We decide to take a luxury vacation to the Almalfi Coast in Italy for our anniversary. We book a $500/night (off season) room in a hotel in Positano. The travel arrangements are made so that we go out of JFK to Paris. From there we are to take a connecting flight to Naples. I’ve arranged a rental car and a hotel for a night in Naples. From there we will drive to Positano.
Problem is, the flight leaves late from JFK. We arrive in Paris too late to make our connecting flight. The airline finds a way to get us into Naples by having us connect through Rome. OK. I had this whole thing arranged so that we would be driving in the daytime. We get into Naples and it is dark. Worse, our luggage doesn’t arrive because it didn’t follow our actual flights. Not a big surprise. We go to the car rental counter to get the car. It’s dark out. I ask the agent behind the counter for directions to the hotel. She says, “Go out of the airport onto the main highway and go to exit 6. From there, I don’t know.” Now I know I’m in trouble.
If you look at a map of Naples it is like looking at a bowl of well-cooked spaghetti. But then, you have to understand that these roads are mostly on hillsides. We asked direction no less than six times but somehow made it to the hotel. I don’t know how. The hand of God?
The next day I try to track down the luggage. It will arrive in the evening. I tell them to hold it at the airport and I will pick it up. If I wait at the hotel who knows how long that will take? We spend the day being tourists in Naples.
In the afternoon we take the car to go to the airport to get the luggage. We are doing our best to figure out the map to get us out of the city. Problem is, some roads are closed and we are being funneled down side streets so we have no idea where we are. I’ve got a rental car and no experience driving in Europe, much less Italy. If you’ve ever driven in Naples, there are a minimal number of traffic lights and nobody pays attention to them anyway. Again, through some miracle we make it to the airport. With an appropriate wait I retrieve the luggage. Back in the car to the drive to Positano. Now it’s dark and it is raining. The road along the Almalfi Coast is one long, severely winding, narrow (hardly enough for two vehicles) road that has too few guardrails and shear drop-offs. It’s touristy so there are buses screaming down the road so it’s every person for themselves. Then, of course, there are the drivers that think they are Emerson Fittipaldi and have to demonstrate their driving skills by driving like assholes. It’s one of my worst nightmares. Again, somehow we make it to the hotel.
We had a great stay, drove back to Naples in the daytime but when I got back to the Naples airport I was never so glad to turn in a rental car (and I’ve rented a lot of them). There was a hubcap missing that they didn’t catch and charge me for. Although I tried to fill the tank before I turned the car in they said it wasn’t full and nicked my credit card for $40. I didn’t even care to contest it. At least the car wasn’t wrecked and we were alive.