June 2, 2025
So, let me tell you how I was supposed to meet a client in Italy, but instead turned into a girls' trip that made me appreciate my home base even more.
After Christmas, I was already making rough plans for my next summer trip. If you follow my journey, you know that one of my reasons for becoming a freelancer is to have the freedom and means to travel to a new country once a year.
I am based in Croatia and yet haven’t been to Italy, so it has been on my goals list for 2–3 years already. In the meantime, I was working on a redesign project with one of my clients, and they mentioned a European trip in 2025, and we happened to brainstorm locations where we could meet.
They mentioned Rome, but my flight connections were better with Naples, and I decided to plan for that destination instead and another way to commute to Rome if needed. But in the end, what happened was that they cancelled their trip. 🥲
And until I got the news, I had already booked my flights for mid-May. I even told my friends, and one of them said:
Do you want to meet with me at the beginning of your vacation week?
I was like:
Hell yeah! We haven’t done that girls' trip out of the country we planned for ages, so of course.
And that’s how I ended up in Italy with one of my bestie!
If you are from Europe, you know that those areas are notoriously dodgy when it comes to safety. This one was no different. It was full of homeless people sleeping on the ground, begging, policemen and soldiers walking around. Not the best first impression when you arrive in a new city.
We also ended up staying in a Booking where the neighbourhood population was mostly African. In this area, compared to the one where my hostel was for the second half of my stay, the streets were wide and levelled.
The chaotic traffic and the dirtiness of the city didn’t surprise me because I have watched enough YouTube videos to prepare myself. One thing I must admit is that it made an impression, while walking around, 99% of the streets were not stinking! As someone with a sensitive nose, I notice this almost immediately. For Naples, that wasn’t the case.
It tastes different! In a good way. I almost thought I was drinking fine mineral water because of the finishing feeling it leaves on your skin. If you have been there, you know what I mean.
One of the receptionists described it as a thin film on your skin, like it doesn’t penetrate your skin. Just weird. 😅
As soon as I landed, some sort of itchiness appeared in my throat, and I thought it was just my tonsils playing games. The feeling intensified when I moved to the other side of the city, which was predominantly full of tall buildings, narrow streets and lots of scooters. Everyone in the hostel had that cough as well. Even the locals are working behind the desk.
One suspicion I have might be the pollution levels in the city and the humidity that came with the occasional rain showers.
The other possibility was the African dust particles that one of the receptionists mentioned. 🐫
I haven’t walked this much in my life! 😂 Or at least didn’t have an app to tell me how much walking I have done in a single day in Naples or when sightseeing around.
But the people in Naples are resourceful as to provide escalator buildings (at least in the neighbourhood I was in) that serve only one purpose — to let people go up and down without dying.
So pleasantly surprised! Running trains, metro and buses every 10–20 minutes on a working day.
Except when they are on a strike! So always have an extra couple of minutes on your hands if you need to go to a different metro station.
Garibaldi Station is not for the weak; it is a lot, and with so many options comes a lot of confusion, too. Luckily, there is always helpful staff who you can ask for directions to your exact destination.
One-way tickets in the metro and train are as cheap as 1.50 euros. The bigger the distance, the higher the price.
Examples:
From Naples to Pompei, the single ticket cost was 2.80 euros.
From Pompei to Sorrento 3,30 euros.
So if you plan on visiting multiple cities during your vacation in Italy, you can definitely do that.
Note: Flixbus options are also available in case you don’t want to end up on a 1h train without a seating option after walking all day. 😅 It took us 5 euros one way from Naples to Salerno.
This I didn’t know when I arrived in Italy, but I noticed a number system in a regular bakery and thought: Hm, they like order and care about people’s patience. Nice.
Don’t be shocked if you hear or see the sight of young or older couples exchanging saliva during coffee time or walking back home.
When I tell you, a regular bakery has a full-on branding from the packages they use for their cakes and pastries up to the napkins, and even business cards. The feeling is amazing! When you see the full circle and how meticulous they are in it, there is nothing else left but to be a loyal buyer.
I would be 10kg heavier if I lived there!
No worries! The Napoli people have figured it out. You can often see servers walking about the pedestrian paths with a couple of coffees and waters on their trays.
That’s right, while we were in the bakery, we were asked if we would like to have a coffee and we ordered some, and after a short phone call and a few minutes, a server came from the outside bringing the coffees. I ordered a cappuccino, but it was in the morning, I promise! 😌
I have to say that when it comes to the service business in Italy, they lean on the saying: Work smarter, not harder.
You learned your basics, right?
Ciao, Grazie, Per Favore, Si, No, Quanto and similar.
But what you also need to learn is the numbers! Let me tell you how out of place I felt when waiting for my order and hearing a bunch of numbers but not knowing how they are pronounced. That’s why I had to Google the translation of 345 or ask one of the servers how it's pronounced. 😅
FLAT, I mean really flat shoes! No platforms, no nothing. The more comfortable, the better. If you go in May, maybe a small umbrella or a pocket raincoat as well.
