Day 4 - Naples

9th July

This was the last day we spent in Naples and so were looking forward to an awesomely full day today!

After breakfast we planned what we wanted to do. We wanted to do what dad wanted to do, and he wanted to do what we wanted to do, so we did have a bit of a dilemma choosing what to do ;)

First stop was the highest mountain within Naples, so we took a metro to the funicular stop. We wanted to go to the mountain because there is a castle called 'Castel Sant' Elmo' and a convent called 'Certosa di San Martino' up the top which apparently have amazing views. Harri said so, anyway. And we follow him: our personal tour guide of Naples :)

Taking the funicular to the top of the mountain

When we arrived at the top we were greeted with lovely breezes and flowers galore. A nice surprise seeing as the bottom of the hill was extremely hot, and, well, the flowers are a lovely bonus :)

We were guided along by some locals to the "Castel de Elmo" first.

The castle itself is not that pretty really, and contrary to the signs there is no cafe. There were amazing views from the castle though, which Harri promised us. Good job Harri!!

This is us at the palace looking over the city of Naples.

Port of Naples

Mt. Vesuvius in the background behind the polluted fog

After we left the castle, well really when I told everyone that I was thirsty and NEEDED to go to get water (which you couldn't get at the castle), we had a lovely cold glass of water/lemon slushy and some interesting pastry that looks like a croissant but tastes fuller, called "riccia". I will try to take a photo to show you in my next post.

After this we went to the convent 'Certosa di San Martino'. 

I had never been to a convent before, and actually to be honest I thought that the last place that we went to (Castel Sant' Elmo) was the convent. The actual castle had some very thin slits for light to come in through in the walls every now and then, which convents usually have, right? haha. 

So I am more and more convinced that these two places are mixed around, as the convent looks so extravagant, like a castle, as you can see in the pictures below:

One of the halls of the main part of the convent

Amazing paintings adorned every surface, even the ceiling!! How would they paint such amazing pieces up there? That would be difficult ;) 

This is the courtyard. It was so picturesque :) 

There was a huge garden in the convent, and I found this kitten and the mother cat roaming around it :D I also found two bowls of water in another part of the garden, so they must be convent pets. Perhaps they are descendants of the actual cats in the convent when it was an actual convent ...

Amazing view of Mt. Vesuvius from the gardens of the convent. Imagine being a nun here? I definitely wouldn't mind, as long as I could still come and go as I please ;) 

After we left the convent, we wanted to go down the mountain. As we still had time before lunch, we decided to walk down the hill. Apparently a lady said it should only take us 15 minutes ...

Here we are at the top of the mountain, about to climb down

There were doors of houses all along the walk down, so it got us wondering how people got up and down the stairs with their groceries ...

At one of these houses we saw a booth selling drinks. I would say at this point we had been walking for ten minutes, so needless to say it took much longer than 15 minutes to walk down the mountain ;) 

A grapevine we found going down.

Amazing flowers that were spilling out from a garden. If anyone knows what flowers they are, please let me know!

These are amazing colours!! I love these flowers :D 

Almost at the bottom.

When we finally did reach the bottom, we were super hungry!! If we knew how long it would take to get down the hill, I don't know if we would have done it ;) It was an amazing view though.

Here we are on one of the old town street looks for a restaurant to eat lunch.

After that we had a lovely walk through the old town streets, which are long and narrow, so it takes forever to get down a street you think wouldn't take that long.

We needed to have an early night, because the next day we would be going to the Amalfi Coast. We were hoping to leave early, so that we could get to the coast and have half a day to get some sightseeing and swimming in the Mediterranean done :D

That plan didn't work out so well though, because we started watching this disney movie called "College Road Trip" on the television, and it was just so funny that we watched it all and didn't go to bed till late.

Oh well ;)

We will be fine tomorrow I am sure. Hopefully.

Now you are uptodate,

Laura

xoxo

Day 3 - Naples coast

8th July

We didn't start the day fast, but we definitely saw amazing sights today. I would say that that was all we wanted to see anyway. My feet are telling me so ;) 

Here we are waiting for our pizza and salad at a restaurant in a port dock for cruise ships.

Before lunch, we wanted to go shopping. And we wanted to go to an air-conditioned shopping centre, which they don't really do here in Naples, so my mum and Harri thought of going to the shops at the cruise ship port. They had looked at it when researching before we came. 

