A tale of 3 cities & 3 friends

This is indeed a tale of three cities; Naples, Rome & the Vatican City and of three friends; me, Tom & Sarah. It's a tale of bad luck, good luck, bad weather, good weather, international flights, intercity trains, fit vicars, new popes, rude waiters, friendly waitresses and a vast array of ancient monuments.
Welcome to The Three Muskateers Do Italy: March 2013. Enjoy!

I loved Italy. I loved this trip that we went on this month and I've loved my previous visits. I love a country where you can take different holidays, where there is a new experience if you visit a new area. Not like in England where you travel 400 miles North from home on holiday & still find the same branches of Shoe Zone & Poundland... I remember going to Sicily when I was little & going to the top of Mount Etna: climbing to the top of an active volcano is an experience for sure. I remember going skiing in Madonna di Campiglio in the far North of the country & a wonderful time with a great group of friends. Now I have a third Italian memory of the Southern cities; in fact I did suggest that we return to Italy for our next holiday and cover the Northern cities...Pisa, Florence, Verona, Venice, Bologna...*dreams*

So you now know I like Italy, so what was great specifically about this trip? Sometimes what makes something good is not that nothing bad happened the whole time, or everything was optimum but that maybe things did go wrong. Yet, you still carried on. Maybe it's when you can remember the small things that made you laugh as well as the big memories that make you smile. For me, its all of those things and a reminder of the power of friendship. True friends when reconvening after hours or years are able to pick up where they left off as if no time has passed.

Unfortunately, Sarah was ill for a week prior to our trip & when Tom and I set off for her house on Friday, she was still in hospital. When we flew out to Naples on Saturday morning, she was still in hospital & when we took the train North to Rome on Monday, she still wasn't with us. Needless to say it was not the same without Sarah and we missed her. Our good luck was that come Monday night, Tom & I were waiting at Fuimicino Airport for a very special arrival!! Yes Sarah joined usand our holiday really began now that the Muskateers were complete! Thus our bad luck became good!

 

 As any good British holiday maker does, I had studiously consulted worldweatheronline.com on several occasions before we left. Thus I knew that the forecast for Rome was warm(er than the UK) but decidedly wet and I packed accordingly. Good job too as we had 2 very wet, windy (ie British) days in Rome as we attempted to soak up the cultural heritage of the city. This was in great contrast to our weekend in Naples where in temperatures of nearly 20C and high altitudes we were lucky to escape with minor sunburn as we explored the ruins of Pompeii. Indeed we did have 2 extremes of weather over our week in Italy!

 As we traversed our three cities we got very good use of the public transportation system! We flew out to Naples on Sat 2nd March & took a taxi to the hotel, as well as a City Tour Bus and public buses in the city. We took a local train to Pompeii on the Sunday and on Monday it was a minibus followed by a local train & then an intercity train up to Rome. We traversed Rome mainly underground and took a shuttle bus back to the Airport on the Saturday. This wasn't the first time we'd been to that airport though as we'd picked Sarah up-taking the Leonardo Express high speed service.

Tom waiting for the train to Rome

The three of us squished on the Metro

 Our weekend in Naples was seriously blighted by the serious bad luck of arriving during the 33 day long strike being posed by the staff at the Left Luggage Office. So I'd like to thank them for their impeccable scheduling which deprived us of a visit to San Lorenzo Maggiore Church (site of an excavated Roman Market) and the National Archaeology Museum of Naples.

From the friendly waitress who bumped into us at Leopardi Station & gave us a lift back to our hotel in Torre del Greco, to the rude Italian / Indian waiter I came to blows with over half a chicken, to the fact that the Pope abdicated 2 days before we arrived: the people of Italy certainly made our visit memorable! Standing in view of the Sistine Chapel but not being able to enter; instead observing the glory of Michaelangelo's masterpieces from a book was not what we'd planned. Yet very few people were able to buy the special "sede verdante" stamp set when they visited the Vatican...

  As for the ancient monuments, I have to give special mention to the Trevi Fountain which Tom & I visited on our first evening in Rome. 

It is stunning in an understated, eternal, magnificent way. The atmosphere & surroundings make it one of the most wonderful, peacefully chaotic places I've ever visited.

  Then there was the Colosseum-something I've seen in pictures, films, adverts etc-but never believed I'd ever stand before or inside of... I would love to be there when its empty, to listen to the wind whistle through the ancient brick arches and allow my mind to wander back 2000 years to  gladiatorial battles & screaming crowds of 50,000+.


As for Pompeii: I was moved as I walked the ancient streets and regarded the plaster cast corpses of a city that is both dead and alive, buried and yet unearthed, inert and yet compelling. It was totally worth the visit; the city is so extensive and some of the ruins-the theatres especially-are remarkably well preserved. There truly is no other place like it and to visit it on such a beautiful day was almost paradoxically sad in some ways. I'm glad its a UNESCO World Heritage Site (its no wonder Italy has the most in the world) as it certainly does "bear a unique or exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared".

As well as the ancient monuments, we visited some of the other famously touristy places in Italy; the most famous of which is the one that isn't even in Italy...the Vatican! Of course the Vatican was without a leader and we couldn't see the Sistine Chapel, buutt we did get an extensive tour of the Vatican Museums and then visited St Peter's Bascillica. We also took the unique opportunity of writing & posting some postcards from the Vatican Post Office!! I have to say, they arrived in like 5 days and cost less than the normal stamps we bought in Rome-none of which have yet arrived!

 
The museums are beautiful troves of statues, mosaics, pottery, tapestries and frescoes by famous artists such as Raphael & Michaelangelo. Room upon room of floor to ceiling stuning artwork - the Vatican really is a worthy residence for a Head of State.



So, I think I've covered a fair amount of detail of our lovely little adventure in Italy. Our story of 3 cities and 3 friends is a great memory of great times with great people. We weren't quite sure how it was going to turn out at times and we faced some difficulties but ultimately we had a great holiday and-come rain or shine-so long as we have each other, things will always be...just great!