Got lost, in the rain, in the rough part of Napoli. And this morning things were going so smoothly. I waited around to see if the rain would clear before leaving the hostel, but no, so i went out with my weenie umbrella, found the bus stop for the R4, bought a ticket, & caught the bus just in time-up to Capodimonte. I got off too early & had to walk, but i found the museum. I wasn't expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised by the # of wonderful paintings; Raffaelo, Botticelli, Signorelli, and of course a marvelous Caravaggio that hung in a dark room of its own. There were also some nice Flemish paintings, religious paintings, & this room decorated completely in porcelain, ceiling, walls, all sculpted porcelain. After the museum I walked down to visit the San Gennaro catacombs. There was a wedding going on in the church connected to it, so I didn't go in. The catacombs were huge, and fascinating.Lots of rooms with graves in the ground or dug out of the tufa, ancient frescoes, the tomb where San Gennaro was buried, an underground basilica & baptismal font. The tour was all in Italian, so that was nice listening practice. At some times I was a little lost, but for the most part I understood. After the tour I went to find another church/catacomb site, but got lost. And this was the bad part of town, the poor area. Reminded me a little of the favelas in Brazil. Not a place you want to get lost in, plus it was raining, so yeah, that sucked. Still, I was intrigued by all the shops & markets. I kept walking up & down 2 or 3 of the same streets & returning to the same piazza, because I could find them on my map, but the one street I needed to get to just didn't seem to exist. Finally, after half an hour of wandering & being watched by the locals, I figured it out. The street I needed to get to was the bridge above. This part of Napoli is split into an upper & lower level-part of the city is above & part below. There was an elevator to go up to the bridge, so I took that, & sure enough it was the street I was searching for. I decided to pass on the 2nd catacomb & went & found another popular pizza spot-Pizzeria Starita. More Italians here than the place I went yesterday, also more expensive. I was going to stay purist and order another Margherita, but then I saw a Burrata pizza and couldn't resist. It was delicious, of course. After refueling and figuring out where I was, I went to find the Cimitero delle Fontanelle. I walked through another sketchy area, and just when I was about to give up b/c I couldn't find it, there it was. Creepy, underground, but captivating. Bones stacked with skulls on top, all lining the walls of the cave, some adorned with rosaries, others with mementos left by visitors, some used as decoration for a huge cross. Really cool place. I decided after that I wanted to make my way back to the hostel, so I walked one of the main streets back, lots of shops and people and surprise-even an area closed off to traffic with only pedestrians. Wandered through a couple streets of the Quartieri Spagnoli, stopped for gelato. I notice people in Napoli don't eat gelato as much as the rest of Italy, where you see everyone walking around with it. I walked down to the Castel Nuovo and checked out the port & the view across to Mt. Vesuvius, then finally to the hostel for a shower & a beer.
