Naples and One More Night in Rome

On the way back to Rome from the Amalfi Coast, we stopped in Naples. We had to go to Naples to get a train from to Rome anyway, so we figured we’d give ourselves some time to explore and, most importantly, eat pizza. First pizza stop, Pizzeria Da Michelle, one of (if not the) most famous pizzerias in Naples. It’s consistently listed to as one of the top 5 or 10 pizzerias in Naples, and often listed as number 1. It’s particularly famous because Julia Roberts ate pizza there in Eat, Pray, Love. The place opens at 11:00am. We arrived at around 10:50am and people were already starting to line up. We hopped in line; 10 minutes was probably the shortest the wait would ever be! We have to say, the pizza impressed and surprised us. The pizzas there are all about their crust, which we’ve always considered to be the least exciting part. But the crust was exceptional. It was soft, stretchy, chewy, and delicious even without the toppings. They only have two types of pizzas: margarita and marinara. The most traditional Napolese pizzas are just those types because they take their dough so seriously that they don’t want to mask the flavor with too many toppings. There’s actually an 11 page document of regulations for pizzerias to get certified as authentic Napolese pizzerias. One line regulates the pH level of the dough..

After getting one pizza at Da Michelle, we went to another good pizzeria for a more toping centric pizza. Also amazing. (We only actually ate one of the following two pizzas because the first one they brought wasn't actually what we ordered.)

  

Onwards to a famous pastry shop known for its Sfogliatelles, a specialty of the region. They look delicious, and lots of people (mostly locals) wait in line to get them from this place. So we did too, and we got one. Honestly, we didn’t find it that exciting. It was fine, but it had nothing on the cannolo we had in the Amalfi coast!

Last, we went to a café and got a beer and cappuccino (guess who had which!) while waiting for our 4:30 train to Rome. We looked at our tickets to see our arrival time in Rome. 6:15….AM. Yikes.  We had booked a 4:30AM train from Naples. Fortunately, the one we had booked was very cheap, only $15 each. But we felt a little embarrassed, particularly given that we were both travel coordinators for our respective Ultimate Frisbee teams at Stanford…Well, you have to have on mishap when you go on a three month long travel adventure through Europe, no? Honestly, we seemed pretty overdue, and as far as travel mishaps go, losing $30 on a train ticket at the wrong time is not so bad. We knew that there are trains going from Naples to Rome all the time. We walked to the train station and bought tickets for a train leaving at 2:50pm, in 20 minutes. Perfect. It was actually cheaper than the tickets online; overall we actually only lost about $15 total due to our mistake. We made it to Rome by 4:30pm!

Rome round 2. Crazily enough, for our one night in Rome, we stayed with an Airbnb host name Marco in the Pigneto district…who lived a few blocks away from the previous Marco we stayed with! Yep, two different Airbnb Marcos in Rome, right near each other, on the same street.

Most of the evening we spent blogging :) 

The rest of the evening we spent eating Nolan’s first Ethiopian meal! It’s owned and run by a couple who moved to Rome from Ethiopia 15 years ago. First we had sambusas as an appetizer. Then  we got a vegetarian special assortment and a spicy beef curry. Everything was superb. It certainly won’t be Nolan’s last Ethiopian meal!