Cumu's re-emergence as navigator caused immediate havoc as she took us off the motorway and down a side road where we saw our first Italians... an entire bevy of scantily clad, butter faced, Italian hookers and then a police car watching for anyone with low enough standards to actually pull over.
I stepped back up, slapped Cumu into submission a little and we arrived a few hours later in Pompei where, priorities being what they are, we experienced our first Italian pizza. Italian food and coffee is amazing, it almost makes up for Italian people and Italian cities. Almost. Explored the ruins for 3 hours under the shadow of Vesuvius, their creator. They covered a huge area and were amazingly well preserved, and awe-inspiring given the vast amount of destruction and loss of life that happened so suddenly and without warning and yet the area is repopulated by people who apparently live their life with either a death wish or gigantic balls.
I drove to Napoli (Naples) which was a 45 minute nightmare of Italian drivers, Italian unmarked roads and useless navigation. My first ever case of road rage ensued. Lewis agreed to drive for the rest of Italy.
Checked into our hotel, the "Hotel Casanova" which was a fairly standard small hotel, went out and found ourselves some fantastic pasta then went back to to hotel to chill out and ended up befriending a french girl called Mathilde who was travelling with her mum and seemed desperate for some same-age company.
The next day we intended to use to take care of some boring but much needed tasks, haircuts, laundry, car maintainence, shopping, pharmacy for Macky and catching up on our sleep.
Sleep in until midday: Check.
Every other task: Fail. We should probably have realised that it was a sunday but alas, every single shop, cafe and restaurant was closed. It took us half an hour of walking through an endless succession of shuttered shop fronts and garbage everywhere (I'm not even kidding, EVERYWHERE) just to find pizza. Pizza. In Italy! Then another 15 minutes to find coffee. Unimpressed by Napoli, everything is dirty, garbage and graffiti are all over and the people are, without fail, rude.
Ended up having a lazy day around the hotel, getting dinner from the single restaurant open on the main road fronting the hotel and then another evening of chilling in the lobby and talking with Mathilde.
Woke up early, desiring nothing more than coffee, pastries and to flee Napoli. Did all three in rapid succession and Lewis drove us to Rome where we checked into the "Youth Station Hostel" in the Bologna region of Rome. Hostel was quite nice and seemed completely empty until suddenly it was swarming with 14 year old American Catholic children wearing crosses and bright green shirts. We made a private joke about how all they needed to do was start a prayer circle. 5 minutes later they did. Turns out we showed up in Rome, Catholic center of the world, on World Youth Day. Shit. With almost the entire city closed and an army of 14 year old zealots invading the hostel we fled to go and try find a pharmacy for Macky, who was rapidly dieing. Walk to Termini station, the central transport hub which was also purported to have open shops, was a 20 minute insight into a post-apocalyptic world. A long walk through completely empty, shuttered streets, without another person in sight, the occasional car in the distance or lone dog howling just adding to the eerie feeling.
Got Macky his medicine, had a crazy chicken kebab style thing then made our way back to the hostel which had thankfully been vacated by the legion. Had a fancy backpacker dinner of 2 minute noodles and tinned tuna and befriended 2 girls from Cornwall, Jen and Jenny.
Woke up after the others to find them with milk and having finally opened the cereal we had been carting around since London. This day became attempt #2 of our Napoli day of chores as we gathered our considerable amount of washing and wandered up to the nearby Indian-run laundromat as it was another Italian holiday. The helpful guy at the laundromat told us that our best chance for haircuts would be Piazza Vittorio as it apparently is the Indian/Bangladeshi quarter so we trained over to there, only to discover that a) its actually the Chinese quarter and b) everything was closed too. Again had trouble even finding food. Never had trouble finding simple amenities as we did in Italy.
Finally found a barber that was open at 3pm and got our mullets finally removed, all done while explaining what we wanted through the medium of mime as the barber spoke no English. I, being either the bravest or most foolish, volunteered to be the guinea pig and suffered no major problems.
Headed back after to pick up our washing, had a refreshing coffee/beer then chilled for a couple of hours in the hostel. At 8, with Lewis grumpy and working and Macky sick, I ventured out and got us dinner and another drink each then at 8:45 I left them to their sulking and went with Jen and Jenny to pub crawl.
