campania, italy
Salerno. Amalfi. Pompeii. Capri. Naples.
Touchdown in Naples Airport, day 1. Noise is all I can say and people! It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before not even Marrakech. It’s got its own chaos. A 7 day stay in Salerno which resulted in a multi-city break of 5 destinations in Campania, Italy.
A breakdown of our trip and recommendations:
Salerno - arriving from Naples by train (around 40mins) it was an instant release of stress from the chaotic city and into a calm Italian town. We had the best pasta. That stuff was elite af. Plain tomato parmesan - heaven. Red prawn jheeez. We indeed returned the day after and le paps insisted of taking a pic with the head chef because nice souvenir innit and he’s just out there like that. Besides the pasta, it is genuinely a beautiful place, beach, culture, all of it.
Amalfi - day 2 and we took the alibus. what’s an alibus? ali express? na it’s a boat. it departs from all the beach coast lines down south Italy, we took it from Salerno Marina and wow it was a speedy 27min trip. Best part? Fried fish and lemon sorbet !!
Pompeii - hot, cobbled streets, many tourists and remains. I mean the place is stunning and certainly full of history. We took the train from Salerno which took 20 minutes and walked about 10 minutes to get to the entrance of the site, tickets were easy to buy that day but go early to avoid queues specially if its going to be hot later on the day! We spent a good 5 hours here, there was so much great stuff. It’s worth getting an audioguide to help explain what the remains were and just to understand the why behind it all. I loved the amphitheatre and the cat chilling on the cobbles street - not sure if it’s part of the experience. Best Nutella ice cream ever at this boujiee Gelateria.
Capri - capri or capri sun? I mean it was definitely not the best day of the trip to be completely honest. Rammed full of tourists, food was overpriced, tiny streets, the bus to Anacapri (old town) was a pain but I guess this was still peak summer holiday season. We took the cable car to get to the centre and first thing you see are so many luxury boutiques - the Prada shop is something else!
Naples - ah Napoli. Our mind was glued to the pizza the whole day until the moment we had that first bite. We took the 40 min train back to Napoli, the atmosphere coming out the station (I am warning you it is overwhelming).I mean Naples is quite a full on, busy city but that’s thee beauty of it. Our route started from the stadium of course but just as a friendly gesture, don’t expect no museum or gift shop. The football and history talks for itself here, which I mean huge respect. After exploring the area of Maradona Stadium, we hopped back on the tube to the market, where we had another great fried fish for 7 euros, loads of great souvenir shops and yes certainly touristic zone but once your on the high street (think of Oxford Street but Naples) its a lot wider and easier to wonder around if you want to do some shopping. Also here was the best pizza place and pastries and gelato! Best food day for sure. We did not leave hungry.
All in all be sure to eat well, walk loads, learn lots of Italian and fall in love with the supermarket and want to buy all the types of biscuits you can eat with a cuppa when you’re back :)
