Another night survived, despite our frightening proximity to a bank of bee boxes. We are soon part of the hectic rush-hour traffic around Napoli, where lane markings - on the rare occasions that they exist - are merely suggestions; at one point, four lanes of traffic weave through a section of road marked with only two. Most of the roads just north of the city have that half-paved and irreparably-potholed feel - a seat-of-your-pants experience, complete with the constant fear that your bicycle's meagre frame will lose the structural integrity game in a most catastrophic and painful manner...
...but our bikes remain intact as we ride into Napoli, greeted by the scent of caffé - there is a large Kimbo Caffé plant on the periphery, which alongside Lavazzo and illy and sundry other marks is one of the more popular brands around these parts for nursing that hard-earned caffeine addiction. We give in to the suggestion and stop just down the road at a small café, where the espresso is served dark and strong in tall cups with giant plastic spoons for stirring. Continuing on towards the city centre, we quickly find ourselves on cobblestone roads that make the outlying roads seem like Danish bike paths in terms of bikeability - half are paved with small stones, the other half with large slabs that settle in wildly divergent directions. Our progress slows to a crawl through this mess of stone and traffic and garbage, this last courtesy of - we think, judging from the news reports - a local garbage workers' strike.
The search for Internet is chaotic. We try first in the central train station, but there are no open networks; for our inquiries at the information desk, we are pointed at the nearby McDonalds. We manage to connect there for a brief second, but the connection is too spotty to be of use, and a quick walk around the area - laptop in hand! - does not help. We ask next at a series of hotels - but these typically offer wifi to guests in their rooms, and are therefore unwilling to help us in our search. Next up: the university, as the students will almost certainly know a place to get our Internet fix...but the one suggestion we receive is unhelpful, as we are unable to get a reliable connection to the networks around the university. By now we have spent a solid two hours in this fruitless search; thankfully, someone points us in the direction of a relatively inexpensive Internet café, a compromise which seems reasonable at this point.
Afterwards, we head over to Antica Pizzeria da Michele, considered by many to be the best pizza joint in Campania. They serve only two kinds of pizza - margherita (sauce, basil, mozzarella) and marinara (same, but without the cheese) - and have only Coca-Cola, beer, and water to drink. The pizza is massive, with a thin crust that is mainly crunchy with a slight chewy texture that is ever so satisfying - definitely the best pizza we've had so far in Italia, although our sample size is rather small.
Full of pizza, we decide to tackle the climb up Vesuvius. This is no simple matter; the roads marked on our map twist precipitously up the side of the volcano, and the elevation at the end pegs the climb at slightly over a vertical kilometre - but why not? We are in excellent shape by now, having completed several decent mountain ascents during our travels: across the Pyrenees twice, over several more mountain ridges along the Camino, up into the highlands in the southwest corner of the Iberian peninsula, through the hilly coastline near Barcelona, along the coastal mountains into La Spezia...so we find ourselves at the base, and are soon slogging our way - gear and all - up the side of Vesuvius. We stop at a restaurant in the upper foothills and ask politely in broken Italian whether it might be possible to fill our bottles; seeing the depths of our determined folly, the owners agree...
...the climb takes only (!) three hours - but by this time it is late, and the paths up to the crater close at 1700! We almost decide to camp in the parking lot at the end of the road, but are warned not to by some locals; by nighttime, we are told, the area becomes a popular hangout for junkies and delinquents. It is a great disappointment, but it seems wiser to head back down before it gets dark than to risk injury to either ourselves or the bikes at the hands of strung-out kids looking for a quick and cruel laugh...
...the descent is cold, and night falls quickly by now - it is dark by the time we are halfway down, and Napoli is not exactly the place to try your hand at stealth camping. We shack up in a hotel for the night, finishing the rest of our snack as we watch the disturbing spectacle that is Caligula. Tomorrow: Pompei - and then up into the mountains of Campania and Basilicata, where we have located another WarmShowers host! At this point, few things are more exciting than the prospect of warm running water washing away our accumulated filth...