Napoli – Jun 11, 2023
Jul 31st, 2023 by rallyadmin
Up at a reasonable hour and hangout in the apartment. There’s no rush as we have a late morning flight to Naples on Volotea Airlines whom I’ve never heard of but it’s not Ryanair so that should be an improvement.
They are based in Spain and although they are still another of the “cheap” airlines by the time you pay for a seat assignment, checked baggage and priority loading, the fare is right up there with the “normal” airlines. Apparently, there is no free “as in beer” left in aviation.
Up the hill to retrieve the car and park near the entrance to the apartment. Back up to get the bags and do a serious, very serious, check to make sure we haven’t left anything in the apartment. (Still don’t trust the keycode system here.) Load the car and we’re off to the airport.
The Cagliari rental car return is almost as crazy and disorganized as when we first picked up the car. Too many cars and almost no place to leave the car. But there is an agent working in the lot and he moves some cars around, points to a parking spot, unload the bags, give him the contract, he’s good with everything (no inspection for dings and dents!) and we’re off to to check in for the flight to Napoli.
Probably because we have our boarding passes on my phone, the check in goes smoothly. No issues with checking the bags and no hidden “fees” because we’ve missed some secret condition that requires a few hundred euro to straighten out. As I said, this isn’t Ryanair, the Irish criminal airline.
We are a bit early and the boarding area is crowded. WE get some snacks and soon the flight is called for boarding. The plane is an Airbus A321 but it’s been stripped to the bare bones necessary to carry passengers. The seats are tight, the rows pitch unbelievably tight and the non-reclining seats so flimsy that they don’t even look legal. Wow! We’re one step away from folding chairs stolen from the rec-room. Good thing this is a short 1:15 minute flight. The word “torture” keeps coming to mind.
The good news is that the flight leaves on time and arrives in Napoli more or less on time. Getting our checked bags doesn’t take very long and soon we’re back at the dreaded Napoli airport taxi stand. But today there’s no cabal of taxi drivers running the taxi prices into the stratosphere. We get in the first taxi in line, show the driver the address of where we are going and we’re off.
Twenty or so minutes later, we’re cruisng down a main boulevard with the taxi driver check building numbers. I can’t see a single number and I have no idea if we are even on the correct street but he stops in front of a building and announces that we are here.
I get out somewhat skeptical that we are in the right place. But the rive points out the number, 22, which is right if we are on the right street and he says we are. Okay. What could possibly go wrong. We pay him 25 euro and he departs. We look at the panel that has the ringer buttons for the apartments in the building and nothing looks right. We decide to call the contact number for the apartment.
We get a woman on the phone who speaks English quite well (good thing – out Italian hasn’t progressed very much.) She shows up at the front of the building and brings up to the apartment on the second floor. It’s another small but very nice room with an en suite bath.
The only problem is that the air conditioning isn’t working. She and another woman play with it but the air coming out of the unit isn’t very cool. In the end she provides a stand up fan and says that she’ll get someone to fix the unit. Hmmm… we’ll see.
We unpack and take a break. Later we’re out looking for some place to eat and just a block away there’s a very good restaurant. A good meal and a fine bottle of local wine. Then back to the apartment.
Well, almost back to the apartment. There’s a gelato shoppe right next to the entrance to out apartment and we stop in for a little after dinner dessert. This appears to be the stop that changed the trip from the Italian antiquities tour to the Italian gelato tour.
Finally, back to the room. The air conditioning still isn’t putting out cool air but the apartment is very warm. It hasn’t been all that warm on this trip so far and the room is certainly comfortable with the provided fan. Maybe the air conditioner will be fixed tomorrow. Whatever. We’re here and it’s been a long day.
Obiwan
