Saturday - Naples, Italy

Arriving at the main Naples train station was not nearly the dram fest that John and I thought it would be.  We had read many different websites that talked about how prevalent pick pockets are in Italy, especially in Naples, and then mucho especially in the train station.  It wasn't, but we wore our money belts anyways (we followed the Rick Steve's approach, wear a money, travel light).

The hotel was pretty awesome.  It was just a short (but terrifying) taxi ride away from the Train station.  We had a walking tour scheduled, and got a view of the city.  The guide was all right, it seemed like she really didn't take us to the actual main road, but she was pretty enthusiastic.  We were just a little bit tired going on the walking tour, and might have looked a bit like zombies, because she suggested that we end early.  Since the tours seemed to consist of walking through small alleys, lots of churches, and walking straight into the sun so you couldn't see, we didn't protest.  One cool part though was that we somehow ended up walking in a local churches parade to St. Mary, and so walking through flags and then a lot of guys hoisting a fairly large float to St. Mary on their backs.

Diner found us trying to find an open restaurant at 6:30pm (We have now learned that opening time for restaurants is actual 7:30) and pretty much wondering for about 45 minutes till we found one that was decent, and didn't shoo us away.  The name I think translates to something like the brotherhood of the buffalo, but it was a restaurant the focused on water bufflo meat and cheese (mozzarella di bufala).  I was really excited because I have read a lot about mozzarella di bufala, and hadn't really tried any before.  So for dinner I order an appetizer of grilled veggies and mozzarella di bufala, and then a pesto cream pasta.  The appetizer was great, the cheese tasted richer then normal fresh mozzarella and was a great contrast to the grilled veggies (mostly eggplant and zucchini).  The problem came with the pasta, it was cold.  Really didn't decribe the pasta as cold in the menu, so I wasn't expecting it.  Plus then it was too saltly to be truely edable.  Which was said because it did seem to have a great basil taste, but was just overwelmed.  John's meal was about the same, pretty good apitizer with a surprising (but not in a good way) main meal that was kinda dissappointing.  The owner was so nice, and helpful that we didn't want to say anything, so kinda just ate and ran.

We just wanted to get back to the hotel after that experiece, so didn't even try to get any gelato. But I had plenty of other chances to try some.  So that ended our first day in Naples, tiring but at least it was easier and safer to get around then we thought.