Being a Tourist in Italy

[Birdjaguar]

My ride through western Naples. You see these buses in most of the big cities of Europe.

The tour includes headphones that "speak" in multiple languages.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The two hour ride was surprisingly relaxing and was a good way to pass the time while waiting for my apartment to be ready. Unlike Florence, Naples seemed like a real city with paved roads, stoplights, lots of people who were not tourists. The palm trees surprised me.

Old stone mixes with modern construction.

The furthest point of the ride overlooked the Naples hotspot. You can see it in the distance. Notice the changes in elevation.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Coming back to the city you can see Vesuvius and the Naples waterfront. You can hear noisy neighbors too.

 

[Birdjaguar]

My Airbnb was a tiny place with three "rooms". Entry way, kitchen, eating table; a small space with a couch up 3 steps; a bed room up a flight that had a balcony. The tiny bathroom was off the entry way.

Entry

Kitchen, stove with sink to the left. there was a small frig.

This was a really tiny place. Wait until yo see Rome!

Washing machine was under the stairs.

And the bedroom and balcony door.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Here is the outside of the apartment.

The door is on the right; the dark green shutters and door just past the motorcycle. My balcony is just over the door.

From the other side looking back. There is a railing in front of the door just before the motorcycle. Notice the clothes lines off the balconies. No cars allowed!

 

[Birdjaguar]

I had views from my balcony too!

When you go up close to the fencing and look this is what you see. The black bar is one of the metal fence posts.

It was a long way down. This part of Naples was not fancy. IIRC my apartment was under $100 a night. It had everything I needed and was close to some important sights and the metro. There were small groceries close by so I could buy food. Buy the end of most days I was pretty tired.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Once I left my apartment and walked through the alley to the nearest actual street, this was it. I am looking downhill in the direction I walked every day to the more commercial part of the city.

Looking back up hill. My alley was a left turn just up the hill.

 

[Voidwalkin]

City was famous for malaria and disease, and it's so crowded and claustrophobic it's easy to imagine those past epidemics woulda been intense.

 

[Birdjaguar]

City was famous for malaria and disease, and it's so crowded and claustrophobic it's easy to imagine those past epidemics woulda been intense.

I would suspect that being on the coast, that there were marshes in the low lying areas in the past.

 

[REDY]

Yes, I also suspect that was quite common in all coastal cities. One of my favorites books and movies is Death in Venice

 

[REDY]

I wonder what were your preparations about Italy?
Did you make some research regards culture, language, music?I think there are some clothing and day restrictions for landmarks.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I wonder what were your preparations about Italy?
Did you make some research regards culture, language, music?I think there are some clothing and day restrictions for landmarks.

I began with setting my flights into and out of Rome based on a preferred seat class and its cost. I use going.com to spot lower fares. Once my flights were set, I could then look at accommodations. I would be in Italy for 18 nights and wanted to keep my accommodations under $2000. Hotels that were not too far from where I wanted to be tended to run $150 to $250 or more and would necessitate eating all my meals in restaurants. I opted for Airbnb. I came in pretty close to $2000 with Rome being half of that. Airbnb is often a crap shoot about what you will get and where you will actually be. Florence and Naples were both spartan and small, but close in and well situated. Rome was super nice, well equipped but a bit further from the main areas for sights. It was worth it. In addition, a Chinese friend was joining me in Rome.

Next I focused on access to the various sights in each city to see which ones needed tickets bought in advance and online and which ones could be enjoyed either without tickets or those bought the day of a visit. Florence and Rome were the worst for needing advanced tickets and actually getting them. The websites tend to push group tour with guides and getting advanced tickets without that was often not as clear as it could have been. In Florence if you bought a timed ticket to climb the Duomo tower, you also got a pass to visit the Duomo itself anytime over two days on either side of your tower visit. If it was open. The colosseum offered a host of options: main floor, basement, upper level. Colosseum tickets also give you 3 day access to the Roman Forum ruins. Buying ticket for the basement and the upper level were like buying concert tickets. 30 days before the day of you expected visit, tickets would go on sale in batches of 1 and 2 every 20 40 minutes. You have to do a constant refresh to see if any new tickets were available. In addition, Italy is 8 hours ahead of NM so their release schedule was on Italian time. My friend got one ticket for a guided tour that included the basement (in Italian). I got nothing. More that when we get to Rome. The Vatican was worse. St Peter's is open and free. The Vatican Museum visit includes the Sistine Chapel. We did get two "skip the line" entry tickets for 9:00 AM Easter Monday. More on that also later. The Borghese Gallery was the other hot spot for tickets in Rome. Their website was straight and easy. We got tickets.