There was many lovely expensive-looking shops, which we bypassed. And then, right at the end of the centre, there was an outlet store. That was what we wanted ;) And, my goodness, the bags and shoes inside were amazing!! Soft Italian leather bags, and high wedge shoes :D

After 1 hour, we only left with one pair of Italian leather shoes for Harri!! Mum and I saw so many lovely things, but just did not find the one match for us. A shame, really ...

Out of the port, we headed to the castle of Naples. It was an extremely hot day, and the sun makes us feel drowsy, so we were feeling quite tired, even though we hadn't done much!! Shopping must take up a lot of energy ;) 

The entrance to Castel Nuovo.

View from the castle looking out over the peninsula of Sorrento. As you can see,  at the bottom of the image, there are heaps of mopeds. This is the moped country, and small cars, which makes sense with all the small roads, which I will show later.

After this we met with my dad, who had left early from his conference (He had already given his part, and he didn't like the university because there was no air-conditioning). He was hot, and we were hot, so we all had some gelato before deciding what to do together. I had strawberry gelato, which tasted like sorbet. It was super refreshing!!

Starting to walk along the coast line. It was peak-hour traffic, so as we were walking there were 'beep' noises going every few seconds. The mopeds weaved in between the cars, which the cars didn't like, (hence the beeping noises) and there are no lines on the road. The drivers don't seem to be stressed at all, even though cars keep ducking in to lanes ect.

View of Mount Vesuvius.

Another view of Vesuvius. Here Harri was beginning to take a panorama shot.

 We stayed here for a while, just watching the traffic. We could not believe that there were even some bikes among the chaos of the mopeds and cars. There was even two girls with a moped that didn't work, pushing themselves to the hill to roll down. We are thinking perhaps they just needed a push ;)

Here we all are with Vesuvius in the background.

We continued walking along the coast, which was an amazingly cool walk because of the ocean breeze. And we came upon a hotel with heaps of paparazzi and people crowded around it. Apparently there were many famous movie stars and models going to the various events that were on tonight, like a Dolce & Gabbana show, Sophia Loren interview, and Elton John concert. Mum wanted to stay to see if she knew any of the people getting in to cars, because all the paparazzi were there and she thought there would be someone famous. After a while, thigh, we realised that it was pretty much impossible for us to see any faces into the cars, so we left.

After a little while of walking along the coast, we made a split decision to eat dinner at one of the restaurants along there.

This is my pizza. It was called "Pizza of Naples", and it was amazing!! Half of the pizza is margherita, which is from Naples, and the other half was a folded ricotta and ham pizza. Apparently margherita pizza was named after the queen of Italy, who was sick of French gourmet food and wanted the chef to make a new pizza. 

Sunset over the coast.

Panorama of the coast line.

Now you are uptodate,

Laura

xoxo

Day Two: Naples Old Town

8th July

Today was an amazing day; from walking through narrow underground waterways, eating pizza and gelato, to meeting with (well, seeing really) Dolce & Gabbana. It was an extremely packed day!! (as all our travel journeys tend to be;)) I hardly made it back to the hotel!!

The view from our hotel room balcony. We look out over a mountain top, which is covered with houses. 

Our closest metro station, Leopold station. 

We began the day by eating a huge, Italian, buffet breakfast. It was really nice, but I just don't know how to eat enough food without over-eating breakfast ... Our Italian breakfast consisted of toast with prosciutto, mozzarella, tomato and smoked mushrooms, delicious fruits, and many tempting pastries. Oh, and my mum and dad loved the expresso cappuccino, Italian style!!

After that we (by we, I mean my mum, Harri and I, as my dad has a conference during the day) took the metro to the main station in Naples, where we all bought an 'arte card', which gives you three days of transport and three attractions for free. This has been definitely been super handy! 

We walked to the old town, after walking aimlessly through rubbish-strewn streets where a lovely sales attendant gave us directions to somewhere more worthy for tourists ;)

Old town street.

In the lovely old town streets we saw countless, 

amazing pictures of Italian sceneries

More paintings.

We were starving by this point, (2 p.m.) as we could not find any pizzerias along the way. Luckily we just rounded on a pizzeria, where apparently there was "the best pizza", but really they all say that, and the most important thing ... air-conditioning :) 

Positano Pizza, with ricotta (the bits looking like squiggles), ham and mushrooms. It was amazing!!

