A day in Naples, with a visit to the Archealogical Museum

With all of the traveling we've been doing it was nice to have a weekend at home with no plans. Suitcases always seem to be being packed and unpacked, or in some cases not unpacked at all as we make our travels around Europe.

Saturday proved to be a "cooler" day with temperatures only hitting 90 degrees :/ It is hot and humid in Naples over the summer, and for two people who aren't too fond of the heat (plus Maya, who for obvious reasons doesn't take too kindly to the heat) we're trying our best to keep cool.

Trying to keep cool in the shade

We started the day with a trip to the Archealogical Museum in downtown Naples. This museum is among the top museums of ancient art and has an extensive collection of artifacts. The building itself was built in the 16th century as a headquarters for the royal cavalry and then was converted into a university a century later. The century after that it was turned into a museum housing fascinating artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum as well as art from Egyptian and Prehistoric times, Roman mosaics, marble and bronze sculptures, Greek pottery, and gems, coins, and epigraphs.

The side of the museum

Pillars and mosaics from Pompeii

We saw many remarkable sculptures on exhibit, ranging from the size of a finger to the height of a two story house. Though astounding as they were, we found that after a while they started to blend together and look very similar to one another. There were a few that stood out though:

Artemis

Toro Farnese

Hercules

We saw many mosaics, art, and tools:

From Pompeii

Jon liked the surgical tools

Beth! A deviled egg plate from Pompeii! ;)

Towards the end of our visit we embarked on "The Secret Room" which houses a collection of erotic finds excavated from Pompeii. Before we even entered the room we could hear the sound of giggling men from around the world echoing in the quiet museum. The following is NSFW:

After the museum we went to our favorite downtown pizza place, Pizzeria Pellone. While the pizzas in the areas surrounding Naples are fantastic there's nothing like a good downtown Naples pizza. The liquid from the sauce and cheese tend to create a very hot and soupy center (in a good way, which is why they use a fork and knife) that you can then pair with the delicious crust... and it only takes 90 seconds in an 800 degree wood burning oven! There are actually regulations in Naples for how to make a pizza in order to protect the original Neapolitan pizza within Italy and worldwide.

And that's just for one person!

After some (not so much needed) gelato, we walked around Piazza Dante, went into the fantastic woodshop of our tutor's boyfriend, and made our way home. There's nothing like going into Napoli for an afternoon and taking advantage of all that is offered.

Port'Alba entrance near Piazza Dante