Arrived at the meeting point outside Termini station to find it deserted aside from 2 chavs from Manchester who were looking for it also. After Jen called the company and harassed them a little we found they were "on holiday" and that the other company was running from the Spanish Steps. Hurriedly made our way through the station, both to get there before it was too late and to lose the chavs. Gave them the slip but by the time we arrived at the Steps at 10:15 it was too late and there was noone around.
Determined to have a night out nonetheless we went searching for an open pub or bar but, it being an Italian holiday, even they were all closed. We ended up crossing the Tiber river to check out the clubs that line its edge but they were, while open, completely deserted so we set upon a market, which oddly enough was open, and made odder by the man trying to demo and sell vacuum cleaners at 11pm and the Elvis impersonator band. Eventually gave up and got the last bus back to the hostel where we arrived at 12:30 stone cold sober.
Woke up to both Macky and now Lewis sick, had breakfast then commenced our long day of guided walking tours of Rome. Started out at the previously found Spanish Steps, then moved on to the mausoleum of Emporer Augustus, which was impressively big and round and old, before crossing the Tiber, checking out a couple of ornate palaces, another mausoleum that was converted with additional fortifications into a fort in medieval times and then ended up at St. Peters Basilica at the entrance to the Vatican. The Vatican itself is enormous and St. Peters square was pretty amazing, 2 huge curved columnades encircling the most of it with a tall spire in the middle and the basilica at the join of the 2 columnades, all of which were lined with statues of saints. Also lots of dodgy people offering to show us "free entry with no lines" or "free tickets", including a particularly persistent English woman who, after accepting we didn't want her ticket, offered to sell me a bag, which I also declined. We decided not to actually enter the Vatican as it was expensive, the line was enormous, time was of the essence and we were also afraid of bursting into flames.
Had a quick lasagne lunch then got back to the Spanish Steps again just in time for our next tour which would take us in the other direction through Rome. Stopped first at a giant, carved column in a piazza, then moved on to a monument to Italy's very brief period as a monarchy, which they cut out half of a hill filled with ancient Roman ruins to build. From here visited te old Roman forum, which was massive and really well preserved aside from the road disecting it built by Mussolini and then finished up at the Coloseum, which was pretty much as advertised by so much popular culture. Would have liked to spend more time exploring it and to see the Pantheon but the others were withering under the heat and sickness so we headed back to the hostel for much appreciated naps and showers.
Ordered pizzas at 7pm so that we would have time to eat them before I left at 8:15 with Jen and Jenny for attempt 2 at pub crawling in Rome. The pizza arrived at 8 but luckily the terrible chef had left all the ingredients on one half so I had the good half, sculled my beer and left with the girls.
Pub crawl attempt 2 was a much greater success. We headed straight to the Spanish Steps were we found a large group of people, a little man selling beers for $1 out of a plastic back and I somehow ran into Robbie Resch again, twice in 2 pub crawls, such a small world at times. Pub crawl theme was Jager, and everyone was given 3 tokens for free jager bombs which we all immediately redeemed on entry to the starter pub. Ben, a friend of Robbie, and I then went on to have another couple as they were $3. At 11, after our numerous jager bombs and an hour and a half of all you can drink beer and wine we moved on to a couple of clubs on the river, which turned out to sell beers for $10 so I only had the one, not that I needed more. The final club also had a giant pool (yup, on the side of a river, makes sense?) but going in would get you kicked out so we didnt. No real memory of leaving the clubs but I am informed I left with Jen and Jenny and we bussed back to the hostel. Based on my drunk facebook activity I believe I got to bed around 5am.
Up at 8am the next morning as the hostel had 9am check out time. Got up, changed, packed my back and checked out. Do not remember any of this. Left the others in the hostel eating cereal while I trained back to the Coloseum to collect my free pub crawl shirt and returned to find Macky looking remarkably unimpressed with a bag of frozen peas. He apparently smashed his head on a granite shelf. Came to the realisation that I am a hangover witch, every time I should have a hangover someone else seems to suffer and I get off scot free. I am ok with this.
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