There may be bikes at some point this week but we did not arrive on them so here we are in the off-topic bit of the forum for a spot of journaling
Day 1
An anti-social alarm call at 5:30am would normally have me swearing murderously at the perpetrator but it was me wot set it so I dutifully leapt out of bed to begin our moon of honey. And by ‘leapt’, I of course mean ‘hit the snooze button and went back to sleep’. Alas, time and EasyJet wait for no man so by 9:30 we were boarding an A320 for Naples, but not before having a minor argument about the size of a small carry-on case and a £60 fee for the privilege of an overhead locker space.
A good book (The Long War by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter) and a snooze soon saw off the flight from Manchester. After landing we ran the rat maze that led to the facial and fingerprint scanning booths (thanks, Brexit) and then out to the taxi rank. I leave all the talking to The Mrs, for it is now that she is, seeing as she’s fluent in Italiano while I know about four words, and one those turns out to be Spanish.
Naples is, like many large European cities noisy, busy, and with no discernible rules of the road. The principle of ‘give way’ gives way to ‘I was here first’. A common understanding that this chaos is actually the natural order of things makes for surprisingly little road rage. And then there are the scooters. Many, many scooters. A gazillion scooters.
Everyone rides in shorts and t-shirts, of course. Others are also carefree about helmets. Some clearly consider their scooter as family transport, with small children wedged between safety-conscious parents while slightly larger offspring are set to riding up front, where you can keep an eye on them. Solo riders are free to smoke cigarettes and use their mobile phones. One lady, realising the importance of vehicle control, had her phone wedged betwixt chin and shoulder as she chatted, hands free.
As we dragged our luggage up the narrow cobbled street to our apartment it occurred to me that it would make a good photograph, so I reached to my back pocket…but the pocket was bare. I’d left my phone in back of the taxi - arrgh! Too late. He was already gone.
So that’s a distraction but first we have to collect keys from Andrea, our AirBnB host. Who, it turns out, has arrived on a Triumph Scrambler. 5 stars pretty much guaranteed right there, my friend. The place is an interesting combination of quirky, but very Italian, decor and unreachable plumbing.
Back to the problem in hand. Or rather, not in hand. That’s the problem. Okay, don’t panic, call my phone from the other phone - it’s on silent. 
Aha! Use my watch to ping it using the apartment WiFi - except there’s an internet outage in the area. Seriously? Okay, just use the other phone as a hotspot - no, doesn’t work. Ooh, the taxi company is on the transaction record (I didn’t pay). Call them up - they hang up. Running out of ideas but the taxi office is only 15 minutes walk so we pop in, explain. The nice lady says she’ll send a message out and will call us back. One cappuccino and a cold beer later we tried calling the phone again and this time our driver picks up - huzzah!. €28 and an hour later, we are reunited. Phew! Now let’s get back to why we’re here. More cold beers and pizza.
Tomorrow we plan over breakfast and execute over the next few days. We have ideas but let’s see which ones come to fruition. Meantime, here are a few pics I managed to take.