We tried to plan Rome out carefully, day by day. Oh well....Beyond that my trip was mostly freewheeling. The metros in Naples and Rome are easy to learn and multi trip passes for them helpful. There were lessons learned in all this too.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace was first built in 1600 so it is a relative newcomer to the Italian cityscape. It was the home of the Spanish, Austrian, Bourbons, Bonapartist, House of Savoy rulers until 1919. It was remodeled and expanded many times over the centuries and even rebuilt after a fire in 1837. It is impressive and large. The palace sits on the Piazza del Plebiscito, a huge open space close to the water and across from the Basilica of St. Francesco.

Palace plan

Spoiler :

The Royal Apartment is composed of a grand staircase, an ambulatory, a chapel, the hanging gardens and the Gallery and Hall of Hercules, in addition to the rooms that make up the King's apartment and the Queen's apartment.
this plan shows the layout. No such guide is available when visiting so this is an after the fact item. It would have been very nice to have this. Not all of the rooms are open to the public.

• ██ Grand Staircase (Redish)
• ██ Ambulatory (grey)
• ██ King's Apartment (tan)

1 Court Theatre
2 First Antechamber
3 Neoclassical Sitting Room
4 Second Antechamber
5 Third Antechamber
6 Throne Room
7 General's Passage
8 Ambassadors' Room
9 Maria Cristina Room
10 Oratory
11 Great Captain's Room
12 Flamingo Room
13 King's Office
29 Bodyguards Room

• ██ Queen's Apartment (Blue)

14 Queen's Fourth Drawing Room
15 Queen's Third Drawing Room
16 Queen's Second Drawing Room
17 Queen's First Drawing Room
18 Queen's Second Antechamber
19 Queen's First Antechamber
20 Vestibule23 First Backroom
24 Second Backroom
25 Third Backroom
26 Queen's Passage
27 Maria Amalia of Saxony's Bedchamber
28 Passageway
34 Queen's Boudoir

• ██ Gallery and Hall of Hercules. (purple)

21 Gallery
22 Hall of Hercules

• ██ Palatine Chapel (Raspberry)
• ██ Hanging Gardens (Green)

Royal Palace of Naples - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Basilica of St. Francesco across the Piazza

Royal Palace

 

[Birdjaguar]

Palace courtyard showing the glass windows of the Ambulatory

 

[Birdjaguar]

From the grand courtyard one enters the Royal Palace and its grand staircase. The stairs are impressive and beautiful. At the top you are in the glass walled ambulatory that circles the courtyard ad provides access to all the rooms on that floor. See the diagram above.

Looking up one side's stairs.

From near the top looking down.

The ceiling over the staircase.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Visitors follow a path the begins in room 2 and goes through the outer rooms to room 22. some rooms are skipped and the smaller more inside rooms are not open to the public. The contents are mostly not Renaissance like in Florence, but later in time and a mix of items from various rulers. The following selection is from several different rooms (in order) and you will see the wonderful painted ceilings along with magnificent tapestries as well as paintings and sculptures.

First Antechamber:

Ceiling.

Tapestry. I am always astonished by tapestry work. How anyone can achieve such detail and shading across a large complex image just seems impossible to me.

Tapestry 2

Tapestry 2 detail

 

[Birdjaguar]

"Every Picture Tells a Story"

Ceiling of the 2nd Antechamber

 

[gangleri2001]

Thank you for not coming to Barcelona. As for the rest of you, please follow Birdjaguar's example and leave us alone. Go somewhere else.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Thank you for not coming to Barcelona. As for the rest of you, please follow Birdjaguar's example and leave us alone. Go somewhere else.

I spent 3 days in Barcelona in 2003. What a great city! I was in Valencia on business and drove up to Barcelona because I was so close. I fully understand the over tourism issues. I would like to see the changes in the cathedral though. So much work has been done in the past 22 years.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Throne room