We made our connection from Caserta to Napoli with about 10 minutes to spare; I love it when a thing works out! Also helpful was that we arrived on binario #2 and departed from binario #3, so we didn't have to rush down underground and come up to another platform to catch our final train.
Once we arrived at Napoli Centrale, we made our way up, through, and down again to the Piazza Garibaldi metro station, where this time I managed to buy metro passes good for one week (the options are single use, daily, weekly, or monthly). I think I bought them from the same grumpy guy from whom we purchased tickets when we were here back in February. We took a very crowded ride on the Line 1 four stops to Toledo Station - which, incidentally, is a beautiful metro station, with mosaic tiles and colorful lighting - I wish I'd stopped to take pictures, but we were eager to get to our hotel and relax (and also by that point, I really needed to use the bathroom). Fortunately, Grand Hotel Oriente is located just a very short walk from the metro - super convenient.
We got settled in our room and refreshed ourselves (I always feel a bit dirty after riding the subways here), and then, following the bell man's advice, we headed up to the rooftop terrace to take in the view, have our aperitifs, and choose a place for dinner.
Vomero Hill, atop which are the Charterhouse of St. Martin (big white building) and the Castel Sant'Elmo fortress next to it
That tall building to the right unfortunately blocks the view of Mount Vesuvius
Gulf of Naples in the background
Our room is just one floor below this, so we have a decent view from there as well.
In the US, if I want to book a table for dinner, I'll often use the OpenTable app. OpenTable has something of a presence here in Italy as well, but you don't find nearly as many options. In Italy, we've been using an app called The Fork, which is quite similar and definitely Euro-centric. So for dinner, we used the app to book a table at Essencia, just a short walk away (less than five minutes). It turned out to be an excellent choice; it was not at all crowded, our server was a lot of fun, and the food was excellent. Bonus: we did not have to dress up, which was fortunate since I didn't pack any clothes that are not strictly casual. We opted to do the chef's tasting menu:
She recommended this wine - it was very good
The first course was a "breakfast" - the "espresso" was actually a mushroom broth; the croissants and tartlets were very savory
Mushrooms with mascarpone and some kind of savory yellow cream. The black crumbles were dried olives, and delcious.
Probably my least favorite dish: Italian-style pasta with an Asian-type sauce (it definitely had soy sauce as a component) and green onions. It was...eh, a little weird.
Herring with beets. A bit salty, but still pretty tasty
Eel and endive
There was a "pre-dessert" palette cleanser of mango sorbet, followed by actual dessert, which was something like a French toast stick with chocolate gelato. Excellent.
Post-dessert
Dinner was a really fun experience, although we're also looking forward to finding places to eat with more regional foods.
Next up: a visit to Pompeii.
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