Author: Sara

While it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we spent the vast majority of our time in Naples eating pizza, drinking beer to recover from climbing the 104 steps up to our weird Airbnb, and flooding our apartment while using the washing machine (that one wasn’t on us), we did find a bit of time to explore some of Naples’ long and fascinating history.

First up, we took the circumvesuviana train 20 minutes into the suburbs to explore Herculaneum, a roman-era fishing village that had been partially destroyed by an earthquake in AD 62 and then fully submerged in volcanic ash in AD 79.

This meant it had a history that somewhat parallelled the much better known Pompeii, although with three key differences for us: it was a smaller site (more manageable for our incurable need for completeness!), with fewer visitors, and was much better preserved (because of the type of volcanic rock that enveloped the town, it even conserved some food). 

We visited roman villas and community meeting spaces that still had their second storeys standing, with beautiful marble cladding, mosaic floors and detailed decoration on the walls.

We saw a blacksmith’s shop that was so well preserved that archeologists were able to work out what was in for repair when the town was buried: a ridiculously ornate candelabra and a bronze statue.

We saw several thermopoliums, which were restaurants where you could pick up ready-made food (ancient branches of Wasabi, if you will). We also visited the men’s bath house, where you could still see the decorative mosaics of dolphins and cherubs, and where the compartments for men to leave their clothes were intact on the wall.

Apparently, there’s a lot more of the village that hasn’t yet been excavated because it is under modern Ercolano.  Some parts have been explored by tunnel, but what lies beyond that is still unknown.  It’s a bit mind-blowing to consider what kind of treasures might be underground still waiting to be discovered.  Other than a bit of a fascination with WW2, I’m not a huge history fan, but this was a truly impressive site and for me far exceeded Pompeii, which I’d visited in 2007 on an interrailing trip with Amy and Liz (pic enclosed just to embarrass them and check they are still reading 😉) 

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Our second visit was to Napoli Sotterranea.  Here, we descended under the streets of Naples and followed a tour that covered the use of the underground catacombs from ancient Greek times to give residents running water, right up to their use as air raid shelters in WW2.  There’s even a current project in collaboration with a local university examining growing plants underground using the ambient humidity to keep them watered – apparently they are supplying basil to many local restaurants.  

It was a really cool experience exploring underground in a space that had been used in so many ways over such a long time span.  I won’t lie – another of my favourite parts of this tour was also that we spent an hour at a comfortable temperature (we’ve not had air conditioning and it’s preeetty hot in southern Italy in August!)

Thankfully we visited before we tried the pizza fritta, so we could still fit through the extremely narrow passageways.

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We spent the remainder of our time in Naples walking for miles around different neighbourhoods to soak up the street life and architecture. This included skidding through a local fish market, admiring the Maradona murals in Quartieri Spagnoli, the art nouveau architecture and upmarket shopping in Chiaia, and walking the promenade from Santa Lucia to the port. 

We left Naples on the first bus of our trip; a four-hour ride to the hilltop city of Matera, via Candela.

Lucca is a medieval town in Tuscany, known for its staggering number of churches and towers. We spent a couple of slower days here without a set itinerary, mainly wandering the streets in the walled old town.

It is one of those places (there seem to be many in Italy) that is nonchalantly beautiful, with stunning historic buildings, ornate doors, traditional shop fronts and just the right amount of peeling paint and graffiti so that it doesn’t look like Disneyland. Bicycles were the preferred mode of transport, there were vineyards within easy reach (more on that to come) and the town even had its own craft brewery (which we dutifully sampled more than once – we are nothing if not thorough). This felt like a town that had the measure of us.

On our first afternoon, we picked up a delicious picnic of focaccini (tiny bread pies, filled with delights like fior di latte or gorgonzola, radicchio and walnut) from the iconic Forne a vapour Amedeo Giusti and walked the 4km footpath around the 16th century walls that encircle the old town.

Walking the walls was a popular tourist activity, although most people seemed to opt for renting Quadracycles. Having got in a right pickle in one in Santa Barbara with the Appletons a couple of years ago, we knew that they weren’t the easiest to control, and sure enough we overheard some great family arguments on our way. This was a really lovely introduction to Lucca as we could peer into the old town from above but also see lots of the ‘new’ (still quite old) town beyond the walls.

During one of our walks, we came across the Torre Guinigi and climbed the 230 steps to the top for the view over the red rooftops that the Lonely Planet described as “predictably magnificent”. The thing that really set this tower apart was that there were seven mature trees growing on the very small rooftop. It didn’t seem like the greatest idea in terms of structural integrity, but it did look lovely!

We returned to the same spot on the city walls on several evenings to watch the sun set over the Tuscan hills. On one evening, as we ate our poke bowls (you can take the girl out of London…), an opera singer and classical quartet began a performance just behind us. SO Italian!

After a relaxed couple of days, we were ready for some exploration further afield, so we set off to see a bit more of Tuscany by train and bike.

Everything we’d read in advance about Cinque Terre described the area in similar terms – spectacular and very, very busy. Given our normal preference to avoid crowds at all costs (making Italy in August an interesting choice), we were excited but a little apprehensive to visit.

We stretched our budget slightly to allow us to stay within one of the five villages so that we could enjoy the relative quiet of the early morning and late evening. After poring over descriptions of the distinguishing characteristics of each village, we decided they all sounded fabulous and made our choice based on booking the only apartment we could find that was well-rated, somewhat affordable and, crucially, available. Riomaggiore it was!

On our first afternoon, we rented a two-person kayak and spent a happy couple of hours bickering paddling along the Ligurian coast.

After a spectacular storm overnight (which kept me awake and that Oli slept through – sound familiar?), we got up early and caught a train along the coast to Monterosso al Mare, the westernmost village of Cinque Terre.

Here, we joined the famous Sentiero Azzurro (blue path) and walked the two open sections from Monterossa to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia. It was just challenging enough, genuinely spectacular and much less busy than we’d feared – we loved every moment.

The first section took us on a rough mule track through steep terraces of vines, with glimpses of the sea on the right and of Monterossa far below us.

The views as we descended steeply into Vernazza were absolutely gorgeous – we took hundreds of photos but sadly none of them quite capture the scene.

In all of the villages, we found the central areas were really busy but the back streets (which were even prettier) were beautifully quiet. Our impression was that as long as you were in the area to actually do something and didn’t just want to spend time posing for insta pics in the villages and on the beach, then you could easily avoid most of the crowds.

We stopped briefly for gelato in Vernazza before climbing up, up and then up some more towards Corniglia. Here we bought some focaccia, fresh tomatoes and cold beers in a small shop and ate them while admiring the view from a terrace overlooking the sea. I know everyone says it, but we’ve been blown away by the quality of produce you can buy from just about anywhere in Italy and we’ve been eating SO well.

At this point, we had visited all but one of the villages and decided to make it a clean sweep, so we caught the train to Manarola and went swimming off the dock, which was glorious (and not strictly allowed, but it seemed to be where the oldies were swimming and round the corner was utter chaos!)

When we arrived back in Riomaggiore, we were ravenous and shared a cone of fried anchovies, king prawns, squid, octopus and mussels (no pics as we absolutely devoured it) and then headed to the rocks to watch a spectacular sunset. There was a slightly tense moment when our wine cork broke but Oli finally managed to open the bottle (to cheers from bystanders) and showered himself in white wine. A happy ending 😉