Following the rather spacious environment of Rome, our next stop was the claustrophobia inducing Napoli.
One of the many narrow streets that was the flame to my moth was Via San Gregorio Armeno, better known as Christmas Alley - a street dedicated to the sale and manufacture of nativity scenes, most transposing the traditional manger scene to a more Italian setting. The scale and size of some of the pieces did make you wonder how the average tourist would get them back in their hand luggage….
When we passed a courtyard that indicated a basement hosting “the largest Nativity in Napoli”, there was no way I wasn’t heading down those stairs.
I stood in awe for a good few minutes.
“Best Pizza in Napoli”, obviously.
Clearly not content with being underground 2 days previous, we once again descended into the subterranean for a guided tour around the Napoli Sotteranea, walking along narrow tunnels formally used as water channels, and a Roman theatre hidden under a bed.
Our day in Napoli complete, we took the train to our accommodation in nearby Pompeii. Bags deposited, we searched the town looking for some well earned dinner.
We browsed the menus of a few restaurants on the strip - they seemed to offer most of the same fare, so we went to the nicest-but-not-priciest looking one. We were sat next to a late-middle aged American couple who were doing more or less the same trip as us, but in reverse. We made small talk - there must be something about encountering people who share the same first language when travelling that is comforting? - and ordered our meal. We didn’t want to spend too much, so ordered the T-bone steak that was 8 euros/hg, reckoning it must be a small plate offering, and some appetisers.
Midway through the appetisers, I had a terrible realisation.
Does hg mean “hundred grams”? And how much does a steak weigh? At least 500g? Surely no more than 1kg, right? RIGHT?!
The waiter collected the empty appetiser dish, and left a bowl of bread.
Followed by an extension for the table.
Trying to hide my panic as best I could in front of our new American friends I calmly said to Ida “I think we should avoid filling up on the bread.”
Oh Christ. It was too late now. We weren’t paying for how much we could eat, we were paying for the whole thing. I’d like to say it was the best steak either of us has ever eaten, but the enjoyment was tainted by the knowledge we would have to eat as much of it as possible to justify whatever we would end up paying.
We did out damned best. I should have taken the bone and fashioned it into a victory necklace.
Since We Last Spoke…
- After 6 years sharing housing with them, our housemate moved out into their own flat. Before their key even hit the doormat, our renovations have kicked off proper!
Yes, we tore down a wall. Yes the place is a deathtrap. We’ll be careful.
- I was an early adopter of Spotify, but for numerous reasons I’ve moved to other streaming platforms, whilst continuing to build my personal digital/physical music collection. I purchased an iPhone with 1TB of internal memory for the express purpose of having my vast collection available in one place, and use Doppler as my audio player. I put it on shuffle earlier in the week and it was nearly all bangers.
Take Care x