Volcano + Pizza
Trip date: February 15, 2017
Since we had a week in Rome and had some extra days on our Eurail pass, we decided to do a day trip. We had wanted to try and do Pompeii and Vesuvius in the same day but, ultimately, it seemed a bit too rushed, so we decided to just visit Vesuvius instead (and save Pompeii for a future trip).
What seemed like a relatively easy day trip started out kind of shambles. We took a train using our Eurail pass from Rome to Naples. From there, we thought we had several options based on what we read online:
- Take a direct bus to Vesuvius
- Take a train to Pompeii (included in Eurail), then take bus or minivan to Vesuvius
- Take the Circumvesuviana train to Ercolano (not included in Eurail), then a bus from Ercolano to Vesuvius via the Vesuvio Express
When we arrived in Naples, we got out of the train station in the hopes of finding the direct bus to Vesuvius. Well, turns out the internet doesn't know everything. There was a lot of construction going on near the train station and just finding the bus station was difficult! We ultimately found it based on pictures we'd seen and matching the buildings in the pictures with what we saw in the city. We waited around for a bit but never saw a bus for Vesuvius.
So we decided to go back to the train station and go with option #2. Unfortunately for us, we spent just a tad bit too long looking for the bus and missed the train to Pompeii by a minute. Side note, the trains in Italy were generally really nice but the train stations and finding your train was kind of a mess. Naples train station was especially confusing since there were actually two stations (Centrale and Piazza Garibaldi) that were kind of in the same building but on different floors, plus the metro stops in the station to add to the confusion!
Anyways, that left us with option #3. Turns out, this is the option that the tourist information center will tell you about, as if it's the only option, even though the internet says differently. The Circumvesuviana train was super crowded with lots of people doing what we were doing. This train was also ghetto AF and not a very enjoyable ride, though at least it was short.
And that is how we unexpectedly ended up in Ercolano! When we arrived in Ercolano, we had just missed a shuttle to the volcano (such was our luck that day) so we ended up having about a half hour or so before the next one. We decided to walk through Ercolano to Herculaneum (a smaller Pompeii, but without the plaster statues) just to check it out before heading back.
Ercolano is super tiny but felt like it was bustling with activity; there were people out and about everywhere, sometimes just sitting out front and gossiping, etc. There were also lots of people in front of restaurants who desperately wanted you to eat there, or at the least, take a flyer and remember them for later?
We walked to Herculaneum, where we were able to view it from above before heading back to the train station for our shuttle up to the volcano, finally!
The Vesuvio Express cost 10 euro per person, plus another 10 euro admission into the park. It's a roundtrip fare and you're given 90mins. That was partly the reason that we didn't want to go with this option, because we didn't want to have a time restraint. After going to Vesuvius though, 90mins is just about perfect.
The bus drops you off at the entrance at 1000m where you then hike about 800m uphill to the crater. The path is relatively steep and very rocky/ashy. You hike up to the top, walk partway around the crater, get some views of Naples and the surrounding bay area if it's clear out, and then hike back down to catch the bus back to Ercolano.
I don't really know what we were expecting from visiting Vesuvius but it was pretty anti-climatic when we got to the top and saw the crater. There were a couple spots where you could see the fumes coming out, and you could tell as you walked that the rocks underneath your feet were volcanic. But other than that, it was kind of just a dusty, ashy, somewhat barren mountain hike. We had done a lot of other gorgeous hikes on this trip already so the hike up to the crate of Vesuvius was definitely a let down, especially after all the hassle of getting up here! At least we had some decent views of Naples and Pompeii, though it was a bit hazy.
We took the Circumvesuviana train from Ercolano back to Naples and since Naples is known for Neapolitan pizza, we decided to try some before heading back to Rome! We zig-zagged our way along the back streets of Naples towards the area where a lot of the pizzerias were. It definitely felt a lot different being here than in Rome! The city has a manic energy to it, with people constantly moving about everywhere, tons of honking and chit chatting and just noise all around. It feels very lived in and not touristy at all!
There was one street we turned down which was a seafood street or something? Everyone was selling fish and other seafood. On this street, with the smell of the fish and other city smells and laundry hanging outside and people everywhere, we would have thought we were back in Asia! We explored this idea further as we made our way to a pizzeria and decided that Italian culture and Asian culture actually have a lot in common, which maybe explains why we really love Italy? For example, food and family is very central to both cultures! We also saw lots of people sitting outside on stools drinking tea and playing cards in the evening as we were leaving - just like in Asia! As different as other cultures and ethnicities may seem at first glance, we actually have more in common than we realize.
And now, the pizza! So we found a few recommended places for authentic Neapolitan pizza. The main one that kept showing up was Da Michele but we read that their pizza is very very wet in the center (as it's supposed to be apparently) and knew that we tended to not like that so we decided to try somewhere else.
In our searches, we kept seeing "fried pizza" and so we went to Pizzeria De' Figliole first to sample some as a starter. We had read that Italians eat a pizza per person and it's weird to share, but luckily, they were used to tourists and didn't blink an eye when we wanted just one to share. We got the sausage and broccoli (more like broccolini) fried pizza and it was really delicious! The dough is crispy and chewy and amazingly not greasy at all. The insides were savory and juicy and reminded me of the Trieste sausage broccoli pizza that I loved so much!
Our appetites whetted, we went to Pizzeria Di Matteo for round 2. Apparently, President Clinton had visited this one back in 1994 and really put it on the map. Anyways, we ended up getting two pizzas here and thus, concluded our pizza tour of Naples (we had originally planned to hit up a third spot if we stuck to one pizza per destination). We got a classic marinara pizza at Di Matteo, as well as a diavola, which was essentially like a margherita pizza but with salami and spicy peppers. The center of both pizzas were a little bit soupy but the crust still held up. The flavors of both pizzas were good, the diavola had an unexpectedly strong kick to it!
We enjoyed both pizzas, but we can't definitively say that the best Neapolitan pizza is in Naples. We might even say that Veraci's in Seattle is better in our opinions!
After a long day with some unexpected destinations and our fill of pizza, we said farewell to Naples and boarded a train back to Rome.