And sunscreen! 😅 If you walk around on a cloudy, sunny but windy day, you might get a slight sunburn like me.
Want to sit for a while and have a breather while walking outside? Sure, but don’t expect to find benches or seating surfaces very often. Or if you do, they might already be taken.
“I will go sit in a cafe or pizzeria then.”
Great, but just remember that you might be charged a service fee for getting a seat. 😉
Yes, that’s right. It happened to me when ordering pizza and when having coffee with my friend.
There is a habit you will notice once in Italy that people approach the bar. Order an espresso. Get a glass of sparkling water, drink it first, apparently to wash down any other tastes. And then they drink the espresso in a single shot. And leave.
Where, for example, in Croatia, you get a coffee and you sit for hours until you move to beer. 😁 And also, the coffee places rarely have a display cabinet with pastries and affordable sweets. If they do, they cost as much as a meal.
It was on a hill. So every time I needed to go to a shop or walk around, I needed to hike up to reach my hostel.
On one sunny day, I decided to walk down the street and enter a building that seemed like other locals were using as well. To my surprise, this building ended up being built to support 3 levels of escalators that helped citizens go up and down. Pure blessing!
The Hopestel also had the surprising additional benefits of having better better-maintained garden than the Napoli Botanical garden, no joke!
And the cutest pets! 3 cats and a bunny! 🥰
Another benefit of the hostel is having its bar and being able to order your first shot of espresso and have it in the beautiful garden, on a hammock or the outdoor bed. 😌
Me: I will come back just because of the food.
Also, I didn’t like the Limoncello shot 🙈 It was too sweet for my taste.
Aperol spritz, I also didn’t try it. Why? Because I don’t like its taste, and I am not a big drinker.
The only thing I tried was one bar’s signature cocktail and one beer. 😅
A friend also asked me:
What about their wine? Did you try it?
I didn’t. It didn’t even cross my mind, to be honest.
Almost forgot! In bars, you usually get free snacks. Like a mini bag of chips or fried crackers.
Although everyone was holding their backpacks and bags, there were no incidents or issues that I witnessed during my stay. During the day, the safety around the city of Naples is high.
I need to mention that I also haven’t wandered around the Spanish quarters at all. I didn’t have either the energy or the time.
At night, the west side of Naples for sure felt a bit more unsafe just because of the numerous narrow streets, super tall buildings and dim lights here and there.
But from the metro stop Dante to the hostel at midnight on a Wednesday, I felt as safe as being in Zagreb.
As I mentioned, Italian transport is very good when working. We got to Pompei ruins by train within one hour.
For Pompei ruins, almost everyone recommended getting a guide or doing your homework before you visit, so you can experience the most of the history laid out in front of you.
Modern Pompei is also cute for exploration, including the cathedral and the shopping street.
It took us approximately 1 hour to reach Sorrento from Pompei as well.
I personally liked Sorrento more than Amalfi! So much more picturesque, vibrant and bigger. The views from the city were so much better than those in Amalfi.
Note: the Sorrento beach is private and available only for locals. You can rent a sunbed and an umbrella.
For Vesuvius, it seems a bit complicated. Other hostel guests mentioned booking a timeslot, getting a 40-minute bus and hiking up for an hour? I didn’t meet a single person who did that trip. 😅
We reached it easily with a 1:15h bus ride provided by Flixbus. And I had the best and the SOFTEST pastry in my life!
My friend and I spent some time on the Salerno promenade, watching the cyclist group pass by, followed by the motocyclists. Then visited the Salerno beach, which was the biggest of all visited cities and quickly went to the bus stop for the mystery bus that would take us to Amalfi.
And we waited and waited. Some rain showers also passed, the sun came back, and just before we decided to go back to Naples, we so the bus and hopped in.
It was packed! No seating available, but we made it in. The one-way ticket to Amalfi was 2.80 euros, if I am not mistaken.
As we approached Amalfi, we realised quickly that the ride there was the attraction. 😅 Amalfi as a town is tiny and not impressive in my opinion. The weather was also changing from cloudy and almost rainy to partly sunny, quite quickly.
The masses! So many people. I was shocked by how many people could be in such a small space like the tiny coast of Amalfi.
What I would do differently, not that I have been there and I know what I know, I would get a ferry or book a boat tour or something, so I can really enjoy the full beauty of the coast.
If you like your car and don’t want to stress, don’t go with it to Italy. Every single vehicle has a dent. At least one.
The traffic lights for pedestrians have not only green and red lights but also blinking yellow in between the two colours. 😅 And people are crossing on all 3 colours without a problem.
Also, if they don’t need to, drivers won’t stop fully, they will just slow down. So don’t take too long, learn the pace.
If you feel like I missed something, feel free to ask me in the comments, and I will do my best to answer. ☺️
I am officially back to work, and after the first week of vacation, I am fully ready to take on new web design and development projects.
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