Tag Archives: Naples

Rome, Italy: Train Mishap and Where is My WiFi Dammit?

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I do not like Rome.  This is not entirely Rome’s fault.   I acknowledge that.  But I do not like it.

I was leaving Napoli today.  I last left off leaving Castel Sant’Elmo.  I had to go back to my hotel and pick up my luggage.  Dying, hot, sweaty, death.

I walked back over to Centrale to buy a train ticket to Rome.  The next train was leaving in ten minutes, I wanted a tiny bit more time to do things like buy an ice cold drink (DYING, HOT, SWEATY, DEATH) and smoke a cigarette.  I look at the later times and see prices €40 and up.  What the hell, I thought it was going to be like €10.  Then I notice the too-soon train is only €11.20.  Perfect, I will take it.  Who needs a cigarette and ice cold drink when you will be in Rome in about an hour for only €11.20?

Ugh.  Did you know they have slow trains between Naples and Rome?  I didn’t.  I am now on a three hour train.  I boarded late so there are no seats left.  I am sitting outside between the two cars, burning hot.  There is a guy selling cold water, he does not have change for a €20 bill.  I don’t have anything smaller since I just put all my change and smaller bills into the ticket machine.

I did see some cool scenery though:
View train from Rome to Naples

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Naples, Italy: Castel Sant’Elmo

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My last morning in Naples.  I wanted to spend a few hours here before leaving for Rome.  Especially since I have now mastered the fine art of not being murdered by a Vespa when crossing the street.  (Hint:  walk with a local in between you and the direction of oncoming traffic.)

Naples chaos:

naples chaos

After a last game of catch with the cute dog who lives at my hotel, I was off.

b&b doggie

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An Easy Side Trip to Sorrento, Italy from Pompeii and Naples

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I last left off in Pompeii.  I wanted to go to Mount Vesuvius.  I know it is cold there, always.  This should have been a draw since I was slowly dying in the heat in Pompeii.  But I could not get my mind to believe that a volcano would be cooler.  So I decided to go to Sorrento, which was burning hot of course.  Meh, whatever. At least I had the joy of being able to switch my plans last minute and not have to deal with anyone else because I am solo lalalalalaaaaaaaaaaa.

Leaving Pompeii and buying a train ticket for Sorrento was a bit difficult.  The ticket booth guy was not at the window, but instead could be seen from the window gabbing it up with his coworker.  The maniac behind me in line starts smashing at the window. Of course, the guy thinks its me since I am the one standing there when he comes over.  Great.  I ask for a ticket. He gives it to me and tells me “You need to run to catch the train”.  Yeah well I wouldn’t have if you had been here instead of over there….whatever.

Since it is later in the day now, the Circumvesuviana train smells even worse than it did earlier in the day.  I am from New York, I can handle this.

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Naples, Italy: Side Trip to Pompeii

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Today is one of those days where I am reminded how much I love traveling solo.

My original plans for today were to overdo sightseeing.  I was determined to go to Pompeii, Herculaneum and Mount Vesuvius all in one day.  The internet says it can not be done, I say it can.  I guess we will never know now though because I ended up making a very last second decision to go to Sorrento after Pompeii, rather than keeping my original plans.  Changing plans last minute always seems to be so easy when you are solo and so difficult when you are not.  I didn’t have to confer with anyone, all I had to do was get on the train.

First stop:  Pompeii.  I took the Circumvesuviana train here from Naples.  At the Naples train station, some random guy approached me and asked me if I was looking for the ticket booth.  I made the mistake of saying yes.  Oh here we go. He then tries escorting me through the train station, out the other side and down a new entrance. I do not want him to do this because I know he is going to ask me for money.  I actually say to him “I am not giving you any money, I can make it the rest of the way by myself”.  He ignores me.  We get to the ticket window and he tries to pay for my ticket.  I think the trick  here is that he pays for my ticket (it was something like €2.40) and then would hope I would not have exact change and give him a €5 bill).  I keep insisting “DO NOT BUY MY TICKET” and he will not stop.  So I then yell to the booth guy “DO NOT SELL HIM MY TICKET”. Then I think I will outsmart him and pay with a credit card.  No change, no cash, sorry guy.  But the Circumvesuviana does not take credit cards.  ARGH.

So I pay in cash and turn to leave.  My unwanted escort asks me to buy him a cup of coffee.  NO.  I find it so completely annoying when people do things like this.

