I spent pretty much all of yesterday train-hopping my way down the west coast via a series of train changes: Vernazza-La Spezia-Rome-Naples-Sorrento. Each of the hops brought a little trepidation because I couldn’t quite get a consistent story on which trains were not running today because of one strike, and which wouldn’t be running tomorrow because of a different one.

In the end, it all worked out, and I made it to the day’s destination only about an hour late due to a missed connection on the last change in Naples. Which was entirely my fault: it required a ticket on a different rail line, but I made a wrong turn, purchased and validated a ticket for the subway and didn’t realize my problem until I was standing trackside trying to make sense of the “next train” signs. The subway attendant I flagged down straightened me out, walked me back out of the gate and pointed me in the direction of the trains I wanted.

That route looked inauspicious, with a chain across the gates, but the official-looking fellow sitting on the turnstiles said that Sorrento? Yes, that train is running. Sorrento is the only train running. Seven o’clock, here, in one hour.

I watched him turn commuter after surly commuter away for much of the next hour (from my comfy seat at the coffee shop) and started worrying that I’d misunderstood. But a few minutes before seven he pulled the chain away a dozen or so suitcase-toting travelers swooped in.

I was so train-numbed that I was baffled when the ticket I fed the machine was rejected – until I realized that I was still holding that subway ticket I’d mistakenly bought. I looked over my shoulder in panic to locate the nearest ticket machine/counter, but our turnstile guard shook his head, smiled, and beckoned me through the open wheelchair gate. “It’s good, it’s good,” he said.

Naples seems to be filled with this sort of unexpected kindness. My whole point in staying in Sorrento was to have a southern base for exploration that wasn’t Naples. Big ugly city, was the consensus. Tons of crime – keep a tight grip on everything you own, and don’t carry anything you wouldn’t mind getting snatched. High praise, yeah?

So maybe it was because my expectations were sufficiently low that today’s day trip into the big city was delightful.

I’d come to town with three objectives: pizza at L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele (which had been recommended to me by everyone and their uncle), a stroll through the National Archeological Museum (which had been insisted upon by those who know whereof they speak), and a Quixotic side quest for the cup of coffee that a passing stranger had years ago told me was the best he’d ever had. We’ll get to that.

My first impressions of Naples called to mind the feeling of New York’s lower east side from when I was much younger and hadn’t yet developed an allergy for Manhattan’s pretentiousness. Crazy bustle of sidewalk life – families, shopkeepers, neighbors swirling in little eddies around storefronts, chatting excitedly so endearingly that you can almost forgive them for blocking the flow of pedestrian traffic and forcing you out into the certain death of the whizzing street. Except that it wasn’t. Miraculously, small clumps of pedestrians continuously stepped out into traffic to cross and the traffic just flowed around them, like rocks in a stream.

And you could just feel the warmth in all those little conversational sidewalk roadblocks; it felt like an embrace of life for these people.

I got to the pizza place just as it opened. I’d been warned to expect a huge line, but Neapolitans don’t really kick lunch off until around 1:00 p.m, and I couldn’t bring myself to be the only person in there at a gastronomically unthinkable time of 10:30.

So I wandered a little, people-watching as I went, then wandered a little more. Finally I figured it was time, and stepped out of the way of the crowd to ask Google to find me the way back. It gave me a route, but also informed me that my current location was the Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri, a gorgeous little gem of a museum put together by an Italian prince in the 19th century.

The gentle young man tending desk welcomed me inside the apparently deserted main hall, which was decked with collections of swords and armor from every continent, and quite a few previous centuries. Upstairs was a hall of paintings from the 17th-19th centuries, and an exquisite gallery of porcelain and terracotta, including pieces by the renowned 15th century Luca Della Robia.

The first of the two things that astounded me about this little gem was that the paintings and much of the armament was set out without glass or any protection. You could get right up and look at it from all angles, to get a sense of the artist’s work. The second thing that astounded me was that, for the entire 45 or so minutes that I wandered the place, I had the entire museum to myself. Other than the young fellow at the door and an older woman doing some tidying here and there, the museum was deserted.

I asked the young man about it and he sounded apologetic: The paintings, he said, were of the “academic” style – post Raphael, but not in vogue with the new post-Raphael sensibilities. As such, he said, they were considered mostly worthless by modern collectors. But, he added with an earnest plea, they were still beautiful, weren’t they? I reassured him – honestly – they were. Not all were to my taste, but many were gorgeous and evocative.

