The Perfect Vacation

One of man’s greatest flaws is that we tend to look at the negative aspects of the matter at hand, as opposed to the positive. For example, remember that time we went to the beach. You remember that it was great ... except for the weather ... and the crowds ... and etc. See what I mean? We give things full credit and then subtract from there. Although even I say we should try and be more positive in that sense, I am just as human as everybody else – which is why I am going to use the subtraction method with my recent trip to Naples. So as you all know, with the subtraction method, the object being analyzed starts with a full score. Let’s say 100 points. OK, so right now, Naples gets 100 points. What’s next?  Now I should be taking away points for anything that went wrong, anything I didn’t like ...

... [thinking] ...

... [thinking] ...

...[struggling to find something that went wrong] ...

... Alright, I’m drawing a blank here. I cannot remember a single thing that went wrong. Sure, there were certainly some things I didn’t expect – but they were always a pleasant surprise. But what was bad? Nothing.

But wait. If nothing went wrong, if everything was great ... then that means Naples keeps its score of 100 points. What?! A perfect vacation?! Impossible, I thought so myself before coming here – but I guess I’ve been proved wrong.

I started on December 23^rd. I got a pass to leave school half an hour early, and started running to the Vicenza train station in pouring rain. Wearing my duffel bag as a backpack and wearing my canvas shoes when the streets looked more like Venice then they should, I must have looked like a fool. After sprinting through downtown Vicenza, I made it on time (barely) to the crucial leg of my journey – the half hour regional train to Verona. Although this seems trivial, if I missed this short leg, I would have missed my train to Bologna, which meant that I would have missed my train to Naples, forcing me to sleep in a train station and arrive on Christmas Eve, neither of which I wanted to do. Luckily I did make it on time to the Verona train, which was surprisingly empty. I was the only one in my whole train car, allowing me to take my soaked shoes off and dry them next to the train’s heating vent. Things went as planned on the second leg of the trip as well, from Verona to Bologna. But then, for the final and longest train, things were not exactly foreseen. When I bought my ticket for Naples, the Trenitalia operator warned me that there were no more seats on the Bologna-Naples Intercity train, which costs about less than half as much as the newer, faster, more comfortable, Freccia trains (which had open seats). Of course, I chose the Intercity considering I need to cut back on my spending.

So here I was, a goofy-looking American wearing a duffel bag as a backpack and sporting semi-soaked canvas sneakers (the heater wasn’t as effective as I thought) getting on the jam-packed Bologna – Naples train alone. For those of you who don’t know much about Italy’s regional economy, there are tons of Southern Italians that work in Northern Italy and go back home for the holidays. And I was taking a southbound train on the 23^rd of December. No wonder there were no seats left. So for most of the trip, I was left leaning against my bag, until a seat opened up by the time we passed through Rome. Luckily, I did manage to see a good amount of the Tuscan countryside out of the window before nightfall.

I ended up arriving to Naples Central Station at about 10:20 P.M., pushing the total trip time just over ten hours. If you ask me, this was a perfect experience to make me decide to go back on the Frecciarossa.

My first full day in Naples was Christmas Eve, which, out of all the big Neapolitan holiday feasts, is the biggest. For the whole holidays in Naples, I stayed with Mafy’s family. For those of you are not aware, Mafy is the Italian girl that was staying at my house in Colorado. We ate together as a family at the grandparents’ house, where over a dozen family members were present at any given time (some would come and go). Just to give an idea of how much we ate, here is menu of that day’s eight-course meal:

1)Frutti di mare (mussels and clams)

2)Linguini con frutti di mare (linguini pasta with mussels and clams - HUGE portion)

3)Baccala (cod ... cooked in no particular manner)

4)Insalata russa (Literally ‘Russian salad’ - a kind of potato salad)

5)Baccala alla spagnola (‘Spanish-style cod’, a casserole type thing with potatoes on the bottom, cod and tomato in the middle, and caramelized onions on top - this was the 'main dish')

6)Fritatta di funghi (essentially a mushroom quiche)

7)Baccala fritta (cod fried in the garlic sauce that the clams and mussels were cooked in)

8)Dolci (Desserts - a TON of desserts)

And don't forget bread, wine, and olives between each course.

As you can see, this menu is very seafood-y, which is the tradition for Christmas Eve. Later that night, I attended the Christmas Eve midnight mass.

Just as Christmas Eve was seafood-themed, Christmas day was meat-themed. Although it was not as much food as the day before, this feast came close, and considering it was meat, it was a lot heavier. Before coming to Italy, they had told us that the hardest part of the exchange (other than the beginning) was Christmas break. I was expecting to maybe feel a little bit of homesickness in these festive days, but with company as great as this, I did not feel a single bit of longing or melancholy throughout the entire vacation.

Unlike in America, December 26^th is celebrated in Italy, as Santo Stefano. Once again, there was a huge family gathering at the grandparent’s house, where we had yet another feast. But this time, the theme was vegetables in order to ‘help the digestion’. Before going to Naples, I had heard that during Christmastime, the Neapolitans cook for a month and eat it in three days. Believe it or not, it is true.

After dinner on each of these holidays, the whole family would sit down together for tombola, which means bingo. Although they call it a tombolata, we actually spent most of the time playing traditional Neapolitan card games such as sete e mezzo (same concept as blackjack) and asso che fugge (literally ‘ace that escapes’). What I was not aware of until I started playing in Naples was that the kind of cards we use in America are actually ‘French cards’. Here they use Neapolitan cards, which are essentially the same, except that they don’t have 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s, but instead bring down their face cards to complete a 40-card deck.

We made many side trips in the seventeen days I was visiting – including the Amalfi, Ravello Sorrento, downtown Naples (twice), Pompeii, Reggia Caserta, and several others. These are all places that, on their own, would be worth a trip, but I was lucky enough to see them all in the same vacation. Another highlight was a restaurant called Brandi, exactly the spot where pizza was born. It definitely lived up to the hype. On New Year's Eve, we were treated to the typical Neapolitan fireworks 'war', which describes it perfectly. Unlike our organized and regulated 4th of July fireworks, these are not only launched by trained pyrotechnics, yet by most of the male population.

Here I will post pictures that have not yet been posted on my blog. There are some great pictures of this trip towards the end of my previous post, which if you have not seen yet, I highly recommend.

Just a sample of the wide variety of desserts available at Christmas dinner.

A rare snow atop Mt. Vesuvius.

The Amalfi Coast as seen from Ravello.

The Cathedral of Sant'Andrea in Amalfi.

Inside Sant'Andrea lie the Cloisters of Paradise.

Naples' famous Maschio Angioino - a Spanish castle.

Various meats at a Sorrento restaurant.

Some New Year's Eve fireworks.

Imagine this in all directions ... for well over an hour.

The forum at Pompeii.

A whole civilization frozen in ash.

Inside the Reggia di Caserta, a royal palace modeled after Versailles.

This picture does not even come close to showing the immensity of the Reggia's gardens.

This is Naples for you.

After such great places, people, food, and cultural experiences, I was not ready to go back home, but unfortunately school was awaiting me. So in the words of the beloved Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

Right now I am in the process of planning another trip down there in the Spring. As for the train ride back, I sat comfortably in my cozy Frecciarossa seat, equipped with free Wi-Fi, and routine complimentary snack/beverage service. It was definitely a nice touch to end a ... perfect vacation.