We had to dodge a bit of traffic on the way, and walked all the way around to find the entrance. The streets were all so dirty, litter and trash just dropped anywhere and everywhere. We found our way in. The entrance fee was covered by our arteccard, yay (because, as you read on, you´ll see it wasn´t worth the five euros per ticket).
There wasn´t really anything inside. They were setting up for some show there in the courtyard and so it was taking up a bit of the space. The interior, architecturally, was a letdown, and there weren´t really any things to do in there.
There was a church, with some graves on the floor, but very much bare. The ceiling was very tall which was the only thing of interest to me. But overall, boring. We walked up some stairs to a room that´s now used for council meetings. The interior was kinda cool but apparently all the original décor and frescos were stripped long ago. We used that bit of shade, hiding from the heat, to look at maps and our LP, and plan our next move.
From there we walked to some building (yes, I know I should look up the name!), taking photos of the beautiful façade.
We kept on walking and made our way to the Chiesa di Gesti Nuovo. It reminded me of the open area in front of the Vatican, with a semi-circle made of columns and steps. Very impressive, although there was a bit of rubbish in the middle.
We walked around, took photos at various spots, and then went to see the basilica at the middle. The interior reminded me a lot of the Pantheon, with a massive dome as the roof. We didn't take any photos since it was a currently used church, and we left quite promptly.
Opposite that place was the Palazzo Reale, with some museums, galleries and other sculptures in a free area, a kind of courtyard place. There was some cool stuff out there, including some weird patriotic centaur thing and some cool giant stone masks.
From there we made our way back to the hostel. There wasn´t much left for us to see and we also wanted to use the internet and get up to date with photos and blogs. We skyped with the family in Perth, who were all gathered for a friday night dinner. We spoke to the grandparents and Martine and Judith, which was nice. We also skyped with Dani, very cool.
We got our photos up but didn't get enough time to put the blogs up, as we had hoped to do. When we finally got in contact with Gavin and Vanessa (who were in Sorrento) we jumped to the station to hop a train down their way and spend the evening with them.
We caught a bus to the station, which was fairly simple. But, figuring out how to get the train down south was a challenge. It took a while to work out that it was a different company, and a sort of metro thing instead of a national train line. We finally got it, walked speedily to the platform, We caught the train just before it left. It was packed and hot and everyone was sweaty. You could smell it in the air. Not too pleasant. At least though, by the time the train had gone through a few stops it had cleared out and we got seats for ourselves instead of standing.
At Sorrento we disembarked and tried to find Gav. We must have just missed each other a bit on the platform. It took about 10 minutes or so to find each other but it was good when we did. We said our hellos and got introduced to Vanessa. From there we walked into town, wandering around till we found a nice little place in a side street to sit with a beer and catch up.
We sat for a while and chatted which was awesome. There was such a great ambiance and it was quite chilled with some local draft beer. From there we walked over to the cliffs and looked out over the water. The sun was soon to set and it was very beautiful. We found somewhere to have dinner nearby and all had pizza. It wasn´t quite as nice as our Naples pizza but there was absolutely fantastic bruschetta beforehand. We wined and dined; it was fine. Good times to be had by all.
After dinner we walked to the main street and popped into souvenir stores, looking for various things that we all wanted. I got a Sorrento and a Pompeii shotglass, filling up part of my list of ones I missed. We got gelati, very nice.
We walked up to the station and Emma and I caught the last train back to Napoli. When we got there the station was practically sealed up. It took a while to find an open door to get out, and when we did we had to walk through dodginess all the way back to our hostel. We eventually made it, and crashed on our beds in the safety of a nice hostel room.
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