Mark and I went down on Thursday night for a long weekend. We took Cooper with us on the overnight train and pulled into Napoli Centrale around 10:30 on Friday morning - that's an 11 hour train right for anyone keeping track. Cooper did GREAT on the train,especially considering that we were in a seated (no sleeper) compartment that was 5/6 full.
Mark's sister-in-law J picked us up from the train station and took us back to her house. Mark's brother, R, was at work and since nearly the entire Spaccanapoli (old town Naples) was shut down, we ended up spending the day hanging out, touring around, and having J show us where they worked.
Friday evening, we decided to go out for dinner after R got off work. Instead of heading all the way to Naples (R & J live in a suburb called Pozzuoli), we headed to the Pozzuoli town square. Since Friday was Assumption Day, aka Ferragosto, there was a big festival atmosphere all over the town. We were lucky enough to find a parking spot and get to the bay just in time for the fireworks to go off over the Bay of Naples.
Why were there fireworks? For the Ferragosto holiday! Ferragosto is also the general term for the last couple weeks of August. After kicking off on Assumption Day, 99% of Italy shuts down until September. No joke, I even found out that the grocery store we've relied on for the past couple weeks is also shutting down this weekend! While they'll open again in September, I had to run and grab something so that Mark would have food in the fridge when he comes home this weekend! Honestly, every grocery store within walking distance is officially closed. We're lucky that public transit is (mostly) running since we'll certainly have to bus to the store.
But back to the fireworks. They were pretty cool and had my favorite - the glittery kind that sparkles down. Afterwards, we walked around town and settled on a restaurant for dinner...at 10pm. No menu, everything was pre-set for the holiday. I was a bit apprehensive since it seemed like a touristy joint but it was FABULOUS. For the 30 euro, the food and wine kept coming! Lots of seafood - fresh mussels, giant clams, calamari, shrimp, fried dough balls (a Neapolitan special). For the pasta course, it was a fresh linguine with clams. Yummmm. We ended up so full on aperativo and pasta that we didn't even get to the main course.
Saturday, we rented a boat with the intention of heading to Capri or Ischia. Unfortunately, the waves were pretty choppy and we ended up just hanging out and boating around the bay. The weather was beautiful and we dropped anchor a few times so that we could jump out and swim around. Cooper was with us and LOVED swimming in the Mediterranean!
Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning was spent watching the Olympics. We had access to the military satellite and were able to watch the NBC feed - including all the Phelps coverage. It was exciting to watch all the swimming and gymnastics events with U.S. announcers. Felt nice to tear up to the U.S. National Anthem during the medal ceremony.
Sunday afternoon, I had to head back to Milano. As a parting shot before I head off and stop blogging, here's a couple photos from when we were LAST in Naples (September 2007):
Pizza with buffalo mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil
Boating near Procida
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