The plan is to have lunch and then just walk it off on the medieval Walls that surround Lucca; we really thought it would be a quiet day since italians usually spend sundays at home with their families but we didn't consider that the beautiful weather of the first days of autumn would attract many wanderers and tourists like ourselves. So we decide to go straight for Trattoria da Leo, a small but extremely famous family restaurant in the center and we had a fantastic vegetable soup with a glass of local red wine, while around us the entire room was filled with one huge family that talked and laughed from table to table.

 We get out of the restaurant and the weather is perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, the air is warm and inviting to walk and explore the narrow streets of Lucca, where you can easily get lost and find amazing treasures of beauty. Especially churches.

 Every time you make a turn, in Lucca, you will most likely bump into a one. The legend says that, at one point in history, inside the city walls there were a hundred churches! Most of theme were harmed during wars or turned into theaters and museums, like San Cristoforo, which hosts a reproduction of Da Vinci's machines. But you definitely still feel like being surrounded by dozens of them.

I had the pleasure to be in Naples in the first days of the year, still trying to recover from a New Year's Eve and Christmas feast, but the very first thing I had to do as soon as I arrived in the city was having a Pizza. I've been anticipating it since I jumped on the train in Lamezia, foretasting that Neapoletan and Italian symbol and I couldn't wait to bite on that desired food. 

My expectations were not disappointed, in Napoli every pizza is perfect.  

(pic: Manuel Villa)

Since it's afternoon I take the underground and head to the Vomero. I am pleasantly surprised: Napoli metro is completely renovated and it is spectacular. Every station looks like a modern art museum and I discover that, they are called Art-stations. 

I arrived at Vomero and I realize that this renowned neighborhood is the chic-commercial heart of the city, full of boutiques, so I have a little shopping session taking advantage of the last Christmas sales and I'm still not disappointed, but a little sad for all the husbands and boyfriends waiting outside with the hands full of shopping bags and a bored and miserable look on their faces. 

Enough with the city life, the next day I wake up and I decide to go to a place I last saw with my parents, when I was 11 and that made a great impression on me: Pompei. 

The city gives me the same sensations I had 14 years ago. I feel suspended in time, in the place where lives, houses, dreams were trapped under the Vesuvian eruption the 24th of August 79 A.C. Wandering through those streets is like a tour in a haunted place. I arrive in the Orto dei Fuggiaschi. Here are the famous plaster casts of people that were found buried in volcanic ashes and pumice, which left cavities in the ground that lately were found and filled with plaster by the archaeologists. Unfortunately it starts raining, I decide to go back to the city but this won't be my last visit to Pompei. 

After this cultural parenthesis, going back to Naples I decide to take a tour of the very famous Via Chiaia. This is another beautiful street, perfect for shopping  but I just want to eat. Walking through this street theres Piazza del Plebiscito and further the Lungomare(the seaside promenade). Looking at the buildings I have the feeling of being in Spain. The city recalls a spanish one in many way, in some corners I almost feel like I'm in Barcellona or Madrid. I walk to Castell dell'Ovo and I discover that it is possible to visit it and get lost in its rooms and then walk upstairs to the top of the castle and I enjoy the view: the great sleeping giant, the Vesuvio, stands and dominates the whole coast, the sea brings back ancient voices and sounds, adding to the mysterious fascination that Naples has casted on me since I arrived. 

I decide to spend my last day in Naples visiting the historic center, down to the famous Presepe (nativity scene) street: S. Gregorio Armeno. Here I take a look the S. Chiara Cathedral: the biggest gothic cathedral of the city, erected for want of Roberto d'Angiò in 1310. The cloister, all decorated with majolica, is where East and West meet, you can't miss it.