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Back on the road, and this time to Naples. Why? Pizza. We did enjoy Naples, had some good times and stuff.. but the pizza!!
But more on that it just a second. First of all we had to find a well-hidden backpackers hostel in a town full of drivers that wanted nothing more than to take me with my silly 'safe driving' and my French number-plated car clean off the road! And while Montenegro was one of the most dangerous places to drive due to difficult terrain, Naples was one of the most dangerous places to drive due to difficult drivers. Impatience on a grand scale was displayed at every turn! The second you stop, you get beeped. I got beeped by several drivers behind me for stopping at a stop sign. A woman reverse parking in front of us furrowed her brow and waved a finger at me to wait for her to finish parking, while another driver behind me was beeping me to go. We went through about 5 junctions in all of which the traffic lights didn't work… it was mayhem. My theory is that the locals made too many complaints about having to actually wait at red lights, so they just turned them off! Roundabouts have no clear rule of who gives way to who, it's all just a free for all. Pedestrians even walk through the roundabouts, as if they ARE a car.. not looking at all. After a while of this lunacy I somehow just let it all roll off my back and got to wherever we had to go without a scratch on the car, except for a dent in the number plate. A driver reversed into the front of our car while we were having lunch out of the boot. The driver didn't even acknowledge it even happened… but he probably does that once every week or two.
Anyway, Clare managed to find our hostel. And after meeting a very friendly fellow from Miami named Brandon (who was lying with his swollen ankle up in our dorm) we ventured out to buy some mushrooms for the risotto I was about to cook. I chose 5 or 6 strange looking mushrooms from a woman with a stall on the side of the road not far from our hostel. As I tried to pay the woman, she proceeded to fill the bag with more mushrooms. I protested, but even if I could speak Italian I don't think it would've made any difference as over the course of the next 3 minutes or so, one by one, she emptied out her entire mushroom box into my plastic bag. I ended up with probably 2kg of mushrooms (check the photo) which she refused payment for. Such a friendly little lady. Too bad I had to throw out all but the 5 or 6 I needed!
The next night we headed into town with our new friend Brandon to have pizza at the restaurant from that movie "Eat, Pray, Love" with Julia Roberts. Click this if you need a quick refresher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ueI5GRgWa8
Italy being the home of pizza, Naples being its birthplace and this restaurant is talked up as the best pizza in Naples... we were a little eager to tuck in! We arrived, took a number and waited outside for a table with the rest of the punters. We were having some fun playing a game sitting in the gutter (resting Brandon's poor ankle) when an Italian came and told us we couldn't sit there. It had been over 13 minutes since an Italian last told me what to do, so I wasn't surprised. But when we did get in, we weren't given a menu as this pace doesn't have one, they only serve 2 types of pizza: Margarita and Marinara. So the pizzas were on our table almost instantly, they just keep pumping them out, into the wood-fired oven for a matter of second, turn, turn and out on a plate then on the table. Cut it yourself! Both were delicious, but the Margarita was so good we had to get another. The tomato paste was creamy and tasty like no pizza in any other country I've been, the pizza base was thin but perfectly soft and the bull mozzarella topped it off and gave us all food-gasms. I could eat 3 a week, every week for the rest of my life. They really are that good! If you go to Naples (or anywhere near it) put it on your list. In fact if you like food, put it on your list. By the time we finished, we had to fight our way out the door and through the mosh pit that had formed out the front door, most of which were locals. The town itself was actually a bit dilapidated, even maybe a bit dangerous at night.. but in a kind of cool way. At least it's still a real Italian city, just avoid driving in it if you can!
We had grand plans to go to Pompeii, Sorrento and drive the Almalfi Coast (which after some online researched looked like one of the most scenic and deadly roads ever) but by the time we checked out of Naples we just wanted to get the bajinkoes out of Italy. The constant pace and general intensity of this country had finally gotten the better of us. So it was back on the road and this time to the delightful (I say that sarcastically) port town of Bari so we could get on the ferry with our trusty car to go overnight to Albania. Bari is an awful town: the highlight was when we were driving into this seemingly unliveable city and there were prostitutes on the side of the highway, heaps of them. One was in black stockings and bra sitting on a folding chair as trucks whooshed by at over 100km/hr. Others stood in their underpants and bras in the doorway of a caravan, smoking a cigarette and talking on their mobile phones. H.O.T. Italy's answer to Amsterdam's red light district I guess? So after a brief stop-off (just kidding mum) we found ourselves on the ferry where we got a surprisingly ok night sleep, considering the busted-ass bus seats they installed onto the ferry for people to sleep on who are too tight to pay for a cabin room like us. We awoke to a bright and fresh morning, calm seas and Albania looming ahead looking all bright and fresh too.
Boy, were we in for a shock…
Daz
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