27 June - Sorrento & Napoli

June 27, 2019

Our goal was to leave the apartment with enough time to get to the train station, and then find the platform needed to go to Sorrento and Napoli. Our tickets were for the 06:26 train, so we wanted to be there by 06:00. So, we arose early and headed out the door at 05:02. Oh, my! That’s early. Instead of taking the tram and transferring to another train, we noticed that there was a night bus that would take us directly to the station...and it came before the tram, so we took it. We arrived at Termini Station at 05:30. Ya, so we had time to sit and wait for nearly an hour. We saw one departure board that indicated that we’d depart from platform 1Est. I know, my kids are disappointed that it’s not platform 9 ¾. We couldn’t verify that this was the correct platform, since the 06:02 to Firenze was still there. 

We looked at another “departures” screen, and it said that we should now make our way to platform 12. Well, we still had time. We made it to the train and found our seats. The train left right on time! It was a long ride to Napoli Centrale, but we made it. We tried to sleep on the train, but it was not very comfortable. We did catch little cat naps here and there due to near exhaustion. When we got to Napoli, we made our way to the Circumvessuviano to get our tickets and train for Sorrento. It came a minute late, but still not too bad! The trouble was when we got to Pompei. The doors on the train wouldn’t stay closed, so we couldn’t leave. The wait seemed like forever since it was so hot in the train...zero air conditioning. The windows were all open and people got off the train to try to be patient. Finally, we were on our way. I’ll be honest, at each successive stop, I was a little more than anxious when the doors opened...what if they didn’t close again? 

We finally made it to Sorrento! It took about 50 minutes longer than we expected. Which worried us a bit. We thought that if the train takes that long going back, we might not be able to get back to Napoli and print the tickets for the Museo Sansevero and get there by 16:30. We thought to find a place to print the tickets in Sorrento before leaving, just in case. 

We went to find the music box factory where I bought my box 25 years ago. Unfortunately, we found out that Notturno closed down about a year ago. That made me sad. Those music boxes were amazing. Dang! So we walked back down the street and found other stores to shop for souvenirs. We found something for Mattina Ann and Sherry Ann. We decided to have them shipped home instead of carrying them for the rest of the day. The problem is, it’ll take about 15 business days. They’ll get there about a week after we get home. You’ll have to be patient, Mattina Ann.

On our way back to the train, we stopped by a little cafe for lunch. Sherry Ann ordered the gnocchi al pomodoro (which were excellent, with little balls of mozzarella, too) and I had...spaghetti alla carbonara. I’ve had it at 3 different places, and the first one was still the best. They’re gong to get a good review from me. We got to the train at about 13:35, and waited for it to depart. We got there early so that we would have a better chance of getting back to Napoli on time. The train left at 14:00, and it was an express train, which means that it skipped many of the stops on the way back to Napoli, and it only took us an hour! Score!!

Once in Napoli, we quickly got to the metro and rode to the university station. We tried to find the place I had found to print the tickets for the Museo Chiesa Sansevero, but it wasn’t there. Please...no more pazienza! We were able to locate, after several failures, another establishment where we were able to print for 0,50 €. Fine with me. We got our printed tickets and hopped back on the metro for a couple more stops, and found the Museo. 

The sculptures inside were amazing! We were constrained to follow the rules of the museum, and refrain from taking pictures. The attention to detail and the skill demonstrated were phenomenal. We liked all of the sculptures, but we were especially drawn to three of them; Modesty, Christo Velato, and Disillusion. We paid a little extra for the audio tour, and it was worth it. We spent quite a bit of time there, admiring the artwork.

After the museum, we wandered the streets of Napoli for a bit and found a pizzeria. We HAD to try the pizza napolitana. I wanted to ask a local for the best (economical) pizza in the area, so I did. He said there isn´t a BEST pizza in Napoli...only a lot of different ways of making it. Okay, makes sense. So we found a pizzeria near the metro station. We were not disappointed. We failed to get the traditional margherita, but opted for other toppings. Sherry Ann thought the wurstel and patate looked good, and I went for the pizza bianca con prosciutto cotto. It was buonissima! 

After dinner, we got back on the metro and headed for the Napoli Centrale train station. Our train ended up being 20 minute late tonight, but we were soon on our way back to Roma. Sherry Ann commented that Roma seemed like a week ago. On the bright side, we were able to do and see almost everything we set out to do and see today.