Second Palace on the Right

Dubrovnik and Naples are not that far apart as the crow flies - but you can really make it quite a long journey if timetables and connections take you by bus to Split (5 hours), then by ferry to Ancona (10 hours, overnight), then by train through Rome to Naples (5 hours). With various waits in between. But we have reached a state where we are happy on the move, or even in the suspension of train station cafes and waiting rooms. 


In Ancona we missed a train to Rome by 3 minutes - and spent three hours drinking good Italian train station coffee, reading our books and watching the energetic life of the train station carry on around us. Even though we don't love Ancona (for example, we are irritated by its bizarre plan of having the place where you buy tickets for the ferry a 10 minute bus ride away from the ferry terminal), we were very pleased to be back in Italy.


Croatia is worth visiting - Dubrovnik is just stunning - but, well, Italy - the food and coffee is so good, the cities are so alive with people using them, yelling at each other, drinking in the Piazza, the men are so cheerful and helpful (although we have noticed that we have almost no interactions with Italian women - it might not be quite so fun if you live here...), the place is just so damn exciting and relaxing, grubby and elegant, bustling and ancient - what's not to love?


Last night we trundled a long way through Naples: out of the train station, across the Piazza Garibaldi, through a back street or two, down the Corso Umberto, up the Corso Duomo, down several more side streets and finally into our objective, the Piazza San Dominico Maggiore. 
It got dark as we trundled through the streets, and the little shops with bundles of long pasta hanging above their doors, jars of preserves stacked in the windows and proprietors smoking in the doorways glowed among the grey walls. 


We had been on the road for 36 hours. We were pleased to reach the Piazza. We figured we were now very close to our hotel, and showers, and then dinner. 


Some twenty minutes later we had circumnavigated the Piazza several times and asked directions twice, once to an uncomprehending stare, and once to vigorous arm waving in a direction that didn't yield anything that looked like a hotel.


Finally we asked again and were told "up there, second palace on the right". The hotel is in a palace. The palace forms two sides of a small piazza. The entrance to the piazza is guarded by a pair of VERY LARGE iron doors. Like VERY LARGE. Like PALACE large. The door for human beings to get in through these portals is very small in comparison. The sign for the hotel is also very small - subtle, as OT said.


A kindly Italian man standing outside took pity on us and unlocked the human-sized door. We found the hotel (with a lift, for which we were grateful at this point), followed the receptionist through a reception area, down a very narrow hallway, around a corner and into AN ENORMOUS ROOM FIT FOR A PAIR OF PRINCESSES. Vaulted ceiling miles above our heads, a vast red persian rug spreading out like the sea reflecting a sunset, a red, spongey, high-backed, be-cushioned sofa that makes me feel like a pasha, and elegant, curved wooden furniture.


The shower leaks and the sound-proofing is not great (we are in the bottom of the mid-range after all), but CRIPES. Second palace on the right.