Napoli, another ugly modern city. Although to be fair it was in the middle of a garbage strike which meant we weren't seeing it at its best unless you like piles of garbage in the street. In what was to be a common refrain in Greece they started setting fire to things shortly after we left. We saw very little of the city since it was just a stopping off point on our way to Pompeii. It was still unimpressive. The number of homeless people we walked past just going to the station was extraordinary.
A word about the Naples public transport 'system.' Never get a bus from Naples. There are at least five bus stops located on opposite sides of the big square with no place you can stand to see all of them at once and no way of knowing which one your particular bus leaves from. We got there an hour early to figure it out and still missed our bus which turned out to stop not actually at any of the bus stops but in front of the train station. We ended up having to burn another €50 to get tickets to Brindisi to replace the nonrefundable bus tickets that we'd already bought. Damn you to hell ItaliaRail! We'd have been better off walking everywhere. No customers should ever end up paying €450 for
your mistakes.
The city does have a great view of Mount Vesuvius, if that's something you're looking for in a city. I tend to avoid places which are in danger of being wiped out by a conveniently close giant volcano of fiery death but that's just me. It's ok though because the volcano is dead. It hasn't actually erupted in about... 70 years? But that was during the war. A lot of crazy things happened during the war. It's not actually in danger of blowing up and wiping out the modern city built on the remains of older cities wiped out by the same volcano. I'm sure it'll be fine. I honestly wouldn't miss Naples if it was wiped out but I fear for the residents living in such a large and disorganized city with no effective evacuation plan. And an eruption is inevitable sooner or later. They're living on borrowed time.
No comments:
Post a Comment