When we first arrived, it was very quiet. A few minutes later a bunch of older Italians came in, and it was all loud talk and laughter. It was fully packed!! Lunch in Italy must be at 2 p.m. :D 

As we were starting to eat our lovely pizza, suddenly there was loud music. This guy that you can see in the picture starting playing with his tambourine and singing, and the Italian group joined in singing :) Definitely an authentic Italian feeling ;)

We then left the pizzeria and continued down the old street. 

This was a lovely little vase that I thought I would try to make when I get back home. 

More old town streets.

We then stumbled upon a private tour of the underground, which we decided

 to do. Harri had planned what he wanted to do in Naples, and this was one of the things to do on his list, so we blindly agreed to whatever lay underground. I told Harri that I didn't want to do it if it was scary, but he said it wasn't. I still wasn't sure though ...

To begin with they led us down 121 giant steps (the early Greeks must have had giant legs when they built this because the steps are two-step steps). No, I didn't make a mistake, the Greeks did build these stairs. This underground was originally built by the Greeks in 470 B.C. !!!!!

When we arrived at the bottom of the 121 steps, which is the correct amount because my mum counted and can confirm, we were taken into this large room where we were told the history of the underground, which is under the whole city of Naples. Apparently, it was originally an aqueduct, carrying materials all across Naples on water, from higher points to lower points. It was then used as a rubbish dump, some time after that the rubbish was squished down and new walls were created on top of the rubbish, and then water-proofed and used as a bomb-shelter during world war II.

To continue the tour, we were given some candles to hold, in order to see our way through dark tunnels. We were taken through some extremely narrow walkways, which were originally used as "cunicoli" waterways. We were led to some wells which were lifted up to the surface through large holes in the roof of the underground), one smaller private one, and one larger public one. The water was crystal clear, and would have been amazingly cool in the hot Italian summer heat!!

Walk through the narrow "cunicoli" waterways. As you can see in the image, to the right of the candle, there are footholds. These were used by the "well men" who cleaned the wells and waterways.

After this tour, we were shown some ruins of an old Roman stage in the old town. It was built upon, because there was a law at that time saying that buildings had to be made within the city walls. I was wondering why there would be this law, and my dad suggested it helps the Neapolitans to defend themselves easily. hmm ... Well, that tour was very interesting!!

These were the types of nativity scenes that the Neapolitan had in the olden days. These scenes either depicted everyday life, or religious scenes. 

Another nativity scene. 

Walking back down the old town street, after the tour guide told us that these streets, along with this emaculate stage with regal red, were for a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show, we came upon a large crowd. The crowd seemed to be hovering around some people. We assumed it was some famous person, but we hadn't seen anyone yet. My mum decided to ask one of the body guard who the famous person was, and he said, with a you-should-really-know attitude, "Dolce & Gabbana"!!

So, we saw Dolce & Gabbana ;) Well, I only saw one of them. ha :D

The crowds around Dolce & Gabbana. There was this lovely shop selling paper flowers nearby. I was so amazed to discover that they were made from paper!! 

 After walking for sometime, we found ourselves in a piazza.

'Chiesa del Gesu Nuovo' church. I wanted to capture the way that the light was shining. 

Toledo Metro Station.  

A lovely shopping centre we happened to walk past. 

The day ended eating gnocchi with salmon in our hotel room.

Now you are uptodate,

Laura

xoxo

Day One: Helsinki to Naples

6th July 2016

Yesterday was a mad rush to get from one place to another, and to try to manage our eating patterns so that we could survive the long day. We didn't completely manage the eating pattern bit, but we did get where we need to go ... 

~

The itinerary and things to do for today was basically different types of transportation and trying to get as much sleep as possible :) Along with getting bites to eat and testing how hot it is of course.

So we woke up extremely early at around 4 a.m., and left for the airport. None of us had slept much at all, so we were all pretty dazed. I actually tried on three different outfits, and even asked my mum which would suit the day better, which would have been totally fine if I hadn't have already planned my outfit the night before ...

