Naples, Italy

Last winter break I studied abroad in Italy! One weekend we went to Naples and it was gorgeous! I was studying in Rome so Naples was great to see a quieter town and feel the salty breeze. It was my first time staying in a hostel! But it went well! My study abroad friends and I got a room all to ourselves and the owners of the hostel were welcoming!

  

By the hostel owner’s recommendation, we took a self-guided walking tour of Naples. We started walking along the coast, and it was so nice to smell the salty breeze of the ocean air. If Rome was New York, Naples was San Francisco. There were cats hanging out on the rocks! People were leisurely enjoying their day and we were enjoying the scenery of this gorgeous town.

                            

We walked along the waterfront and met some fishermen who were selling fresh fish to the locals. We stopped and talked to them for a while and watched them selling what they had just caught. There was even octopus! The octopus kept trying to escape so the fisherman would blind them and throw them back into their tanks.

  

Along our walking tour we visited the Castel dell’Ovo, an old castle with a beautiful view.

  

Window shopped at Via Toledo and took in all the surrounding scenery.

  

And sight seeing at the Piazza del Plebiscito. Where some locals were hanging out along the steps.

      

The best part of the day was getting pizza in the town where pizza was first made! The hostel owner recommended Pizzeria De Michele which was in the downtown part of Naples. We got some pizza to-go because it was packed! And brought it back to the hostel to enjoy it. There were people inside Pizzeria De Michele that had a fork and knife and were eating the entire pizza themselves! That’s when we knew we were in for a treat! The pizza was more similar to American pizza than the pizza in Rome, but it was still very unique and delicious! The pizza was huge and the dough was rolled out flat, the sauce was so good and there wasn’t a great deal of cheese so it really made you appreciate the difference sauces. The slices were huge and the five of us ate those three pizzas and it was one of the best pizzas I have ever had!

                       

This was just part one of our Naples trip, with part two including hiking up Mount Vesuvius and seeing Pompeii! But the first day of Naples was amazing! And I would definitely recommend it as a stop on any trip to Italy!