Rome via Brooklyn

776 words, 4 minutes read time – DOUBLE POST

(Ten points to whoever knows this quote lmao)

My first impression of Napoli was …. honestly, underwhelming. I was immediately turned off by the sights and smells when we exited the train station. The walk to the luggage storage wasn’t too far, but just those few blocks really solidified the “gritty” reputation that Napoli has. To me, gritty feels like a kind word to describe it – frankly, I just thought it was gross.

My buddies before lunch were Joseph and Isabel. We decided to slowly make our way to the restaurant, making little stops at places along the way.

The first place we stopped was Chiesa di San Filippo Neri. The inside was absolutely gorgeous (and cool, which was a nice, welcomed bonus). There’s this particular kind of serene beauty when entering a church that makes me just want to sit in there for hours. Obviously, we didn’t really have that time, but we passed a good 30 minutes in there just admiring the painting and the details of all the statues before taking a walk to kill time before lunch. We originally tried to find another church, but got a little lost following the signs. This ended up turning into a fun little surprise because we found a few really cool museums that we had wanted to visit – one of which being the Museum of Torture. Unfortunately, there was no time before or after lunch, so should we find ourselves in Napoli again we’ll have to go.

For lunch, we sat down at a restaurant called Pizzeria I Decumani. It’s apparently one of the best in Napoli, but I mostly felt it was average. The flavors of the pizza were delicious, and I’d been dying for artichoke so I was really happy to finally have some. However, for me, it was a little too underdone and I didn’t enjoy how floppy it was in the middle. Shout out to the Tide pen that saved me and Joseph from sauce stains on our clothes. On our way out, we ended up running into a Brooklyn College student who just so happened to be traveling in Naples. It was such a fun, small world moment and I’m glad she was able to join us at the museum.

After lunch, we made our way (in the unbearable heat) to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. The museum was pretty cool, and Ace did such a great job on their presentation! I particularly like the Secret Cabinet. I’m endlessly fascinated by sexuality and sexual imagery in the Ancient world. In this exhibit, I was interested in the hermaphrodite statue, which was meant to force the viewer to question their own sexuality.

Once we were dismissed from the museum, Joseph and I took off to try and see a statue of the Veiled Christ. It took a minute to get there, and we were disappointed to see that tickets were sold out, so we went to the Duomo instead. We were both interested in the photos that decorated the outside of the building and we learned that the photos were part of a project by someone named JR called “Le Cronache di Napoli”, which invited anyone passing by to participate – there are exactly 606 Neapolitans featured in the big collage.

After the Duomo, we had a little time to kill before collecting our bags, so we decided to grab a drink. We ended up at this really loud bar where the guy shoved his phone in our face asking us where we were from. Within minutes we were up on the bar’s Tiktok page. After one drink, we grabbed our things from the luggage storage and headed to the train.

At the train station, we were all a little nervous to get lost after the debacle that Tina and Isabel. Thankfully, everything went pretty smoothly and we arrived in Pompeii in about an hour. At this point, I was completely exhausted and just wanted a shower, so I practically ran to the room and jumped right in.

Dinner in the hotel was really delicious, albeit a little expensive for a dish of pasta. I had this incredible pasta alla genovese, which is this onion and beef ragù – I was practically licking my plate it was so delicious. I wish I had taken a picture, but I scarfed it down too quickly.

Overall, it was an okay day. Maybe I didn’t give Napoli a fair chance, but it definitely wasn’t may favorite place to visit so far. If I find myself there again in the future, I’ll do my best to give it another chance. Who knows? Maybe it will surprise me.