Day 2 - Naples/Pompeii

Woke up today excited for our adventure to Pompeii. For breakfast? You guessed it... pizza. Since we didn't want to wait yesterday for L'Antica Pizzeria Da Michele, we decided this morning would be a good time to beat the crowds and get there right at opening. We arrived and were seated at 10:50 before their opening time at 11. Had we arrived 10 minutes later, we would have waited at least 30 mins! We sat right next to the oven and got to see the whole process. The pizzaiolo was, perhaps, the most stereotypically Italian man we have run across, as he sang to the pizza and tapped beats on the oven in between "OH"s. We may have even heard a "Mama Mia" or two and he may have indicated to us that he had been drinking before the pizza making process. Ah Naples in the morning. But BOY did that man make great pizza. Dave and I easily agreed that this pizza was better than Di Matteo last night. Featured on Eat, Pray, Love, there's a reason this place is the Mecca for pizza lovers. You know it will be a great meal when your food doesn't fully fit on the table (our pizzas had to overlap). After loading up on carbs, we decided it was time for our Pompeii adventure.

We arrived at the central train station and bought our train tickets. When the display showed the track number, we made our way over, but upon displaying our tickets, we were told that the train was downstairs. Confused, we asked the attendant downstairs where to go and tried to display our tickets and he was the one who told us that there were "track issues" but we could use a different company and pointed us to the ticket office. We bought new tickets and the train came immediately. 45 minutes later, we were in Pompeii!! Pompeii was sick. Really hard to describe in words the scale and beauty. After exploring for about 4 hours, with so much to see we wish we had 20. The frescos and mosaics were incredible, and we were blown away by the still vivid colors. After a Pompeii espresso, we headed back to the train, beers in hand, and made our way back to Naples.

After resting for a bit at our Airbnb, we ventured out for some Ragú. The first place we tried, however, unfortunately had no tables. So after some more walking and searching, we ended up at Januarius. I got the Ragú and Dave got the seafood spaghetti. We utterly confused out waitress when we asked for a limoncello and a meloncello BEFORE our food. She explained how unusual that is in Italia as it is used here as a "digestive aid" post dinner. After this yummy dinner, we picked up a bottle of sparkling wine on the way home and called it a night.Read more