For our 2009 vacation, we decided to visit Italy. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the country would understand why this seemed like a good idea – Italy is crammed full of history, culture, spectacular scenery and excellent food. It was also a destination our entire family would appreciate – Philip and Connie would both be travelling with us this time. We'd all visited Italy several years earlier, and the kids seemed to have a good time, despite not knowing much about most of what they were seeing. They'd since been fortified with California public school educations, so it was possible they might know a little more than they did then. On the minus side, Italy makes for a relatively expensive vacation, particularly in the larger cities we'd planned to visit.

We began our preparations early in the year. We formulated an itinerary of three cities (Naples, Rome and Florence) over a period of 16 days, with train travel between the cities. Nella began a painstaking Internet search for airfares and accommodations that would approach affordability. I started studying the language, using books and CDs. At one point I attended a beginning Italian class offered by the city. Part way into Nella's search, she discovered a cheap airfare from Naples to Venice. Venice had at first been excluded from the itinerary because of its expense and its distance from the cities on our initial itinerary. Nella also found some credit card points that would help with the accommodations, and Venice shortly found itself shoehorned into the itinerary. I looked into train tickets between the cities (at the Trenitalia web site) and ordered tickets for all the necessary routes (a la carte came out cheaper than any of the rail passes). Passports were all checked, and one (Connie's) was found to need renewal; this was applied for early enough to make the expedite fee unnecessary. Visas were found to be unneeded for Americans who would be taking a trip such as ours. Nella was eventually successful with her search for airfare and places to stay and she made the necessary reservations.

As the departure date approached, last-minute preparations were taking place. The EasyJet commuter flight from Naples to Venice was found to have a lower baggage allowance than our international flights (through Air Canada, as it turned out), so we packed with this smaller allowance in mind. We thought it would be good to have some Euros on arrival, so we purchased a small supply through the Auto Club (handy, but a not-so-great exchange rate). We'd heard about pickpockets in tourist areas throughout Italy (Naples in particular), so we took measures to make things more difficult for them. Connie found herself unable to locate her camera, so we bought her a new point-and-shoot (a relatively inexpensive Canon A480). The train tickets finally arrived in the mail shortly before the departure date, but I'd had problems ordering tickets for the arrival-date trip from Rome to Naples, leading to a certain amount of anxiety. But I thought that tickets could probably be bought on arrival, and that this might be a better way to do things anyway, as exact arrival time of the flight would be difficult to predict. As it turned out, getting tickets at the airport ended up not being a problem.

In the pre-dawn hours of June 16, people and luggage were loaded into the car and transported to LAX. Part way there it was discovered that Nella had forgotten her digital camera. But it was too late to turn around, so our other three cameras would have to do. Plus a high-def video camera and a Flip video camera (which Nella had not forgotten). Well, maybe that is kind of a lot of cameras.

At the airport, check-in and eventual boarding were accomplished without incident, and an Air Canada jet took us to our one layover point – Toronto, Canada. We resided in Terminal 1 of the Toronto Pearson Airport for a while, and spent the time eating lunch at Coyote Jack's (in their food court), poking on the laptop (in Philip's case) or Nintendo DS (in Connie's case), doing crossword puzzles (in Nella's case), reading a book (in my case), or marvelling at some origami creations that were on display (in everybody's case).


Eventually we boarded another Air Canada jet, and were taken through a shortened night and across an ocean to the Leonardo da Vinci (or Fiumicino) Airport outside Rome.


The lively city of Naples (Italian name Napoli) is the capital of the Campania region of Italy, and is located approximately 120 miles (190 km.) southeast of Rome. It has a population of slightly less than 1 million people and is one of the most densely-populated cities in Europe. The city is more than 2800 years old, and was originally founded by the ancient Greeks. There is much for a tourist to see in Naples, as it is home to many churches and museums, as well as other points of interest. A number of historical sites are nearby, as well as one important geological site – central Naples is situated less than ten miles from the crater of Mount Vesuvius, which erupted to devastating effect in 79 A.D. and has erupted with less enthusiasm several times since. Nearby historical sites include the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were destroyed and buried by the 79 A.D. eruption. Preserved for many centuries by their burial, they have since been unearthed to some extent and are available for perusal by tourists. More on this later.

Naples is considered to be the "home" of pizza. The concept wasn't invented there (the general idea goes back many centuries), but something resembling the present form was popularized there in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they still make it extremely well in Naples. They do pasta very well there, too. While we enjoyed the food throughout the trip, we enjoyed it most in Naples.

