Adventures with Jack and Julia

Naples

Following a 14 hour travel day including a bus ride and 2 flights, we landed at 10pm in Naples, Italy! Italy has been Julia’s #1 bucket list travel destination for many years, but her quintessential image of what Italy would be like did not exactly match the destinations that we chose to visit. Since we are travelling on a budget, we decided not to visit the expensive cities such as Florence, Milan and Rome on this trip. We will absolutely be returning to Italy, however, because along with all the amazing places there are to see, one stand-out for us is hiking the Dolomites. One day, we’ll make it happen.

Anyhow… we chose to base ourselves for 5 nights just outside of Naples because we thought we could easily do day trips to places such as Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast and Positano. We quickly learned that although these places are close together on a map, they are in fact difficult to reach by public transit. Day one, after a slow morning, we were eager to explore Naples and get our hands on some delicious aperol spritz, pizza and cannolis! We trained into town and were immediately met with the chaos of Naples’ city centre. It’s loud and a bit overwhelming, but we loved the energy. We started the day sampling some delicious gluten free & dairy free pastries at Leopoldo’s Bakery, which fuelled us for our full day of exploring the city. When we got hungry again, we found a pizza restaurant that was able to accommodate our diets, and had one of the best pizzas of our lives.

This day was not complete without having a delicious aperol spritz, and we were lucky to find a bar that sold them for 1 euro each! It’s fair to say we dove head first into a few of those before calling it a night.

On our second day, we took the train to visit Pompeii, which was an eerie but incredible experience. It’s amazing how this city that was completely buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is still standing today. Some of the rooms are very well preserved and you can still see paintings on the walls and floors. The most eerie part however, was walking through a museum of preserved bodies who are resting in the position that they died in. You could still see the emotion in their eyes and by the position that there bodies were in. Very spooky but absolutely a must-see when in the area. It’s ginormous and you could easily spend a whole day exploring the whole city.

On our third day, we started the day with another gluten free cannoli (is there any other way to start your day in Italy?!) and explored Naples again. We ended up at a castle that had a really nice viewpoint overlooking the city. When we got hungry again, we somehow ended up back at the gluten free cafe (who could’ve imagined that!) and had some delicious empanadas. We kept it pretty chill on this day as we’ve got another big one up ahead.

Day 4 was the most exciting one for Julia. Positano has been her number one place on her bucket list long before we even started planning this trip. We knew that it might be a bit tricky to get there on public transit, but we had no idea what we were in for. Our plan was to take the train from our accommodation to Sorrento, spend a few hours exploring there, and then take the bus to Positano. The first leg of our journey was totally fine, but when we got off the train in Sorrento and saw the line for the Positano bus, we decided to head there first and check on Sorrento on the way back. We ended up waiting for almost 2 hours for the bus. It only runs about every 30-45 minutes, which is not nearly frequent enough for the amount of people waiting. Beginning of May is the start of the busy season, so we can only imagine how long the lines must get during the summer months. The journey was extremely windy on very narrow roads, but the views were absolutely incredible. After about four hours, we finally made the descent into Positano and it became very clear why this is such a popular destination. The entire town is built upwards into the mountains and is even more beautiful than the photos we’ve seen.

We took the many stairs down towards the main town area, and were quickly reminded that this is one of the most popular and busy destinations in Italy for a reason. The streets and stores were all slammed with people. It was almost impossible to stop and go into any because of the herds of tourists. We honestly both felt pretty overwhelmed and didn’t really get to enjoy our experience especially given how long it took to get here. We managed to find a nice little shop that made gluten free sandwiches, so we some food and made our way to find a spot to eat.

After eating a late lunch, we walked around a bit more, had some gelato and decided to catch an earlier bus back than we had originally planned. We were worried that we would end up having to wait for hours and hours if we stayed much later, and we were definitely right, as the line for the earlier bus was already long.

If you are planning to visit there, we highly recommend staying in Sorrento and catching an earlier bus than we did, or even staying in Positano for a night or two. Accommodation is very expensive but you’ll get to experience the town in the peaceful morning before all the tourists arrive and at night when they all leave. We honestly wished we’d spent some time in Sorrento as it looked beautiful and wasn’t as jam packed with people as Positano was.

On our final day in Naples, we explored the city once more, and had some really amazing pasta. The quality of the ingredients used in Europe are of such a higher quality than we’re used to back home and even the simplest of meals have so much flavour. We’re eating a lot more calories here but when in Rome (or Naples)!

The next day, we hopped on a flight to our next Italian destination: Sicily!

Sicily (Catania)

A saying that we have picked up in our travels is “never judge a place by it’s bus stop or airport,” but unfortunately for Catania, our initial judgments were all true. We thought that Athens was a dirty city, but Catania took the cake for dirtiest city we have visited. There was garbage all over the sidewalk, and you had to really watch where you step, because apparently they don’t sell dog poop bags over here. It’s really quite a shame because Catania has some really authentic and raw charm, but it’s completely overshadowed by the amount of graffiti, garbage and smell that permeates the city. We managed to find some nice historical sights to visit but our highlight here was the wine tasting that we did at Il Calice dei Grulli, a small wine bar that offered a wine tasting with 5 different wines and a lovely charcuterie board, for only €35 each. They pour pretty full glasses here so we definitely got our money’s worth! Catania is located 30 km south of Europe’s largest active volcano, Mount Etna, which is rich in mineral elements, making it a perfect location for producing unique wines.

After 3 nights, we were ready to get on a bus and head to Palermo, which we heard was a much nicer (and cleaner) city on the island region of Sicily.

Sicily (Palermo)

Palermo was much cleaner, more quaint and had some really amazing food to try. While we were here, we both got to try an Italian delicacy, arancini, which are rice balls that are stuffed, coated with breadcrumbs and deep-fried. We also did a nice hike that had amazing views, and rewarded ourselves with €3 happy hour aperol spritz’s and a gluten free cannoli!

Our final night in Italy was spent in Cinisi, where we booked a hotel closer to the airport. When debating what we should have for dinner for our final night, we of course ended up picking pizza, because how can you not on your last night in Italy?!

Our time in Italy did not go exactly how we expected, but we are excited to come back to experience everything else this incredible country has to offer. Jack has dreams of staying in a cottage in wine country and riding bikes into town for some delicious foods. Julia wants to visit Florence and Milan to walk the beautiful streets, visit museums, and enjoy cafe life. Of course, we are also obsessed with the idea of backpacking through the Dolomites and staying in cabins in the middle of nowhere. All in due time…

For now, we are now off to our next big city and a new country for Julia (not for Jack): Madrid, Spain! Spoiler alert: it’s right near the top of our favourite places we’ve visited so far so stay tuned for our short time there before we head to Portugal!

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