Naples - 11 April

The adventure while traveling is not always about exploring the usual tourist attractions, it can also be and is often about exploring how the local people go about their daily business. Today our first adventure was to locate an Italian Post Office. We have a 'little' issue of overweight luggage and to address this we have decided to post some of our souvenirs' home to Australia. The hotel reception staffs waive us in the vague direction of Naples number one railway station which happens to be on the other side of the piazza from our hotel. We arrive at the staion to discover that the Post Office is not located at the station but several blocks along the railway line to the left. The visit to the train station was not altogether in vain as we sourced information on the tickets to Rome. Walking along Naples' filthy streets while dodging the unpredictable traffic we eventually spot a Post Italia sign and make our way to the building. It doesn't look like a post office; it looks more like Centrelink! Looking through the windows we can see that the space is full of people holding forms of some sort. Having decided there is no point in wondering we except that we have to ask someone. The next challenge is entering the building through the security doors that are automated to allow two people to enter and exit at a time, so we stand patiently in the queue. Once inside the interior, which has that distinct clinical feel of the 1970s and shows no sign of that Italian flair for style, it takes me a few minutes more to work out that there are two sections. One must be for pensions as I can make out the word in the signage, the other could possibly be for postage based solely on the synbol of an envelop above the counter. There is also a digital customer numbering system so it takes me a further few minutes to locate the machine and work out which of the three buttons represents the postal counter. A task that is not made easy due to my lack of skill in reading italian! Not giving up I make a guess, take the digital read out and before you know it we are standing in front of a man at the counter gestering wildly to the bag of goodies that we want to post and repeating Australia, Australia. He agrees that we can post it but where is our box? Don't Italians buy their postal boxes, obviously not, so we are passed on to another man who heads out the back and returns with a postage box just the right size for our goods. A good 15 minutes later and having negotiated the security doors again, we exit the building in triumph assured that we have gone through the motions of posting the 7.5 kg parcel to Australia; at least we hope that is what we have achieved. You may get the impression from my previous rumblings that we believe Naples to be all filth and kamicaze drivers, but you would be wrong. After the domestic duties of the morning we join a 'Hop on Hop off' bus tour and travel along the coastal route of the Bay of Naples. Here we see a prettier and more opulent part of the city with fewer piles of rubbish and kamikaze drivers!