I’ll confess: I can’t stop imagining the nymphs both holding cell phones – one taking a selfie and the other checking her likes on TikTok. Above: the story you can read from the details in Mary of Egypt just stirs up so much emotion. And it’s hard not to sympathize with the stern gaze of Livia De Rovere, the last Duchess of Urbino – her son has died and her husband has died, and, to top it off the Pope “gave her modest compensation” and retired the duchy. Patriarchy much?

Okay, now it was well past time for pizza, and my breakfast-skipping stomach would brook no further delay. There were half a dozen patrons scattered around the roughly dozen tables, and I was welcomed in and given my choice of a seat. Menu was printed on the paper placemats: one of four pizza choices, one of five beverages.

I asked the gregarious young man to seated me what his favorite was. “You can’t go wrong with margherita,” he said. “And to drink?” I asked. “A beer is nice.” Decision made, the beer showed up about 60 seconds later, and the pizza no more than two minutes after that. Aaaand it was gone in about five more, in spite of me trying to take my time.

Before. No ‘after’ picture.

A note here: Neapolitans take their pizza very seriously. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana regulates use of the name, and the Italian History of Pizza Wikipedia page specifically calls out L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele as home of the purists.

Unsurprisingly, it was pretty dang tasty.

Okay, so one FRA (food-related adventure) taken care of, it was time for my side quest.

I don’t even remember how many years ago it was that I was sipping coffee at the long-defunct Mukilteo Coffee house just off the runway at Langley Field, and I fell into conversation with another local pilot named George.

I praised the quality of MC’s brew and he shook his head. It was alright, he supposed. But for real coffee you had to go to Italy. The best cup of Joe anywhere in the states was no match for what you’d get on any corner in Italy. And the king of Italian coffee was Naples. And the king of Neapolitan coffee?

He took on a conspiratorial look. Okay, here’s what you do, he said. In Naples, go to the Mussolini Post office. That’s not what it’s really called, but ask anyone – they’ll know what you mean. Go around to the right. Behind the cathedral, and take the alley on your left. There’s a little shop there. Ask for Renato, and he’ll fix you up.

As I said, I have no idea how many years ago that was, but I scribbled down enough to remember and sent myself email: go to Mussolini post office, to the right, behind cathedral, down alley on left. Renato’s. And ever since then, when I’ve thought about Italy, George’s words have come to mind. So how could I come to Naples and not dive down that rabbit hole?

I’ll spare you the details of the actual pursuit, but once I’d corrected a few missed guesses I found myself eyeballing a little coffee place with three tables outside and no name out front. Wandered in and, in my most hesitant English, asked the patient-looking lady behind the counter if this was where Renato worked.

She shook her head no. I apologized for bothering her and, not bothering to check that she actually spoke English, launched into an unnecessary and embarrassed explanation of how I’d been told by an acquaintance years ago that I needed to find this place run by Renato and…

Ah, she said. No, Renato doesn’t work here. Any more. He retired. But is there something you need from him? Just coffee, I explained, and her eyes lit up. I can help you, she said.

Now, I’m not going to try to rate or rank one coffee experience against another, but It. Was. Lovely. And capping off a years-old side quest? Priceless.

Criminy – just checked my word count and I’m already north of 1500 words on just pizza and coffee.

So. National Archeological Museum. Fabulous. I spent over three hours there, gawking at the Pompeiian frescos that I’d only seen in books, wandering the galleries of Roman senators and emperors in marble, and megalithic Greek heroes and their labors. Tried not to smirk too much in the so-called “Secret Room” at the juxtaposition of the ancient Greek and Roman erotic art (mostly consisting of phalluses of improbable size, location and number) and the these-should-not-be-needed but ever-present “Please Do Not Touch” signs. Because, you know, some people clearly need to be reminded.

Three hours, and still didn’t make it more than halfway through the collection.

Note the two women holding wax tablets and styluses. These were no frilly know-nothings and, from what has been recovered from Pompeii and Herculaneum, it sounds like that was par for the course. Note also that this-just-in news based on genetic analysis has rewritten a lot of what we’ve assumed about Pompeiians origins and connections with each other.

Maybe more of that later. I’m headed for a guided tour of Pompeii itself with a “Vesuvius hike” tomorrow morning, so I’ll probably have more to say after that, if I’m not knackered all to hell, flat on my back.

But yeah, Naples treated me well.