Well, what can I say about Naples. This place is nuts. I've never felt so scared as a pedestrian than I did in this city.

It all pretty much started on the very first night. I met a Canadian girl, Kate, who was staying in the same room as me. We decided it would be a good use of the first night to just head down into the historical centre (about a 15min walk) and just aimlessly wander around. Now a 15 minute walk sounds pretty easy, until you have to do it in Naples.

At the bottom of the street our hostel was on was a T intersection. And this was probably the craziest intersection I have seen in my life. Actually it was probably more of a Y intersection in that there wasn't actually a main through road, all the roads game to a end. But trying to cross this road was a nightmare. Even with zebra crossings and green walk signals there was never a break in the endless traffic of cars and bikes.

We must have stood there for a good 10 minutes before we witnessed what the locals do. They just go. Go and hope. It's like playing a game of chicken every time you cross the road. Eventually we just followed one of the locals across and hoped the cars and bikes had decent brakes.

Once we were in the centre it was even worse. This place is a good old fashion historical town. Narrow winding cobblestone streets lined with tall buildings cramped right up against the road. Yet despite this, for some reason they still felt it ok to let cars and bikes fly around. My heart was in my mouth every time I heard an engine. At one point I even saw a bike hit someone and just keep going. You basically had to press up against walls to let cars go by. Absolutely crazy.

After a while of this we decided to head towards the beach and on the way grab a bottle of wine to drink. We splurged and got a 3euro bottle and some plastic cups. Then followed a path which would take us past a few castles and to the water.

When we finished that bottle we decided that we would get another. However, at the place we went we could get one for 4 euro or 3 for 10 euro. We figured, might as well get 3 and save the other 2 for later. Long story short, by the time we got back to our hostel all 3 of those bottles were gone. We had seen 3 castles and sat on the water drinking. Then walked back home via the upper way with a good view of the city. It was nice.

Back at the hostel we cooked some pasta and cracked open another bottle which Kate had bought earlier. Next thing I clearly remember is waking up the next day with a killer hangover.

It was that day we decided to go to Pompeii. It was me, Kate and an English chick called Claire. Claire was fine. Me and Kate on the other hand weren't doing so well. But we were determined to get there.

By the time we did I wasn't feeling too bad. And it was totally worth it. Pompeii was quite amazing, and far larger than I'd expected. After all, it is an entire city. We walked around for hours, perhaps 5 or 6. It was a good hour or so just to walk to the far end of the city to see the ampitheatre. It was really quite interesting to be walking along roman roads, still in their original condition. They even had footpaths and "zebra crossings". These crossings consisted of 3 large flat stepping stones across the road, about 30cm high or so, as the footpaths on each side of the road were actually that much higher than the road itself. These were spaced enough that carriages would go over the middle one with the wheels in the gaps of the other two. Quite fascinating.

Most of the paintings and mosaics had been taken back to the archeological museum, but even what was left is still amazing. Many of the floors are stilled tiled with mosaics and the walls often still have much of their paint left, some still with actual detailed paintings on them. It's quite amazing, something you really need to see for yourself.

The day after this I actually went to the museum to see the stuff they had taken. This was pretty damn amazing. The quality and condition of the mosaics and paintings is unbelievable considering they're 2000 years old. I'm not really sure what more there is to say. It's so cool.

The next day I went to Herculaneum which is a much smaller town than Pompeii which was covered in the same eruption. It's a bit further away from the volcano though than Pompeii so it actually survived better. Whereas in Pompeii most of the roofs collapsed under the weight of the ash, Herculaneum's roofs fared better under less ash. As a result the insides of the buildings, the floors and walls, are in much better condition. Tiles are more intact and the paint on the walls much more vibrant.

I was planning on leaving the next day, but ended up booking an extra night and then went on a underground tour of Naples, where there are ruins of the old roman city. This was kinda boring actually having already seen Pompeii and Herculaneum.

So after 5 days (4 nights) of eating nothing but Pizza (it was invented there and was number 1 on the list of 10 things to do in Naples) it was time to head of to Rome. Perhaps the one place I was most excited about seeing on this entire trip.