We took a train from Salerno to Naples Central Station to avoid cycling the suburbs of Naples. We then had to cycle 20km from the centre of town to our campground, Solfatara, which happened to be located in the crater of an inactive volcano. Cycling through the city was hectic, the traffic is rather chaotic and it requires your constant attention to navigate safely.
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| About 200m away from our tent! |
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| Volcanic sulphur crystals |
The next day we headed into the the centre of Naples. First stop was a pizzeria to try an authentic Napoli pizza (there is a society that sets strict criteria as to who can call their pizzas authentic). This was the best pizza I have ever had in my entire life! The pizzas are cooked in a ridiculously hot oven and come out a glorious combination of charred, but almost soupy in the middle, with a crisp crust that is somehow still soft and doughy. We spent the afternoon wandering around the city streets and trying to find some gas for our cooker. Turns out they use a different valve system to the common one in New Zealand and, after a lot of very frustrating searching, we still couldn't get our hands on any. We headed back to the campsite exhausted and dejected and decided to tackle the problem the next day.
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| This picture is symbolic of my rage against Italian camping stores |
After a day in Naples sorting out the gas (still had no luck - we had to order a converter valve from Amazon and get it sent to a hotel up the road) we headed off again on our bikes. Our destination for today was an Airbnb in Minturno, 70km up the road, which would be our biggest day thus far. The route we took was along a coastal road overlooking a beach and spotted with small towns. I was confronted with a very different reality when we biked through one of the seediest areas we had seen, with more prostitutes than I have ever seen in my life. We cycled through Mondragone - which Dave later told me featured heavily in the book he was reading on the Camorra (the mafia of Southern Italy): "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore".
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| Minturno on the right. |
We had a great night in Minturno; meeting some locals and enjoying the luxury of having a kitchen and a couch. We made our way to Terracina where we hoped our gas adaptor was waiting for us. We had multiple tunnels to bike through on our way but the Italian drivers were incredibly corteous and we felt very safe. We had our first spots of rain of the trip and were feeling smug that we had booked ourselves a hotel for the evening!
We headed along the beach and then through the countryside on to our next campsite. It was a cold evening and despite wearing tights, merino, polar fleece, buff, woolly hat and having our sleeping bags zipped together I woke up multiple times in the night cold and unable to sleep. It was time to cut our losses and upgrade from our $30 sleeping bags. I guess the five degree comfort rating was a bit of an overstatement. Another dreaded trip to a camping store!
Next stop - Ostia Antica.
- Sarah
