Friday, 4th September, 2026. In Naples.

Reason for this trip.

I think this trip might prove momentous, but for all the wrong reasons. Last year we went to Rome on a similar EasyJet holiday. This was a great success. A four star hotel, which was very good. Lovely staff and a beautiful garden restaurant. Everyone we met in restaurants and on tours was friendly, polite and often a fun personality, even though it was summer peak, extremely busy and hot. This is why I thought we would do a similar trip to another Italian city this summer.

Sadly Naples has proved rather different. I’ve already mentioned the hotel is not up to scratch. Nowhere near four star standard. Today things have not gone well. While on a visit to the Archeological Museum this afternoon I received a message regarding the tour we had intended to do tomorrow. This was a small group tour to Sorrento, Amalfi and Positano. The Amalfi coast is supposed to be a spectacular drive. The tour was confirmed together with the pick up time from our hotel and we were looking forward to it, being my birthday.

The message I received advised there was insufficient people booked to operate the tour. We had been rebooked on an alternative tour. This tour did not have a pick up from our hotel, but required us to make a 30 minute journey to the pick up point. It was a larger group and a different itinerary. I phoned them to say this was not acceptable and they said I could get a 100% refund. I would need to contact Customer Support to claim this.

Infuriatingly when I tried to do this via the App, every time I tried the App froze and would not do anything. I resorted to emailing them, only to get a ridiculous answer back saying the tour had taken place and provided everything promised, so no refund was due. Can you believe it! A tour booked for tomorrow had already taken place! I am following this up.

Returning to our hotel

Once we returned to our hotel room, we were greeted by an infestation of tiny ants. We have a large, long room with two single beds at the far end. I had left some clothes spread out on one of the single beds and they were smothered in tiny ants. The thought of changing rooms again was just too much. I shook them all off and terminated as many as could be seen.

Naples Traffic

Traffic in the city is crazy, especially the scooters. They ignore red lights, green pedestrian lights, pedestrian crossings and treat pavements as roads. You have to be very aware.

Archeological Museum

Having spent a lazy morning, we walked to the Archeological Museum. It is huge. The ground floor is devoted to statues, figures, paintings etc recovered from the eruption of Vesuvius which smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum. The second floor is devoted to similar statues from Greece. When we reached this floor, I was somewhat distracted by the change to our tour for tomorrow.

Various exhibits recovered from Vesuvius’s eruption

Cathedral

After the Archeological Museum we walked to the Cathedral. The exterior is not that imposing, but the interior is vast and very ornate.

Today was very hot. 33 degrees, but feeling hotter. We walked back to the hotel, with a few rest stops and stops for a drink. It is a long, uphill slog. The restaurant we had wanted to visit a couple of evenings ago, which was then closed, is open tonight, so we have booked a table. It is a pretty little place with a friendly young lady in charge. We had a nice evening there, but ate far too much!

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