2 Days in Naples: Kick Off Your Southern Italian Adventure

We wanted a summer vacation since that wouldn’t take us too long to get to. Europe is an easier destination to get to from Washington DC, We spent a few months throwing out different countries, and eventually landed in Italy, southern Italy to be exact. It was perfect since it allowed me some cities to quench my history thirst, beaches that Reid craved for so much, and the food! Pizza and pasta… what more could you want? (Also wine…) And so we planned for our epic Southern Italy adventure, including a western Sicily road trip. Stay tuned for all our Italy posts.

Naples marked the start of our southern Italian vacation. We chose Naples as there was an international airport, making it easy to get to from Washington DC and there are ferries from Naples to Palermo, Sicily. We decided on this being our Sicily trip as it was the perfect compromise between the cities (Naples, Palermo, and Rome) and ocean adventures (Scopello and Favignana). Of course, Neapolitan pizzas were another reason we had to make sure we stopped by here! Here you’ll find our travel guide on how to spend the perfect 2 days in Naples.

Naples has a roughness to it that really surprised me. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but every time I see the graffiti, I get a little sad. However, it does add character to this chaotic little city.

Where to Stay

We picked our booking, Monteoliveto 33, near Porto as it was close to both the port and the historical center. It served as the perfect area where it was a 10 to 15-minute walk to the historical center and roughly 10 minutes to the port. At first, we were going to stay near the Piazza Garibaldi since it looked like it’d be easy to get here from the airport. However, as our ferry to Palermo was an overnight ferry, we didn’t want to have to haul our luggage across town after a long day exploring Naples. This ended up being the right choice for us as we spent most of our time around the historical center which is much closer to Porto than Piazza Garibaldi.

How to Get to Naples From the Airport

It was super easy to get our stay via the Alibus, which is a shuttle that is located in front of the arrivals of the airport. When you exit the airport, it’s at the end of the road. You’ll see a bunch of people walking towards the Alibus. You know you’re headed in the right direction when you pass by some taxi drivers.

Why Alibus? It’s a super affordable way to get into Naples for €5/person. It stops at the Piazza Garibaldi and the Port of Naples. The shuttle service took ~30 minutes to our stop, Porto Molo Beverllo, and it was an extra 10-minute walk to Monteoliveto 33, We highly recommend taking the Alibus as it is both an affordable and easy option to get into the city. You can buy your tickets online OR in person at the airport pickup. You’ll see a long line of people and a person with a card machine for you to purchase your tickets. If you have cash, you can pay the bus driver during boarding.

If you prefer to take a Taxi, they’re a fixed price of €22.50. Before you get into the taxi, verify the price and that they accept card payments. The fixed rate and card payment acceptance are the law. If your taxi driver tells you a different price or says they don’t accept cards, find a different taxi driver.

Pompeii

Pompeii was a must for me. As a history lover, Pompeii’s tragic ending has been stuck with me ever since I learned about it in school. And so I dragged Reid here even though he wasn’t super enthusiastic about it. There is little to no shade here, so I recommend bringing a hat if you’re visiting in the afternoon. You may prefer the afternoon as there is usually an afternoon breeze, making the heat a little more bearable during the warm summer. Make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes! There is a lot of walking here and the last thing you’ll want is getting blisters on your foot.

• How To Get There: We took the Circumvesuviana train to Pompei Scavi from Napoli Centrale. It can be confusing trying to buy the correct ticket to Pompeii, but if you have Apple Pay, you can just tap to enter/leave the metro! It makes it so much easier to use the metro as you don’t have to wait in line to buy a physical ticket. The line for the physical was so long that we missed the train by 30 seconds and had to wait another ~30 minutes for the next train. We recommend you set up your Apple Pay before you arrive in Italy, preferably with a credit card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees.
• Tour Guide Worth? We usually opt for DIY guides, but a tour guide is 100% worth it for Pompeii. Having someone explain the history to you makes you appreciate everything even more. Our guide explained daily life in Pompeii, how the infrastructure was built, etc. We don’t think we would have known with a DIY tour. We booked a Pompeii Small Group Tour with an Archaeologist that morning. There are tours every 30 minutes so you can book a tour the day of. An important thing to note is that more of the uncovered artifacts are in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. While you may not see the actual artifact itself, there are replicas in place of the original to give you an idea of life in Pompeii.
• How Long to Plan For? Set aside at least 3.5 hours to see everything including transit to/from Pompeii to Naples. Our metro on the way back broke down so that took away some Naples exploration time from us.

Castel Sant’Elmo

On our last day in Naples, we went to see the Castel Sant’Elmo, a medieval fortress that overlooks Naples. Fortunately, it was a cloudy day so the climb up the steps wasn’t as grueling as it could have been. It is a steep walk up here so just be prepared to wear some comfortable shoes and go slowly, if needed. The entrance fee was €4/person. This castle was huge and offered such great views of Naples! We spent about a few hours and the constant wind provided relief to the humidity. Prepare to spend at least an hour up here to walk through the fortress and take in the panoramic view of Naples.

Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara

In the middle of the historical center is this beautiful monastery. From the outside, it doesn’t look like it could have a beautiful garden, but it was such a pleasant surprise. Tickets cost €7/person, which includes a small museum and a gift shop. The monastery was destroyed during WWII but has been beautifully restored. This is a great place to visit during the day as there’s plenty of shade and seating to provide some relief from the hustling and bustling of Naples. The cloisters provide an amazing and picturesque view. Would recommend coming here closer to sunset for optimal photo time. We ended up spending ~90 minutes here trying to find the best photo spot to capture the cloisters’ beauty.

Naples Pizza

At one point Reid wanted to open a pizza truck out on the West Coast and so a huge motivator for Naples was to try the Neopolitan pizza. We made a list of all the pizzerias we wanted to stop by but only made it to a few. To Reid’s surprise, he preferred pasta to pizza after a few meals! Thank goodness he didn’t open up that food truck… or else we’d be in big trouble! Anyway, we’re sharing the places we did stop by and some tips to beat the long queues to get your pizza faster!

• L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele: We made the mistake of walking here for our first meal because the queue was so long we thought we’d starve to death before we got our pizza. The options here are super simple, but the quality is amazing. Pro tip, order the pizzas online ahead of time. The wait isn’t as long and you also get to beat the queue of people trying to order for takeaway/takeout.
• Gino e Toto Sorbillo: Another popular pizzeria where the wait can be an hour! That’s way too long if you ask me. Fortunately, we went during an off time (4 PM) and were able to get seated fairly quickly. The options were endless and started to get overwhelming (more than a page of options). We managed to pick our pizzas after 10 minutes of looking at the Google Translate translation… Service was good and we enjoyed our pizzas. This was the only restaurant in our Italy vacation that asked if we wanted to tip.
• I Buongustai: This was our alternate restaurant option after trying L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele the first time. I will always prefer pasta over pizza and I wanted pasta for my first meal. This place came up on Google and we enjoyed our meal here. I love Carbonara and got that while Reid opted for a pizza. The food took a little while to come out, but we didn’t mind as we were getting settled to the jetlag. Reid preferred this pizza the most out of all the restaurants we tried.