We had a good night’s sleep at the Hotel Bella Napoli and felt well-rested. We were surprised by the included scrumptious breakfast available at the hotel. We didn’t have any plans for today. I thought a day of rest would be a good idea, but Christine had other thoughts. One was to go to the Herculaneum, a city like Pompeii that was destroyed by the Vesuvius volcanic eruption. The other was to walk along the harbor. As the title of this post indicates, we went to the harbor.
I studied up on the public transit routes and figured out how to take the Metro to a stop called Mergellina, which was exactly at the start of the seafront promenade called the Lungomare Passeggiata, a 2 mile stretch along the seafront where people come to see and be seen strolling along the promenade. Mergellina is an upscale older section of Naples where the buildings are very beautiful. It has a very large marina where jet setters moor their yachts. From Mergellina, the promenade goes through several sections of Naples and there are lots of restaurants in one section and 5 star hotels in another. It was a beautiful day for a walk and Christine was excited to be out walking the promenade. She was a happy camper today.
I’m just going to post a bunch of photos showing some of the apartment buildings of Mergellina and what we saw along the seafront. I’ll only caption some of the photos.
Naples is a sprawling city that climbs up the hills. The area where our hotel is, around the central station and the Piazza Garibaldi, is grubby, noisy and teeming with activity. The area around the seafront is very different and is quite beautiful. It’s amazing how the houses go up the hillside.
From the promenade you can see Mt. Vesuvius across the bay.
Near the end of the promenade, before the seafront becomes the very busy port of Naples, is a former island, now a peninsula, that holds Castel dell’Ovo. The Castel dell’Ovo is the oldest standing fortification in Naples. The island was where Greeks had a settlement dating back to the 6th century BC which became the start of the city of Naples.
Near the castle is another trendy area with a nice marina and several nice-looking restaurants.
After walking for about 3 hours, we were ready for a late lunch and so we partook of one of the restaurants along the promenade. Of course, in Naples, one orders pizza where pizza was invented. It was delicious!
And now it was time to head back to our hotel. I had read in a Rick Steves book that the #140 bus is just the thing to take when one is tired of walking the Lungomare and needs to return to where you started your stroll. After getting some wrong direction from a man waiting at the bus stop about which bus to take to get to the Mergellina train station, we stuck to our guns about the 140. A nice woman who I asked for confirmation about the bus checked with a ticket attendant and confirmed that the 140 would indeed take us back to the Mergellina train station. I asked the bus driver to let us know what stop would be correct for getting to the station and he did so pointing the way to the station. The station was just 2 blocks away and the territory was familiar and we knew exactly where we needed to go.
We got the metro back to the central station and walked to the hotel. And so our lovely outing to the Naples seafront, the Lungomare, came to an end. We have been so lucky with the weather and doing a little research has given us the confidence to use public transportation. And everyone we’ve asked for help has been so nice and willing to help. Most everyone has some English skills, enough to convey information. We feel like dunces because we know no Italian except for please, thank you, and excuse me (and cappuccino!). I have the hardest time pronouncing words and never know when “g” is silent and “c” is hard or soft. If we ever return to Italy, we ‘ll learn a little more Italian.
Tomorrow we’re off to Sorrento. We’re excited about that.