were still sound asleep. Our train wouldn't arrive in Roma. until 07h30 so I could let them sleep a bit longer. We needed to change trains to finish our journey to Napoli. We ended up not taking the ordinario train and ended up having to pay the supplement. That was my mistake. I had not looked at the schedule right away and we missed our train. We arrived in Napoli and immediately took a cab as Vincenzo and Rosa had suggested.
Our cabbie was a talkative Italian. He spoke English and claimed
to have lived in the states for a while. On the trip to the hotel,
he suggested taking me and the kids out to Pompeii himself and then out
on down to Sorrento and another coastal city tomorrow with sometime to
spend on the beach. All this for the fantastic price of 200k lire.
He even had a number of brochures at the back of the cab that detailed
the day trips out of Naples. At first I thought it was a great idea.
But then as the day grew on I thought about how Vincenzo said that taxi's
were known for taking people out into the middle of nowhere and robbing
them. So tomorrow, we are going to decline the offer to go and will
simply leave the hotel before the cabbie is due to arrive. If we
do see him I'll make up an excuse that we are meeting a friend of mine
that I didn't think was going to be in town... but is. 
We were dropped off at our hotel, and charged 30k lire (or about US$18).
One thing I didn't like about the cabbie was that he was not running his
meter. That was the first time in 2 months in Italy that that has
happened. So I'm sure he is a rip off artist.
We checked into the Hotel Belvedere (a 3 star hotel) and were led to
our room. The first impression was disappointing. The room
is small, and the bathroom is even smaller. We went out onto the
balcony and my impression suddenly got considerably better. The view
of Naples from here is spectacular. I can't tell in the low resolution
of my laptop how well it shows, but Mt. Vesuvius is in the background behind
the tree. Simply a spectacular sight. This is the closest I
have ever been to a volcano. 
And
after tomorrow I'll be even closer!
We still needed to scarf down some lunch, so we headed out to find something to eat. Well, was I ever surprised that NOTHING is open around here (Vemero)! I expected at least a gelataria or some dive pizzeria but none of the places we passed were open. We finally stumbled across a McDonalds and that was open. Certainly disappointing to have to eat here but we were not left with many choices. It is odd to me as even though most people are on vacation, back where I live in northern Italy, Trento, at least some of the restaurants and stores were open.
We finished eating at McD's and headed on back to the hotel room to
rest. 
While
we had slept on the couchette, I certainly was not well rested. I
think the kids had slept well but they were still a bit slow today.
It had also started pouring rain too, so that was a good incentive to stay
inside. We hung out for a bit outside of the hotel watching the rain
storm moving in. There was plenty of lightning and thunder accompanying
the storm. And more than one lightning bolt was striking into the
city itself below us. Once it started getting too close for my comfort
we headed to our room.
After a few of hours of relaxing we headed out into the streets again
to hunt down dinner. This time, I figured we'd hit the autobus. 
I
thought if perhaps we rode out on the bus a bit we would find someplace
open to eat at. The bus drove on, and on, and on, before I realized,
we were almost back at the hotel! 
After
a 40 minute bus ride, we still hadn't passed an open restaurant, pizzeria,
supermarket, alimentaria, ... ANYTHING! Christ, this was not going
well at all. The thought of eating yet a second meal at McDonalds
was really distasteful. Stephen finally suggested eating at the hotel
restaurant. I wanted to avoid eating there as most of the hotel restaurants
we have eaten at here in Italy have been a major disappointment.
We could always get a better meal at a local establishment. But this
time, it seems we had no other choice. We ended up back at the hotel.
Went back to our room to clean up a bit and then headed off to the hotel's
restaurant. The hotel is set up in a rather odd manner. 
As
we are on the side of a steep hill, the main entrance and restaurant on
on the ground level and all the rooms are at negative levels below.
We arrived at the restaurant and sat down to eat. The restaurant
was empty. There were some people in the seated bar area but that
was it. The restaurant has an even better view of Naples than our
hotel room. It was definitely nice being able to eat dinner with
Mt Vesuvius clearly visible in the background. 
One
downside to this restaurant is that the selections were rather limited.
The menu had many items that the waiter said were unavailable. In
fact, I'd say about half of what we originally wanted was not available.
That was a disappointment. And I don't know what our final bill was.
The waiter put it on our hotel bill and didn't give me a receipt for the
dinner. That makes me rather wary. Hopefully they have a copy
of the check with the final bill to examine.
We headed back to the room, and the kids and I needed to shower. I went in to get the shower started for the kids and here came the BIGGEST disappointment with the hotel. Apparently, the showerhead is so clogged with minerals, that hardly any of the water is making it through! While we have great water pressure in the sink, the shower is like a trickling brook about to dry up. This is ridiculous, I thought to myself. It took forever to get the kids showered up, much less myself. Not to mention, that the bathroom is small, and with no shower curtain on the shower, there is water everywhere. Even the floor at one point was severely flooding.
Well, with that done, we ended up standing on the balcony gawking at
the amazing nighttime view that had presented itself. 
It
is very reminicent of the view I had from my apartment in the Presidential
Towers in Chicago. The city simply sprawled out from under my feet. 
I
don't know how well these photos from the digital camera look like yet.
My laptop resolution is only 640x480 so what I'm seeing is rather blotchy.
I'm going to check it out from my desktop when I get back to it.
So while I can highly recommend the Belvedere for it's magnificent view
of Napoli, I really have to give it low points for all the other aspects
you expect from a 3 star hotel.
I am going to hit the sack, I'm tired.
Copyright @ 1997, Alexandre POLOZOFF. All Rights Reserved.
