Our first stop of our Italy tour started in Salerno. We flew from Dubrovnik to Rome, then took a train to Salerno from there. Salerno is a city south of Naples which could also be considered a southern Amalfi coast city. We arrived at night and took a stroll down the main street.

Hungry from the long train ride from Rome, we stopped by the first food stall we saw. It was Queen’s Chips, a french fry place which if you know Tiff, she adores french fries.

Hot and crispy french fries topped with ketchup curry sauce

Their selection of sauces, reminds me of a mother cow’s udders

You can see Tiff’s eager hands on the bottom left corner holding her ticket for some delicious fries

We continued our stroll and stopped by the Duomo di Salerno, beautifully light up at night.

You can’t have enough pasta dishes when in Italy so we stumbled into a hole in the wall mom and pop restaurant and had some delicious pasta for dinner.

Pompeii

The following morning, I was awoken by Tiff and Keanna playing Bastille’s Pompeii, as it was our scheduled activity for the day.  I’m not an early riser, so this was their motivation to get me out of bed.  We took an early train out of Salerno to visit the ancient Roman city of Pompeii.

A little back story of this area if you are not familiar with it: in 79 AD, the city endured a volcanic eruption from neighboring volcano, Mount Vesuvius that caused the entire city to be buried in lava and volcanic ashes.  Because of this, it essentially preserved the whole city and archaeologists are still excavating more remains of the city and re-show casing them to the world.

Pompeii in ruins with Vesuvius in the back

An interesting exhibit of human bodies showing the positions of people during the eruption.

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[pi_wiloke_quote quote=”Pompeii Tips: Arrive early to avoid the large tour groups and to give yourself plenty of time to explore. Also bring an umbrella or hat for shade, as the sun is quite strong and there’s very little shade available. Lastly, bring water and wear comfortable shoes – you’ll be exploring an entire city!” author=”Two Peas Travel Tip”]

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Naples

We arrived to Naples an hour train ride north of Pompeii. Naples is known as the birth place of the pizza. L’Antica Da Michele is a pizza place that is on the top list to try and we definitely wanted to see what the big fuss was about.

Upon arriving to the restaurant, the line was down the block! We were so hungry from walking all morning around Pompeii that we decided to go to another nearby pizza place Pizzeria Trianon, with fairly decent reviews. It definitely did not disappoint.

Pizza in Naples and Italy in general is different from pizza in the states. The crust is much less greasy and very thin. Toppings are kept to a minimum and they focus on fresh ingredients.

The city of Naples is not as touristy as the other more popular cities. It has a lot of character and looks very rough.

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We explored the city some more hunting for the famous Sfogliatella dessert. It is a layered pastry cake with a filling of almond paste, ricotta, and citron. We found a place that was jammed packed and decided to check it out.

It wasn’t as good as we expected as it tasted as the pastry had been sitting for awhile and not fresh. It was a good experience to try it though!

The bakery had an amusing display of Mount Vesuvius in pastry form.

We finished our day in Naples eating our favorite Italian dessert, gelato! The chocolate was very rich and decadent.

Salerno, Pompeii, and Naples are amazing southern Italian cities to visit. They each have so much individual character to themselves and it’s incredible how closely situated they are to each other. Salerno with its small town charm, Pompeii with its rich artifacts of roman ruins that are so well preserved, and Naples with its rough edge characteristics and delicious food make for a great day trip.