Continuing with a recent tradition of traveling somewhere on my birthday, this year I chose Naples. I had been once before only for a half day and always wanted to see what I missed out on.
I usually like to go somewhere sunnier and warmer than Paris and that limits my choices to southern France (which I’ve been to numerous times), Spain, or Italy, but even those destinations can be tricky, as January is a rainier month.
Lady Luck had our backs in Naples in the weather department, as three of the four days we were there were sunny with temps in the high 50s with nowhere a sign of rain.
Vincent and I arrived on Monday at about 1:30PM and by the time we got to the hotel and settled in, we were more than ready for lunch. The first thing on my food list was to try the legendary pizza of Naples. Sorbillo is the most famous, the equivalent of L’as du Falafel for falafel in the Marais. Even arriving at 3:30PM, there was still a 20-minute wait. Cruising the more than 40 varieties on the menu, it was hard to narrow down one, but finally I chose an artichoke pizza and Vincent had classic Margherita. I don’t know what was more surprising, the size or price: our oversized pizzas could have fed a family of four easily and the bill including bottled water was under 20€ for the both of us. The toppings were excellent and the mozzarella was good and gooey but the crust made with organic flower I found a little soggy. A few days later we went to Starita (a friend who spent her summers and holidays in Naples said it was her personal favorite) and enjoyed a pizza topped with pistachio cream (not sweet) and sausage and found the crust much crisper. Ironically we found out Starita has a sister pizzeria in New York on West 50th Street.
After our pizza stuffing we strolled on the via Toledo, one of the main shopping streets of Naples, which has more shoe shops than Kim Kardashian has Instagram followers. Shoe freak that I am, I just had to have a pair, plus the sales were on at 30-50% off. Unfortunately the Yves Klein blue suede shoes with blue soles I picked weren’t on sale but still a bargain at under $100.
Blue suede shoes- Do I hear Elvis?
The next three days we soaked up culture, art, churches, and architecture. We visited the Capodimonte Museum, a former Bourbon palazzo atop the city, where we viewed masterpieces by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, El Greco and Botticelli. An unexpected pleasure was the MADRE Museum, which had an excellent permanent collection of contemporary art, which also had a number of Italian artists I was not familiar with. Funnily enough there was an installation by French artist Daniel Buren. We did a tour of the stunning San Carlo Opera House, the oldest opera house in Europe built in 1737 before La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. On our last full day we walked down to the Bay of Naples and experienced a magnificent sunset.
Our other food highlights were Tandem, a casual restaurant that specializes in a superb ragu, which I had on top of ziti and for my birthday we went to a classic seafood restaurant,Da Dora, with white tiles and fisherman motif along with fresh vegetables artfully displayed in a refrigerated glass case. The tall, lean waiter Tony spoke perfect English, was quite the character. He lived in the U.S. for time as a cook and knew all the state capitals off the top of his head. Every time he delivered a dish he would pop the question: What is the capital of Montana, North Dakota, Louisiana, etc. Like baguettes in France, which never taste the same anywhere else, the same could be said about mozzarella in Italy. I had a caprese with the biggest green olives I’ve ever seen and ripe tomatoes followed by whole daurade fish fileted by the waiters. The popular dessert in Naples is baba au rhum, and it’s an obsession with Neapolitans. Since Naples is near Mount Vesuvius, there is baba au rhum in the shape of Mount Vesuvius in many pastry shops.
We stayed at the Hotel Santa Brigida, a small boutique hotel hidden on the third floor of an office building. The location couldn’t have been better, walking distance to most of the tourist attractions and the historic district and also close to a metro station. The room was decorated in Italian modern décor but had a bit of humor to it with a crazy photo mural of an elegant woman in a low cut black dress with a piece bacon covering her lips. Breakfast was served tapas style with small plates of omelets, cheeses, and mini pastries. The staff couldn’t have been more accommodating and they recommended Da Dora the fish restaurant where I went for my birthday meal.
Hotel Santa Brigida
Via Santa Brigida, 6 ,80133
http://www.hotelsantabrigida.it/
Sorbillo Pizzeria
Via dei Tribunali, 32, 80138
http://www.sorbillo.it/en/
Starita Pizzeria
Via Materdei, 27-28, 80136
http://www.pizzeriestarita.it/?lang=en
Da Dora Restaurant
Via Ferdinando Palasciano, 30, 80122
San Carlo Opera House
Baba Vesuvio
Daniel Buren
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Cost: 195 euros per person (about $210)
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