The train comes and its every bit as run down and rickety as the internet told me it would be.  It was also hot as hell on there.

We get to Pompeii.  Walking from the train station to the entrance is about a five minute walk, during which you are offered to purchase a bunch of things such as slushies, sun hats and souvenirs.  I almost bought an enormous sun hat as my 100 spf sun screen is not working and I am so burned up.  But I resisted.

Pompeii is HOT today.  Burning hot.  There are just about zero spots with shade inside here.  I had to keep reminding myself “you know, people here died from being buried under volcanic ash, I bet they would love to trade spots with you”.

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Quick Picture Post: Live From My Terrace in Naples, Italy

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This was just way too good to not share immediately.

I am a budget hotel kinda gal.  Always have been, always will be.  Every now and then a budget hotel will surprise me.  Today is one of those days.

I get to Sweet Sleep Bed and Breakfast this morning and my room is not ready because I am too early.  I am brought out onto the communal outdoor terrace, where I am stunned at the view.

sweet sleep bed and breakfast, naples italy

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Booking European Train Travel

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My first European train ride was taking the train from London to Brussels. It was so easy.  Despite living in New York, or maybe “because I live I New York”, I was expecting complications.   Well Europe is very unlike New York.  In New York, I have no idea how tourists handle the subway, let alone commuter rail elsewhere.  The subway is never operating fully as it is supposed to.  Never.  There’s always trains skipping stops or going over other lines or whatever.  In Europe, you are taking this train; you look for it on that sign, and get on it.  That’s really it.

My first ride, we got on the train in London and got off in Brussels.  We then took a local train to Geel, which was the town we were staying at.  We had to transfer two or three times.  Even this was simple.  There are preprinted timetables all over the place and most of them tell you ON A PREPRINTED TIMETABLE what track you will be on.  Because the train always comes on that track.  Really??  because I have taken the Long island Railroad from Penn Station fifty bazillion times in New York and its always on different tracks every time.   What a novel concept, the train runs on the same track all the time, to the point where it can be labeled correctly on a preprinted schedule!  This was so easy!

Once my fear of living my life was completely wiped out by this trip, I was able to start work on my second trip. This trip would be a real trip.  Not a starter trip, not a “cling to Rachel” trip, not an anything other than “I’M GOING TO SEE THE WORLD!” trip.

Planning train travel can be a huge pain.   Right now I am working on my upcoming trip. I am going from Paris to Naples.  I checked flights and on the day I want to go, it leaves at 6:30 am. so id have to be up by at least 4:00 am to get up, get dressed, go to the airport, go through security, land in Naples, get to my hotel…..pass out from being so exhausted and probably not be ready to go anywhere until evening…..after which I would probably not be able to sleep at night since I had napped.

My other option is to spend all day on a train.  Honestly, this may be my preferred option, although I haven’t fully made up my mind yet.

Bahn.de has all the schedules you need.  But they do not sell tickets for routes that do not include Germany.  So then you need to figure that out.  There are so many options out there and you should check routes and prices on all of them.  You should also keep track on where you saw what price.  There is nothing like spending two hours pricing everything only to find out you now don’t remember what website you found that $13 ticket from Milan to Rome on.

To give you an idea, when I had still been planning to go to Bern, and then from Bern to Italy, I had to check prices on both the Swiss train website, then on Italiarail and Trenitalia.  These ended up being the options:

Bern to Naples 7:34-15:55
Train# 51 Departs Bern at  07:34 and Arrives  Naples Centrale 15:55
$163 italiarail
$185  sbb.ch

But by not buying one ticket and instead buying a ticket for each leg:

Bern to Naples 7:34 – 16:43
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Rome italiarail      $52 11:00 – 13:55
Rome to Naples italiarail    $13 14:39 – 16:43
total = $97

Bern to Naples 14:00 – 18:15
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Naples italiarail    $55 14:00 – 18:15
total = $87

Bern to Naples 7:34 – 00:05
Bern to Milan italiarail       $32 7:34 – 10:34
Milan to Naples italiarail     $13 15:05 – 12:05
total = $45

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Buying one ticket for the full trip is way more expensive than buying a ticket from Bern to Milan and then a second ticket from Milan to Naples.  If you had started out on the sbb.ch website and saw a ticket for $185 and booked it without looking any further, you would have overpaid greatly.

Even with doing two separate tickets, there are still multiple options.  All leaving Switzerland at the same time, all arriving different times, all different prices, all found on different websites. It pays to do research.