Italia - Napoli vs Rome. Round 1. Ding Ding.

December 2011. Audit in Italy. My first as lead. Nerves.com.

So Monday morning we arrive in Rome; shitty Ryanair and 15kg luggage allowance. Robs only brought three t-shirts for the whole trip. All of which apparently look pretty similar. Next up, 3 hour drive across Italy to San Salvo. I'm totes over the sleeping in front of colleagues now and I'm pretty much out of it once we get on the motorway. The moments I was awake I witnessed some pretty hairy moments involving Italian driving thus decided it was best to sleep anyway.

Arrival at the plant, opening meeting smashed. Its 5-30 so we head to the hotel to check in. ooh, picked up the pool car. Beemer. Result. Hotel is nice. The Gabri Park. This is where we first encounter Carla. The receptionist. Very very very helpful (We later decided that Carla was my stalker). Decide to have dinner in the hotel; its been a long day.

The weather is unusually hot for December, round about 20 everyday. On the Tuesday evening we go into the town of Vasto for dinner with some other Pilkington employees. The pizza place was the best pizza ever!! Thin, crispy, amazing. Vasto is a cute little Italian town. So quaint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasto

Thursday is bank holiday. Work from the hotel day and Vasto for lunch. We ate lunch at a beachside restaurant, had the creamiest gelato and went for a little walk on the beach; possibly my best work day EVER. Did I mention, Robs only got three tshirts??

Risotto de la mer. Delicious.

View of Vasto from the end of the pier.

Gelato. Like cold nutella and bueno. Mmmmmmm.

So it's the weekend. And where did we decide to go. Naples aka Napoli. In a word: dump. I drew the short straw and it was my turn to drive. We discovered that the car radio skipped a lot, so armed with Robs netbook and some classic dance music, we drove across Italy. Possibly one of the worst drives of my life. Getting to Naples was relatively easy. However, once there we took a wrong turn, ending up in a rough part of town with hooded youths on mopeds and street corners. A green light resulted in us practically stationary in the middle of a junction screaming. Arrival at the hotel and we were shaking. We concluded that we would eat in the hotel that night.  By the way, Robs only brought three tshirts.

My room had a view of Mount Vesuvius. Really really cool. Tea in the hotel restaurant - Good. What wasn't good was that the waitress failed to understand I only wanted a glass of red wine not a bottle to myself. I ended up with a bottle. We then went to the hotel bar for cocktails. They were disgusting and we were serenaded by an old man on a piano "Alll by myself...." Hilarious and depressing. So early night ready for Saturday. I can't find the big light switch so have to sleep with the light on. Not cool.

Peering into the crater of the Volcano

Saturday morning arrives and we are out the door by 9-30 walking to the station to get the train to Pompeii. Turns out we have a half hour wait until the next train. This allows our platform to fill up with Napoli football fans. The train comes, they storm on. They ain't getting a seat before me so i storm on too. Rob is shocked. That train is cancelled so we all pile back onto the platform ready for the next one. On arrival the same rush ensues. I wasn't as quick this time and we had to stand. The Napoli fans proceeded to make a smoke a spliff on the train. Anyway, we arrive at Pompeii relatively unscathed to a tourist box selling tickets for the minibus up the volcano. The minibus was overcrowded with 2 children shoved in to sit on adults knees. I swear they were at least 9. I've never felt as sick as I felt on that minibus winding up the side of the mountain. We make the climb from the car park to the top. It's cloudy. We can't see bloody anything!!! But still we did it!!!

So next up are the ruins of Pompeii. Interesting but it was pretty samey after a while. The baths and the amphitheatres were interesting and it was educational I guess.

So then we hopscotched it to Herculaneum in the hope of seeing the people, unfortunately we didn't make it in time and Herculaneum wasn't allowing anyone else in. So we went for a beer. Our observations of the cars that passed noted that the cars in Napoli are more likely to be damaged than not. Our plan for the night was to head to the Marina, find a restaurant and maybe a bar or two.

Sunday morning. Casual We got a taxi from the hotel. It had two metres running, one showing €12 and one about €40. He charged us €20. Go figure, and if you work it out let me know. So had the pizza, found a bar. Had several mojitos with which they then plied us with tapas snacks. The mojitos were good so we stayed in the said bar till home time around 2ish when we then flagged a taxi. The taxi driver was mental. At one point he had both arms out wide shouting 'NAPOLI!! NAPOLI!!!'. We made it home. Just. No flies on me this time though, I took the card out of the slot so the big light went off. Boom.

Sunday morning is a casual walk across town to the museum. The museum doesn't have a cafe so we pop across the road where we meet Mario. Mario tells me I'm beautiful and gives us free chocolate filled pastries. On leave said establishment, Mario kisses me on either cheek, and nods to Rob as if to say 'I'd give her one...' Rob just nodded back so not to upset him/cause an explaining scenario. It was in all honesty hilarious. Museum was half empty except for the secret room. That was full to the brim of old age porn. And there was this really really cool room. Other than that though we're struggling as most stuff was out on loan.

