Europe 2nd Trip - Naples, Italy (Day 1 & Day 2)

25th Oct 2013, Friday, Sunny

Supper on Swiss Air

Finally!!Going to Italy and Swiss...we got the air tickets from January and had waited for 10 months for it.Most of my colleagues and friends had already went for trips and came back...And i waited pretty much too long for it...all my excitement were gone....but finally our turn came...i am going with 2 of my working friends...

I got sick on the day itself and had to see doctor to take mc and rest. We met at the airport at 7.30pm and another friend even turned up with her boyfriend to send us off...hohoho (really surprised but i was happy to see her)....We checked in our lugguage and had dinner at Seafood Paradise before heading in to the gate.
We went in around 9 plus and off we go,to board the plane.It was a long journey to Zurich...i was seated beside one of my colleague and another ang mo..both their legs needs so much space,until i don't even have much space for myself.I had to bring up my legs,after some time,i got legs cramp...hahaa...

We saw a bit of flashing lightnings on the plane,had supper and breakfast too.It was super cold on the plane,i felt my nose was going to drop off already....and i was having blocked nose and coughing too...The guy was bleeding on his nose suddenly when we were having breakfast.He turned to ask me for tissue,i got a shock when he asked with his blood dripping....and then he went to toilet to clean up.Then we just napped for a while before the plane touched down to Zurich airport.

26th Oct 2013, Saturday,Sunny

View from transfer flight

When we arrived at airport,we made our way to take the transfer plane to Rome. We had to pass swiss customs and then to the gate and waited for our plane.It was a short ride from Zurich to Rome.There were lsser people onboard the plane too and was spacious...Anyway,we reached Rome airport.Then we went down to collect our Roma Passes and headed down to Termini train station.We took the airport transfer train...it was about 40 to 45 mins ride...Once we reached,we went to look for the Trenitalia ticket office to make our train reservation.There's alot of people waiting in queue...My advise:Get all your train reservations done at once if you don't to waste time standing outside the office to wait.There was no chairs to sit too,everyone was just standing around waiting for their numbers to be called.

While i was waiting for my turn,my friends went upstairs to get data sim cards (for $20 euro). They also waited for quite some time for their turn. Finally,we got our data sim cards n train reservation done.Then we headed down to the platform to board our train to Naples. When we wanted to board the train,a guy "helped" mi and one of my friends to get our luggage up the train...and he asked for tip from us once he put our luggage down (the other friend went further in the train on her own liao)....so we gt no choice but to give him a $10 as tip (no small change too)...he wasn't going to leave without some $. Then later we know,there are some people just trying to be helpful but they will ask from you $ for their so-called help. Anyway, we just went in with our luggage (as it was placed abit far from our seats) and sat down (my 2 friends helped to carry my luggage up in the upper storage as there was no space near the seats area and mine was the smallest and lightest. hohoho...a lady sitting besides us was laughing at us when both my friends were trying to bring down my luggage when we reached our stop....the 1st class coaches are really comfortable and got free drinks and snacks too (for high speed trains)....better than 2nd class coaches....

We reached Naples at around afternoon, we had to drag our luggage from the train station to the hotel. It was tiring, had to carry them up the stairs and down the stairs again, then dragged them to the hotel and the metro trains are so slow and we had to change 3 times to get to the hotel. We decided that for the rest of the hotels, we will take cab down (too tiring..hahhaaa). Oo...did i mentioned that the metro tickets had to be bought from a tabacci shop? Apparently, these shops are the ones selling metro tickets around italy (except Venice, as far as for the places we went). We managed to reach the hotel safe and sound and did the check-in. The hotel name is Hotel Toledo. The lift was so small and it was in rectangle shape, it can't fit the 3 of us plus our luggage. So the hotel owner told us to go up with 1 of the luggage first and then he will bring up the remaining 2. The room was setup with 2 single beds and 1 slightly bigger bed. The toilet was quite small, and it only allow a person to stand in. So we put down our luggage in our room and rested for awhile.Then we made our way down to the National Archaeological Museum. We chose to walk down from the hotel, and we saw a parade of people doing riot on the street, there was a lot of police standing by. It was a 10 mins walk to the museum from the hotel, there were a lot of shops along the way too. Finally, we reached the museum and got our tickets to go in. It was super big and there were a lot of statues inside (with heads, without heads, etc). 

Farnese Hercules

Above is the famous statue of Farnese Hercules resting on his club and he is holding a golden apple behind his back. The description for this statue is: Hercules is back from all the fighting and the traveling around the world. He is leaning weakly on his club, which is draped with his lion skin and he had returned with his prize, the golden apples of gods (which is shown on his hand behind his back). But after all this, he was told he had to return the golden apples and descend to Hell itself as the final task.

Toro Farnese

And there was another famous large statue called Toro Farnese, which was craved out with 1 whole piece of marble and there was a story on it. This is the story behind it: Once upon an ancient Greek time, there was a King named King Lycus, who was bewitched by a woman called Dirce. He abandoned his wife, Antiope who was pregnant at that time. The wife later gave birth to 2 twin boys, who grew up and killed their dad and tied Dirce to the horns of the bull to be bashed against a mountain.





After the viewing of these famous statues on the ground floor, we went upstairs to see the secret room. The stairs to upper levels were so grand too (those circular shape type), there was a lion statue standing in the middle of the stairs and there were 3 statues standing behind the lower stairs. But before we went to the secret room, we went into the great hall of Sundial with paintings hanging on both sides of the grand hall. It was the home of Farnese Atlante (a statue of Atlas carrying a globe on his shoulders), but at the wall of both sides hang beautiful paintings which are collection from Farnese. They look so real with the colors and there was a round clock at the end of the hall....Then we just sat there and rested for awhile. It was so relaxing to just sit there and watched into the great hall. There's even horoscope icon printed on the ground, like a chart form. It was said that when the sun shines into the hall, it will shine on the horoscope icon (something like that...not sure on the whole function). After this, we walked to the other side of the museum, which contains the pompeiian mosalcs and its ware the secret room is. There were a lot of displays to see (too much to be captured on camera, go for yourself to see them...hohoho..). After seeing the secret room, we went down to the souvenir shop to browse around. After the visit, we made our way down to have some pizza, which is famous in Naples (it was so dark outside and it was only like 5 or 6 plus). 

Pizza Margherita

When we reached there, the restaurant was just getting open for business (lucky us). The restaurant name is Gino Sorbillo. The restaurant was 2-Storey high and we managed to grab a table on the upper level. Everyone was eager to place their orders and the staffs were busy attending to every table. We got the menu and ordered 2 pizzas and soft drinks for us. The pizzas were so big and with thin thin crust (bigger than Singapore ones) and they tasted nice (except i find them salty, if not salty, it will be great for me but my 2 friends they love it.). When I saw the locals there, they all ordered 1 big pizza for 1 pax and they can finish them by themselves (they were not even sharing), and they still look so skinny after the big portion. But for us, we can't even finish the 2 pizzas we ordered (hohoho...wonder whether the staff was laughing at us when we left).

It was packed with people when we left the restaurant and there was a super long queue waiting outside, then we walked back to our hotel to rest for the day. Bought a pack of roasted chestnut back to hotel too (it wasn't that nice, it was dried and had the burnt taste, although the chestnuts are bigger than Singapore type). Tired day with all the dragging and climbing of stairs with luggage and the sweating. Missed to do the self-guided walk mentioned in Rick Steve's book: A Slice of Neapolitan Life.

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Toledo

Places Visited:
National Archaeological Museum, Naples