Salerno: Unkempt Parks, Popular ATM, Pompeii, and Halloween

 

We made it to Salerno! It's a city south of Naples and--as Conan calls it--is a summer city. What does this mean? Well, a lot is shut down, and businesses seem to operate around summer fun: wind surfing, SUP, etc. We moved here for the warmth, but it's still a bit chilly, and we all really miss Reggio. It was pretty idyllic. We've had fun exploring, though. The picture above is the mountain we climbed to get to old ruins. Could we drive there? Sure. Would the Griffins do such a thing? Nope.

Salerno is, um, a bit rougher. Gone are the squares with couples dining on afternoon aperitifs. Now, it's almost as if the Travel Fairies knew we needed to scrub the cleanliness and gentrification off us and get back to the dirt and grime of this type of travel. Salerno has that. The parks are crazily unkempt; people are still enjoying them, but they all honestly look like abandoned parks with homeless people, lots of random feces piles, cigarettes, and creepy corners. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures. I'll do a visual Salerno post next time--look out for the parks.

Okay, so our place is pretty cute, but small. It has a balcony, which is nice (and something Reggio didn't have), and it has the most popular ATM we have ever seen. Really. It has a constant stream. It could be because there are two gambling rooms on our block...?

In our efforts to do something Halloween-related, we decided to spend the day walking around Pompeii (because what's more creepy than an ash-covered city?) with fake blood on our faces. Italians don't really celebrate Halloween (except they do!), so we were the ONLY ones in "costume." Regardless, it was fun, and had we not done this that day, we would not have found the business trick-or-treating that was happening as we emerged from the ruins. Score!! See pictures below.

We have two weeks left before heading back to Africa. Again, if someone gets a crazy hair up their butt, come and spend Thanksgiving with us in Kenya and/or Tanzania! Much love.