Next up; lets wander around town and try and find this market with the woolen nativity characters as promised by the staff in San Salvo. We walked and walked and walked. We found nothing except for littered streets and graffitti'd buildings. Quite sad really but apparently the mafia control rubbish collections: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Mafia_at_centre_of_Naples_rubbish_mess_999.html

Struggling for stuff to do in Naples we decide to go for some lunch at the train station and drive back to San Salvo. Over lunch it is discussed whether or not me and Rob can become Facebook friends, It transpires that he has already facebook stalked me, again, highly amusing. The drive back is fun and involves me rapping to Tinie Tempahs Frisky and shouting at Rob when I hadn't finished; then Rob rapping to Dr Dre, then me whailing through Coldplays paradise. That yielded the following response from Rob, and I quote "Statistically, you should manage to hit at least one note, yet you manage not to...". I think I have a beautiful sining voice, apparently not.

Dinner is in Vasto where there is a small mini festival with hot doughnuts in stick shapes. We got some, they were yummy. By Tuesday, just two of us, we're struggling for conversation and we have a rule that you have to bring some new topics of conversation with you for tea. Rob decided to tell me that he used to be a trainspotter. Wrong thing to do Rob. I swear, piss my self laughing is an understatement. This subject is a source of entertainment to this day. He knows EVERYTHING there is to know about trains. Also, he used to work at Toys R Us and wore a Barbie t-shirt once. I was bored too. I think it was this particular night that I told Rob I had a coffee machine in my room. He nearly crashed the car. I didn't; I just knew this would annoy him.

So, Thursday, audit is over, Closing Meeting done, Rome it is ready for Friday morning flight. Rob still has just three t shirts. I fucking know.

The Beautiful Pantheon

Arrival in Rome. Bad traffic, still, we manage to get there for 7pm ish. Shuttle bus into the centre fof Rome leaves at 7:30. Quickest change ever. Sit waiting for 10 minutes as typically the bus driver is late. 

Bus driver drops us off and understandably, we're a little disorientated, however, after about 15 minutes of walking we stumble upon the Pantheon. Coolest building ever. Fact. I want to have pizza and drink Prosecco here. In the restaurants overlooking the Pantheon. But no no, 3 tshirt Rob as he's now known, wants to find the 'big ass square' so we keep walking. Can't find it, oh look, we're back at the Pantheon. It must be the other way, ok. I'd like to add at this point I'm pretty hungry and getting impatient. So off we go; 'Are you sure its not that way Rob; its pretty lit up down there?..' Nope, definitely not. OH LOOK. WE'RE BACK AT THE FUCKING PANTHEON. Maybe we will try that other way; the way I said Rob? Yes. Yes indeed the way I said. We got to the 'big ass square'; it had been overtaken by some 'cheap ass' Christmas market and looked rubbish, so we went back to the Pantheon and had Pizza and Prosecco sat outside overlooking the beautiful Pantheon. Now, anybody else might take this opportunity to point out to Rob; that a) this is what I wanted to do to start b) I was right about the direction of the bloody square, and as much as I would like to say I didn't and that I sat quietly satisfied with myself (he has only got three tshirts remember that; don't want to upset him more), I didn't. I took great pleasure in reminding him of point a and b. Anyway; that Prosecco tasted good and it was time for the whistle stop running tour of Rome.

First stop - The Collosseum. Has this beat my love for the Pantheon?? Possibly. Looks amazing lit up especially with all the Christmas lights too. This was the official 'Team Italy' photo. So then, we headed back to the 'big ass square' for a beer. An expensive beer at that, but it was gooood.                 

From here we headed to St Peters. Unfortunately we couldn't get close as it was all fenced off, we thought about breaking through the fence but Rob wouldn't allow it due to the police car parked up just inside. That was unfortunate admitedly. 

Then it was home time. Bed. Early flight home. I concluded on this one that I had a brilliant time. Work got done, Robs hilarious and soooo easy to wind up. Overall: great trip :-)

Lessons learnt:

1. Rob only had three tshirts with him

2. Italian driving leaves a lot to be desired

3. Bank holidays abroad are wicked

4. Pizza and Gelato in Vasto is the best I've ever tasted

5. Prosecco and pizza by the Pantheon tastes better when you've walked past said restaurant three times

6. Rob loves trains

7. Napoli's a shithole

8. I <3 Rome

9. Taking the card out the slot makes the light go off (Remember this one - could come in handy!!)

10. Rob gets scared if the petrol gage falls below half way. Loser.

Tune of the trip: Avicii Levels