Arrival to Naples airport

It was hot on arrival! So the holiday begins.. WOOHOO!

If you haven’t already done so, I had to register for EES which took around 50 minutes from getting off the plane to registering and passport control. They had a line for the people that have already registered and then a line for people that had to register, so it was rather organised.

Registering for EES was actually quite simple; just follow the on screen prompts. Put your passport on the scanner > scan your 4 fingers > get a photo and answer some questions. In Naples there were 14 registering machines; which did move along quite quickly.

Passport control was a little bit slower. So you’ll get to the little gate and scan your passport, once the gate opens go in and then you will either have to scan your face or scan your 4 fingers. It will try to scan your face first and if that doesn’t work you can scan your fingers instead. The loading of face/fingers took a few seconds to register until the last gate opens for you to get out and get your passport checked.

After that it was smooth sailing! We got out of the airport and looked for a dedicated bus that took you from the airport to Naples Central Station; the bus was called Alibus. We lined up at first but realised we had to buy bus tickets at the dedicated ticket booth. It was €5 for a single ticket. When buying the tickets I actually said it all in Italian “Buongiorno/ciao, due biglietti a Napoli Centrale, per favoure.”

I learnt a little bit of Italian before (classroom based and on my own) so I wanted to try speak in Italian and for the whole trip, I ordered things in Italian and they all understood what I was saying. I was so proud of myself!

Naples – Day 1

NB: all photos in this blog are my own

We arrived in central Naples just before lunch (bus ride took about 25 minutes) and we noticed at the Central Station it had a food hall so we ended up there for a spot of lunch/light snack. There were quite a few different places to eat; McDonalds, cafes, restaurants and dessert places.

First on my list of food to try was the sfogliatella (pastry with custard). I had the original one; which was cream with some candied orange pieces inside. It was quite nice; nice crisp pastry and it wasn’t light cream inside it was thick. It kinda looked like curdled egg… but still tasty!

After our little snack, we went on our way to the apartment!

Apartment

The apartment we stayed at was called Atri Rooms Centro Storico Napoli and it was tucked away in an alleyway off the main street. There were a few things we had to do before them showing us our apartment. They needed our passport, pay the tax for our 3 nights stay and then had to fill in a form for €200 deposit in case of damages to the apartment. They then let us know all the codes, for the main door (from the street), another door (before getting to the apartment) and then our apartment code. There were no keys just keypads.

They then gave us our vouchers for breakfast; these were located away from the apartment but they weren’t far at all. They said there were 2 we could go to; one was bigger than the other but she didn’t say in size or the size selection of the breakfast items. Both cafes were called Carbone.

Finally getting into the apartment and it was so adorable! The tiles on the floor was so cute and the decor was nice and simple. The bathroom was downstairs; the shower had a rainfall shower head and also a separate shower head to the side (I like having options!) and there was a fridge (free bottle of water and Pepsi) and the upstairs was the bedroom. The apartment was spotless and the bed was rather comfortable!

Out and about in Naples

So since we had time before the sun went down, we had a little walkabout around Naples.

We found a castle! It was called Castel Nuovo, we only walked around it to see it and to take pictures! The entrance of the castle was so pretty!

We saw this huge building called Galleria Umberto I and it had some shops in there but the attraction was what was on the floor in the middle of the building. They had a compass and also the star signs; the star signs were all made with mosaics!

Then we went to the Piazza Plebiscito and The Royal Palace of Naples (they were both in the same area). From the Piazza if you look behind it there is a great view of some buildings on top of the mountain.

We then ended up walking to the sea and saw some great views with the mountains and what we think was Mount Vesuvius.

We then sat in the park we found for a little bit as our little legs were so tired from all the walking!

We walked back to our apartment to find some dinner and found this cute place on the corner called “O Cerriglio” and I ordered a seafood spaghetti. It was all very nice but there were some clams that were a bit sandy but the mussels were plump and the prawns were sweet. So tasty!

Sorrento – Day 2 (My birthday!)

It’s my birthday (e il mio compleanno)!!!! Woke up early to grab our free breakfast; we ended up going to the “big one.” The voucher was for 1 pastry and 1 drink (hot or cold). So we got a croissant and a tea. The croissant was nice and flaky, they were huge though! (but I’m not complaining!)

We went to the Circumvesuviana train station to get a train to Sorrento; this was around 20ish minute walk from our apartment. This train is the beginning stop and Sorrento is the last stop. I accidently bought single tickets but they were around €4 each.

It was an easy train ride and the views nearer to Sorrento was so pretty, great mountain views! I had a list of places that I wanted to go to and they were all short walks from each other:

We wanted a short break from all the walking so we found a little restaurant with sea views for my first limoncello of the day! With the drinks they gave us complimentary snacks (bonus!) And we just enjoyed the views! What was funny was that a song came on and it had “happy birthday” in it so that was good timing haha.

