The Bay of Naples

We took an alternative, even more picturesque, set of steps down the hill from Vomero towards Chiaia and the Bay, stopping along the way for coffee and pastries at the venerable and genteel Café Gambrinus – and to discover that the Galleria Borbonica, a once secret tunnel that connects the Palazzo Real with the waterfront, was closed and we had to walk aboveground to the sea instead. We strolled along the Bay to the Castel dell’Ovo (also closed) and then back across, cutting up by the University to retrace our steps towards the Spaccanapoli, where we stopped for coffee and takeaway pizza before catching the funicular back up to Vomero for a wander round the monumental walls of the Castel Sant’Elmo. We stayed local for dinner too, finding a place in the backstreets where they gave us a menu that apparently bore little resemblance to the food they actually had in the kitchen – we muddled through anyway…