A few hours south of Roma(Rome) lies the gritty port city of Naples(Napoli). Bordered by Mount Vesuvius on one side and the sea on the other. Napoli feels dangerous and deservedly so.

Our arrival into Napoli was suitably dramatic. We had earlier been congratulating ourselves on our effortless grasp of the Italian public transport network. We knew the pronunciation of where we needed to go and asked for the best method at the information centre. At the ticket booth our trip entered amazing race mode as we waited an incredibly emotion charged length of time to get a ticket. We then ran to a platform to get on the wrong train.

Seeing an undisclosed section of Italy was an unexpected and unwelcome treat. We got to enjoy Italian laughter in several octaves when our fellow passengers discovered our mistake. We were close to breaking point when the return train did not want to let us on board.

Luckily my amazing race partners impassioned pleas and theatrics allowed us to board the train back to Napoli. At the train station we boarded the *correct* train to the port suburb of Pouzouli. I say *correct* because there are two train networks in Napoli and we ended up at the wrong stop. After an hour of waiting for our ride and a variety of ineffectual communication methods we had the welcome distraction of a native bird making a deposit of my wife’s head.

This of course is good luck!

Let me digress for a moment. What exactly is good luck about an animal crapping on your head? The originator of this fallacy was no doubt a master of public relations as he should have been laughed mercilessly at but managed to spin his problem into a tale of impending good luck.

Needless to say we both laughed mercilessly at our time in Napoli so far and then the fun really started…….