
When I was discussing our plans for this trip with others, I was asked multiple times: “are you going to Venice?” and “are you going to Rome?” My answer to both was that we had already been there twice (for both). While we enjoyed both cities we were not attracted to them this time around. With our flight being from Zurich instead of Rome this time around, it made even less sense. As we’re ending our trip I can say we ended up in both cities. We went to Venice because we had poorly planned our stay on Lago Maggiore and would have ended up spending four hours a day on ferries just to go and come back from the places we wanted to visit. We decided to forego Naples and go to Rome again a little bit due to poor planing on my end. We had a dinner experience planned at a now world-famous pizza place but didn’t take into account it required more than an hour on a commuter train that doesn’t run in the evening, just to get there. So while we could go, it would be close to a 200€ taxi ride to come back. Also, we only go to Naples only for the pizza we love. We don’t actually like the city. All of that put together made us change our plan and spend that time in Rome. The cold weather in Zurich also had us push our flight from Rome to Zurich at the last possible day so we could enjoy more warmth.
We’re travelling today so, as it has now become the norm, there’s rain in the forecast. We managed to leave Amalfi without getting rained on but had to move inside the boat to avoid the rain on the Positano to Napoli leg of the trip. Karine accepted a Limoncello Spritz from the same party boat crew as on our way in. With a good dose of alcohol in her, she didn’t mind the rain so much. The fact that by the time we made it into Napoli the rain had stopped did help.



We hopped on the metro back to Napoli Centrale and then on our train to Roma Termini, where we got on the bus to our apartment. With the ferry it made four modes of public transit in a single day. A new record for us this trip. We’ve even managed to add a fifth later that day by taking a taxi home from diner.
Most of the trip was rain free. By the time we arrived in Rome the rain was relenting and when we made it into our apartment it had stopped. While gray and somewhat cold, the weather was good enough for us to do a couple of errands. Karine needed a USB-C cable and we needed our usual essentials for any apartment we move into for a couple of days. It kept us busy until dinner time.





Dinner was far away: a twenty-minute walk to the metro station and a fifteen-minute subway ride, then another five-minute walk. If we had just walked it would have been over an hour. While distance will not impact negatively my opinion of any great restaurant, it will be a point against any good or passable place. 📍Santo Palato delivered. It came within a hair’s breadth of displacing our top meal of the trip. Only the less attentive service and the meat dish that resumed itself to meat that’s grilled (no garnish, no sauce, no nothing) got it to second place.
Returning home was an adventure. The metro closes at 21:00 on most weekdays. As our dinner reservation was at an early 20:30, we could not return through the metro and instead tried for the bus, strong from our positive experience earlier that day. After waiting for more than 30 minutes for a bus that’s supposed to be every 9 minutes, we gave up and tried walking to the next stop, only for the bus we were waiting for to show up as we were half-way between the two stops. Not being able to make it in time to either stop, we gave up and called a Taxi through Uber. Within three minutes it was there and 15 minutes later we were home.