“When I plan a vacation, the first thing I look for is a hospital,” a friend told me last night at dinner.
Yikes, I thought! That’s not even in my top ten criteria. But her remark got me thinking about the different ways we all structure our journeys — a topic much on my mind lately, as Rich and I are about to embark on the most unplanned, disorganized, haphazard trip we’ve ever taken.
It all started when Rich discovered an irresistibly low air fare from Barcelona to Naples, Italy. That’s when our vague intention to leave Seville and take some sort of trip this spring suddenly leapt off the back burner and onto the top of our agenda.
“What if we fly to Naples and just … decide from there?” I said. “Meander around southern Italy. Maybe take a ferry over to Greece. Play it totally by ear.”
“I love this non-plan!” said Rich. And flipped open his laptop to book the tickets. “How about next week?”
“I’m in!”
If you’re going to embrace the chaos of traveling without a plan, Naples is the perfect jumping-off place. In case you’re not familiar with that city’s mad reputation, here’s an excerpt from
my post about our previous visit:
If you Google Naples, Italy, you’ll find “
79 Tips on Naples Warnings or Dangers – Stay Safe!
” where travelers can express their feelings about the city, mostly using such terms as “filthy,” “dangerous,” and “stay away.” Many complained bitterly about “helpful” residents who turned out to be thieves, and described, aghast, the staggering amount of garbage on the sidewalks thanks to landfill disputes involving the Mafia. One visitor wrote, “Naples in general is a horrible horrible place. With no redeeming value. Avoid it at all cost if possible.”
And yet, rumors trickled around the travel community that Napoli (to use its proper name) had a certain
fascino
, a kind of fascination …
My post goes on to describe some of our adventures, from the terror of being driven up sidewalks at breakneck speeds to the shocking spectacle of graffiti spray-painted on a church by local lovebirds.
And that, I think, is Napoli’s gift to the world. They do everything “wrong.” They don’t obey the rules. In fact, they seem to pride themselves on not being intimidated by the constraints of ordinary society. People live at full tilt and top volume, without apologies. I suspect the first thing they teach their kids is how to color outside the lines. And from what I can see, they’ll never clean up their act in order to become the next vacation playground for the cruise lines. The city’s robust, free-for-all atmosphere demands that you embrace the chaos or (sometimes literally) be run over by it. Yet all these “wrongs” add up to something very right: a city that knows what it loves and lives as it chooses. Napoli doesn’t try to seduce you, which is why it’s so easy to fall in love with the city – not despite its faults, but because of them.
I doubt that Rich and I will ever be able to achieve that level of sublime insouciance, but we felt landing in Napoli would set a certain devil-may-care tone for the trip.
We’ve embarked on many journeys with fairly loose itineraries, such as our
railway adventure from the Baltics to the Balkans
and the
Eastern European train trip
that took us through 13 countries and 5983 miles over 83 days. And we’ve occasionally experimented with alternative travel styles, such as our
luggage-free trip to southern France
. But this will the first time we’ve ever landed somewhere with absolutely no idea what we’ll do next.
We may not have a fixed plan, but we do have a goal: to find the colorful
dive bars
and the kind of cafés that are equivalent to the old-school diners we frequent in the USA.
Here are some of the dive bars we discovered on our last trip to
Northern Italy
.
I hope you’ll join us on the journey. In a few days we’ll walk out of our front door in Seville, stroll to the train station with our roll-aboard bags, head to Barcelona, fly to Naples, and see what adventures unfold.
Yes, I’ll be posting along the way. Stay tuned for updates!
Do you know any great dive bars or cafés in Italy or — in case we happen to get that far — western Greece? We’d love to hear about your experiences and any suggestions you may have for us!
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YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
Our Favorite Dive Bars in the World
Embracing the Chaos on Our First Visit to Naples
Our Eastern European Railway Adventure
Our Baltics to Balkans Railway Journey
How to Pack Light (Yes, You Can!)
Our Luggage-Free Adventure (Video)
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