The GPS isn't always on our side

This morning Concetta and I set out to undo the questionable karma we had accumulated yesterday on our visit to the island of Capri. Our plan was to visit the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in downtown Napoli where many of the archaeological finds from Pompeii and Herculano are displayed. Now Napoli is one of those cities that most people, even Italians, will advise you to avoid if you’re driving your own car. Take the train. Take the bus. Hire a cab. But under no circumstances should you drive yourself. Naturally, the intrepid Happy Wanderers enthusiastically ignored that advice.

The drive to Napoli started out perfectly normal. We set the address of the museum into the GPS and it quite correctly set our direction north from the Hotel. Of course, in Sorrento there’s only two ways to go, north or south, so it had a 50/50 chance anyway. After fifteen or twenty minutes we found ourselves on the outskirts of Napoli at a “Y”. We probably should have wondered when the GPS insisted on the left fork when the right fork pointed to our destination, but we went ahead and followed the direction indicated by the GPS. An hour later when we’d only gone a couple of miles, we finally turned off the GPS and began navigating by intuition. In between, we were as close to completely lost as you can get in Italy, which is pretty darn lost. For at least thirty minutes the little electronic wonder had insisted on returning us to the same "no outlet" street with a big piece of earth moving equipment sitting in a field where the road ended. No matter how we tried to outwit it, it would see through our subterfuge and take us back to view the earth mover again. We did see some mighty fine urban gardens in our continuous circling and re-circling, which is something I didn't expect.

Actually, I don’t usually mind being lost. I’ve had some great experiences and stumbled on some very interesting sights while lost. This time, however, was different. This time – at least after the first half hour – I got the distinct impression that the GPS was out to have a good time with us. The first thing you have to understand is that the GPS has a hell of a bad time pronouncing Italian street names, which are not only twenty-seven syllables long, but have inflections on different syllables than Americans are used to hearing. So when the GPS says turn right on Colle Grimaldi Su Mare, it comes out sounding like CollegrimaldisumaRE, emphasizing the very last syllable as though it was all one word. So, while you’re trying to figure out just what the darn thing just said, you’ve passed the intended street and the GPS immediately begins to fire more streets at you in order to correct your previous lack of expertise.

Now, I have to tell you that I actually like driving in Italy. Even though I’ve driven in both Rome and Florence, which are probably just a tad easier than Delhi, India, I really haven’t encountered any insurmountable problems. In my experience the Italian drivers are more polite than American drivers. While driving with them you just have to learn to assert yourself or they will not let you into the stream of traffic when the highway engineers funnel five lanes of traffic down to one and don’t provide any merge signs. You just have to “nudge” your way out just like they’re doing.

But there is one thing that truly terrifies me when thinking about driving in Italian cities: the thought of being funneled into a one-way alley that proceeds to get smaller and smaller until it deadends. Finally, you can’t go forward any more and there’s no room to turn around, and there’s a couple of cars or scooters behind you. Up to now, though I’ve been darn close to that situation in the past, I had never experienced my worst nightmare; not until today. But our feisty GPS, sensing that I have had life much too easy for the past month of motoring around Italy, quite intentionally and I might say, belligerently, sent Concetta and I and our very large VW Passat into the bowels of a very run-down section of Napoli this morning with the clear intention of ruining our day. In the end we were lucky. The dead-end alley that the GPS sent us down, the one where the Passat could barely squeeze between the parked cars on both sides, the one that was two blocks long, did not somehow come complete with another car to follow us to our doom. AND, through some miracle of fate, at the very end was a spot just big enough to put a king-sized bed and in which I somehow managed to turn that darn Passat by creeping three inches this way and three inches that way in a tight little arc to where I could finally retrace our route and escape. After that, I say, bring on Delhi, India. I’m ready for it.

Anyway, after my heart quit beating at twice it’s normal rate, we ignored the advice of the GPS until I had found the A3 on the Autostrada on my own and once again pointed the car toward Napoli proper. Once on the A3, the GPS had no choice but to behave itself, so we turned it back on and it soon deposited us in the driveway of the Museo.

Since most guide books tell you to be very careful in Napoli, I suppose that many people avoid going there. But I have to tell you that Concetta and I had an extremely enjoyable morning there viewing the artifacts from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculano. The have some of the most magnificent statuary that we seen on the trip. AND, they have some absolutely terrific displays of coinage that was uncovered, sometimes in the hands of victims of the pyroclastic flow from the volcano, and sometimes buried “secretly” under houses where the owners had their own private bank. One of our favorite displays was the glassware. I bet you wouldn’t even think that glassware existed two thousand years ago, but it did. We were just dazzled by the workmanship and the intricacies of design.

While were at the Museo something just amazing happened to us. We looked up at one point to find a young woman standing nearby whom we knew. We had only recently been keeping company with her as she was one of the staff members on the Aegean Odyssey on which we had taken our cruise to the Greek islands just a few weeks ago. The ship had embarked a new set of passengers in Athens after we left and was now cruising the coast of Italy. Incredible that we should be at the Museo on exactly the same day at the same time.

After navigating our way back out of Napoli, we set our course once again for Sorrento and a late lunch. To your great joy, we managed to find an Italian restaurant that advertised “Slow” food on their sign and we spent a very pleasurable hour munching on Paninis and drinking wine and talking with a couple who hailed from, of all places, Long Beach, California. I can tell you if you’re thinking about traveling to Italy, or to any country for that matter, the best thing about the trip will turn out to be the folks you meet along the way. Last night we spent dinner with a couple of guys from Quebec, Canada, who regaled us with tales of their travels together much as we regaled them with ours. They were completely delightful, and we could easily have spent a several hours eating with them. The food was just so-so, which surprised us since we’d eaten their four years ago, but the instantaneous comradeship we enjoyed with them will stay in our memories for many years.

Lastly today, while walking back to the hotel after lunch, we stumbled onto a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition that, while small, was very interesting and wonderfully quiet and lightly attended (tough to find during tourist season in Italy). It also allowed me to practice some Italian on the museum attendant who spoke as many words of English as I did her language. So, here we are, about to enjoy our last night in Sorrento. We’ve had our ups and downs here, but I’d have to say, mostly ups. If you come here, please don’t come during the high season. I’d wait until October, though days may be too cool for sun bathing. But hey, to heck with sunbathing. There’s just too much to do in Italy to sunbath anyway.