Unfortunately, crime is also alive and well in Naples. It may have something to do with the unemployment rate, which is about 28%, but petty theft is apparently common – if you visit Naples, pay attention to your cash, credit cards and belongings, and try not to draw attention to yourself as someone with money or cool stuff. But crimes against tourists tend to be of the non-violent variety – it seems the perpetrators would much rather have you find something missing than be a victim of overt robbery, so you probably don't need to fear for your safety. Speaking from our own experience, we didn't have a problem with theft in Naples or at any time during our stay in Italy. But we took precautions and may have had some luck as well

But we did have the problem of trying to figure out how to get to Naples from the Fiumicino Airport near Rome. After clearing Immigration and Customs, we eventually found the airport's train station from following the posted signs (side note: you may be disappointed if you're looking for an ATM in the airport; we found two, but one was out of order and the other didn't dispense cash). At the station, we found ticket windows and an agent who fortunately spoke English. There is a train called the Leonardo Express that takes people from the airport to the main train station in Rome (Roma Termini) at frequent intervals and for a flat rate, and we needed to catch this train and transfer at the main station to a train for Naples. The man at the ticket window was able to set all this up for us, and also accepted credit cards. But he also tried to sell us tickets for the fastest train to Naples, which would have saved an hour (out of about three) but would have cost twice as much as the next fastest train. We weren't really in a hurry, so we opted for a slower train.

The Leonardo Express performed as advertised, and there was no problem with finding the Naples train at the main station (match the train number on the ticket with the number on the posted schedule, and the schedule will show you the track number, or binario), but we didn't have a chance to pick up anything to eat for lunch. So after a few hours of travelling southward, we arrived at the Naples train station (Napoli Centrale, described in the guidebooks as a den of thieves) jet-lagged, hungry and thirsty.

We found a small McDonald's at the train station that also served pizza, so we commandeered a table and barricaded it with our luggage. We used some of our dwindling supply of Euros to feed ourselves, and then dragged ourselves and our luggage out of the McDonald's (to the probable relief of the proprietor) for a brief (and fruitless) search for an ATM, and then headed for the taxi stand.

All of the taxis at the taxi stand were of the compact variety, so we just hired the small white hatchback at the front of the line. There really wasn't room for five people (including the driver) and all of our luggage – the driver fit what he could in the back, and the rest was wedged in with the passengers. Fortunately Nella and Connie don't take up much space, but it was still a tight fit. The driver seemed cheerful but didn't speak much English, and seemed to make up his own driving rules (as did all the other drivers). Red lights aren't treated as strict traffic regulators as they are in the U.S., but as schoolmarmish recommendations which are often ignored (our driver would usually honk first before accelerating through one). Pedestrians are pretty much on their own – on the occasional narrow streets without sidewalks (a main reason the cars tend to be small), the driver would tailgate them and rev the engine or honk to encourage them to hop out of the way. At one point on a busy street with stopped traffic, our driver created his own lane by straddling the center line; fortunately no one coming the other way had the same idea. But the driver seemed to know what he was doing, as we eventually arrived in one piece at our hotel, the Hotel Piazza Bellini. Or so it seemed from the address. As the taxi drove off, we found ourselves in a graffiti-decorated part of town, standing with our luggage in front of a large and somewhat beaten-up set of green wooden doors that didn't open.

Then we noticed a small call box with a paper label on it that said "Hotel". Nella pushed the button and talked to the scratchy voice at the other end, and something in the door clicked. We pushed on the door, and a small panel of it swung inward. We squeezed ourselves and our luggage through the opening and found ourselves in a darkish area which was clearly undergoing some kind of construction, though no workers were around. The door crashed closed behind us with a sound reminiscent of a haunted house movie. We eventually noticed a small sign pointing to the left, where we found a tiny elevator. We went up in shifts, two people at a time (that's all that would fit), and on the first floor (what Americans would call the second floor) we found glass doors leading into a small but modern and attractive lobby manned by a friendly desk manager who checked us in.

Our room was quite nice – it had a wooden floor and a small flat-panel television, and looked like it had been recently decorated. It was large enough for a double bed and two twin beds, which is apparently not that normal – many hotels don't have quad rooms and force you to take two doubles if you have four people. Philip and Connie claimed the twins and immediately crashed on them. Nella and I went out and explored a little, in search of an ATM to supply some much-needed Euros. But ATMs were found to be a scarce commodity in the immediate area, and the one or two that were seen had unsavory-looking fellows loitering nearby for no obvious good reason, and we avoided them. We decided to look again in the morning. But we did find a gelato store, and we scraped together enough Euros to purchase two small cones.

We returned to the room and eventually were able to drag ourselves and Connie (Philip could not be roused) out to a nearby restaurant for some dinner. Then it was back to the room and some rest, which we would be needing. We already had ambitious plans for the next day - we would be visiting the ancient city of Pompeii.