After the little rest we went back on our adventure for some more great sea views. Punto Panoramico “Lucio Dalla”; as the name suggests… it had great panoramic views! It was stunning! When in Sorrento you have to try their lemon products! We found this place called I Giardini di Cataldo (a short walk from Punto Panoramico) that bottles their own limoncello and makes their own lemon sorbet! So obviously we had to try their sorbet! The sorbet came in an actual lemon and we enjoyed it under all their lemon trees. The sorbet also had some candied lemon peel on top and made it a perfect sweet and sour pairing!

At this point we haven’t even had a proper lunch yet, so we went to the last spot on my list Dominova seat and conveniently there was a restaurant opposite it; easy choice there then! I ordered the Gnocchi alla Sorrentina; it was gnocchi in a tomato sauce with cheese. This was my first time having gnocchi and it was so filling but tasted so good. I ordered a limoncello spritz (as you do on your birthday) and my god it was so strong!

We then did a spot of shopping and I bought this cute Sorrento bell with lemons on and a bookmark; the bell was €6 but the shop owner didn’t put my bookmark in sooo free bookmark, woo!

Back in Naples and we decided we would go to a bar for a last limoncello shot to end my birthday. Went to a place called PisaDog Spritz and it was a nice atmosphere; they had a bulldog as their image and out came a tiny little dog, this made me laugh lol. A nice way to end the perfect day!

Pompeii and Archaeological Museum – Day 3

It started off as a very grey day and a thunderstorm was due in… But anyway, after having breakfast we walked to the Circumvesuviana train station to Pompeii Scavi – Villa dei Misteri (the stop you need to get to Pompeii); this train ride took around an hour.

For Pompeii we bought self guided tickets from here (before we flew to Naples) Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Mt. Vesuvius: Hours, Tickets, and Tours; it was €59 for Pompeii and the Herculaneum. This included skip the queue entrance and audio guides.

So once we arrived in Pompeii, we had to go to the Tempio Travel ticket office to get the entrance tickets and the audio guides. The ticket office was a short walk from the train station and it is upstairs; if you buy tickets from the above link, the day before they will message you instructions on where to go and also the opening times. At the ticket office, they will ask for your ID, they initially asked for a passport but I only had my driving license so they took that as a deposit for the audio guides. I also had to take a photo of my driving license as I needed it for entrance into Pompeii.

After getting our tickets, we walked to the Pompeii site entrance to get our tickets scanned. This is where it started to rain REALLY hard! My pack a mac was not waterproof but onwards, lol! We did wait until it died down a little before going out…

Pompeii is actually very big and I don’t think we actually saw everything. We did go see the victims museum part and it was kinda sad seeing them all. I didn’t take any photos or videos as I find it disrespectful to the victims. What was interesting was the tube of dirt and ash; it was basically how much was on top of Pompeii from when it erupted to when it ended and it was high!

We walked to the Amphitheatre and this is where it thunder stormed! Finding somewhere for shelter was fun, the thunder was so loud!

For lunch, there is a little restaurant that has pasta, pizza, focaccia (with different toppings) and fruit. Then outside the restaurant there was a little cafe too. There wasn’t too much space to sit but it was literally lunchtime when we went!

We didn’t have time for the Herculaneum so we went back to Naples and went to the Archaeological Museum. We mainly came here for the Pompeii artifacts; the artifacts was upstairs.

For dinner, we went to a place called Monsu and I ordered the Pasta Patate e Pravola (pasta with potatoes and pravola cheese). This is a typical Napoli dish so I had to try it and it didn’t disappoint!

Since being in Naples, I couldn’t find anywhere that had Graffa (Hot fried doughnut), but we finally found somewhere! Although it wasn’t hot, I loved the texture of the doughnut and it was HUGE! Nice fluffy inside and crunchy outside, nice end to the day!

Home time – Day 4

We made our way to Naples Central Station to get the Alibus to the airport. The ticket booth is outside where the buses are and not inside the station.

Naples departure lounge does have a lot of shops and places to eat. We were very early to the airport as we thought the EES would take a long time so we hung around for a good few hours!

TIPS

Book Pompeii and Herculaneum before hand – Pompeii can be a whole day tour so I would recommend having 1 day in Pompeii and 1 day at the Herculaneum.

Sansevero Chapel in Naples – Book this in advance as you may not get tickets on the day (we found out the hard way!)

Take some euros with you for public toilets.

We arrived Monday morning and some smaller shops seems to be closed. Looking online, smaller shops in Naples are closed Sundays and Monday mornings.

Wear comfy shoes! Most of Naples attractions are within walking distance, between 15-30 minutes tops.

Hope this blogs helps you out!

See you in the next one! Ciao!

My YouTube videos of my Naples/Sorrento/Pompeii trip

Birthday trip to ITALY | NAPLES | SORRENTO | PART 1

Birthday trip to ITALY | POMPEII | NAPLES | PART 2