Transport 1: Car from our house to the Helsinki airport

We had decided to take the car to the airport, and leave it there for the week we would be away for, because it turned out to be cheaper than paying for public transport. It was definitely less stressful, I think, not that the transport in Helsinki is that stressful really ;)

Transport 2: Flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt.

We were all very hungry, since we had no breakfast, and so luckily we bought something small to eat before the plane, because Lufthansa only gave us a piece of cafe for sustenance!! We were expecting at least a sandwich (The Finnish breakfast, usually on rye bread) or some eggs (our breakfast). Thinking back, that is probably where our eating timetable was messed up. Eating all that sugar for breakfast, nonono ...

Frankfurt Airport. There were so many shops, we didn't know what shop to go to. We were in need of some morning tea, and we didn't end up eating (in our two hour layover) until half an hour before boarding ;) 

The food we finally decided on, and the seats we finally decided on. We had to have a view!!

As we passed through the gates before boarding the plane, and after I gave an old boarding pass to the ticket lady by mistake (whoops), we headed mysteriously onto a bus. 

Transport 3: bus from Frankfurt airport terminal to the plane.

The bus took us on a tour of Frankfurt airport, outside. It was very exciting!

In the 7 minutes bus journey from the airport to the plane, I am sure I saw a dozen planes taking off and landing. 

Finally we made it to the plane, but the plane wasn't ready for us, so we had to wait in the bus (staring at the hugeness of the plane) for at least another two minutes. 

Our seats right at the back of the plane :) Harri and I chose the front flight of steps to get up onto the plane, which took us all the way through the plane to get us to our back seats, and Mum and Dad took the back flights of steps, which was definitely the better option ;)

Transport 4: Flight from Frankfurt to Rome.

We then arrived at Rome, and as we walked into the busy airport, we saw countless amazing images of Roman buildings. We will be looking forward to seeing those buildings in real life! My dad was asked many times if he would like some train tickets to get the city centre, and that was while he was walking!! haha. These Romans are very, extremely, friendly!

Transport 5: Train from the Leonardo da Vinci airport to Rome

The train journey from the Leonardo da Vinci airport to Rome. There were so many lovely flowers along the way, that I had never seen before, so I simply had to take a picture. 

When we arrived in Rome we had 30 minutes to find the platform for our next train. Yes, another train ;) 

Transport 6: Train from Rome to Naples.

As usual, apparently for Rome, the train platform was not displayed on the main monitor till 10 minutes before boarding. That really got under my mum's nerves. 

The scenery was lovely on the journey: mountain after mountain. And on top of every 5th mountain there were old looking houses. It was so different, and so lovely.

Today was a big day for Harri, because today was the day the International Baccalaureate published their student's grades, so it was great that Harri had such an awesome distraction to take his mind away from the nonexistent internet on the train (meaning that he couldn't go online to see his grade yet). 

We descended from the train, and had to go and ascend onto the metro. Another transport :) 

Harri and I were quite hungry, so we went to this lovely deli cafe. It is amazing how you can get by when the other person knows limited English, and we knew VERY limited Italian! In the end I ended up having this interesting looking pastry with a huge chunk of nutella inside (way too much in my opinion), and Harri had a pastry with jam in it. We basically made our choices from looking at the pastries, without knowing what was in them. 

Transport 7: Metro from Naples city centre to our hotel.

The final stretch was lovely. Not only for our mentally tired selves, but also for the fact that Harri could find is grades online with the free internet at the hotel. 

The metro was amazing! I have never seen such a luxurious metro. It is like the train in Helsinki, where the metro is very basic. 

When we arrived at the airport, we were ready to have dinner. When we went to the closest pizza restaurant, we discovered that it was closed. When we asked about it, we were told dinner in Italy is not until 7:30 p.m.! A whole hour and a half after our usual dinner time! This usually would have been fine for us, but after such a long day of travelling and sleeplessness, we were very much looking forward to eating early and going to sleep. Oh well ...

In the meantime my dad and I went to a local "market", grocery store, where we got some bruschetta with pancetta and balsamic vinegar to have for a snack. According to my dad, that is what Italians have ;) I think he just likes his balsamic vinegar. Really, he is the only one who has it anyways. I think it is a bit too salty tasting. 

~

We did end up getting some pizza, which was amazing. But I was far too tired by that stage to take any pictures, so I will take one tonight.  

Now you are up to date.

Laura 

xoxo