Wednesday, October 16, 2013 @ 4:52 PM in 2013 Europe
Day 112
Since it was supposed to rain today I didn't really have much planned. The only things on my list were to get some local food and possibly go on the subterranean Naples tour.
After eating breakfast I worked for a couple hours and booked a flight from Paris to Barcelona where I'll be staying for a week. The flight ended up being about $100 cheaper than an 11 hour train ride would have been. Easy choice. A week in Barcelona will be nice since everyone I've talked to while traveling has said nothing but good things about it... plus it has several beaches I can relax on.
It poured down rain for a while but stopped around 11 so I changed and headed out to go find some lunch. I went up to Gino Sorbillo's Pizzeria but they didn't open until noon. There were a few other recommended pizza joints along that street so I went down to see if they were open. The next one on my list, Di Matteo, was open. I didn't see a menu or anything outside listing the pizza prices but what did catch my eye was something I'd read about in Saveur magazine about a year ago. They're rice balls that have been filled with cheese, pasta sauce and peas, then they're breaded and fried. These rice balls of awesomeness are called arancini (Arancini on Wikipedia). I couldn't pass this up, and for 1 euro they couldn't be beat.
While walking around eating my arancini I came across the entrance to the guided tours of the Naples underground. There were a bunch of people gathered around and I guessed a tour was starting soon (apparently they only start every 2 hours). People were just aimlessly standing around but I saw some people paying for tickets so I made my way through the crowd and bought a ticket. Apparently that was for the Italian guided tour that was starting so I just had to stand back and wait about 10 minutes for the Italian group and then a French group to start.
We made our way down a bunch of steps into the old aquifer the Greek original built under the city. Apparently at it's greatest size, the underground tunnels spread for over 200 kilometers. What we were standing on was only refurbished around the time of WW2 when they were used as bomb shelters. For hundreds of years trash was dumped down in the tunnels so before they were converted into bomb shelters all of the trash was simply covered with concrete. If the trash wasn't there, the tunnels would have been about 5 meters taller than they are now.
The tour talked about the various uses, how people got water out through wells, how ancient people had to walk around in there with oil lamps burning around their neck with skimmers to keep the water clean and more. Some family brought what looked like a 3 month old baby on the tour which started bawling its eyes out about half way through the tour. They're actually doing some experimenting with growing plants down there. The temperature is so constant and the air is so humid that they can actually keep plants alive without watering them for up to 7 months.
After the aquifer section, we came up and then went over to check out some of the old amphitheater that was forgot about and only recently discovered in the foundations and walls of existing homes. We entered through what used to be an old lady's wine cellar. Behind all the plaster in her cellar was actually a big hallway that the actors would run through as well as one of the changing rooms. All of the old roman brickwork was still there (apparently they mixed large horizontal bricks with diamond shaped ones to help prevent damage during earth quakes).
After the tour ended I walked back to Gino Sorbillo's but the crowd outside was massive. Not really wanting to wait that long for a pizza I went back to Di Matteo but it was the same way... super crowded! There was one more place that I had on my list that wasn't really by any of the tourist areas so I headed over there. Sure enough the line there was crazy as well. Getting pretty hungry at this point I just started walking back toward Gino Sorbillo's and eventually found another pizza place that only had a couple people in line. I could handle waiting a few minutes so I ordered a Margarita pizza (the original with tomato, mozzarella and basil). What I didn't realize is how big the pizza would be. I still ate the entire thing though and it was amazing. I'll check out the other places later in the week at different times when there hopefully won't be as many people.
I'm back at the hostel now and will have some more wine with dinner which will probably be pretty light since between the arancini and the giant pizza I'm still pretty full. The forecast for tomorrow looks good so I'll spend it doing some more sight seeing in town.
Teaser photos:
Tags: daily journal, italy, naples
Posted from: Italy