It's A Vibe - Naples 🇮🇹

This is a thrilling swashbuckling tale of friendships, tomfoolery and merriment, forged in the strangest of places: a quirky hostel, tucked away in the dusty, winding Neapolitan streets.

Well, actually, it’s just me recounting 5 days spent in Napoli, with some wonderful humans: fuelled by enough pizza and cocktails to sink the Titanic.

My trip is not off to the ideal start, as I arrive in what can only be described as a questionable back-end street.

Thankfully, I am neither raped, plundered nor murdered in the fifteen or so minutes I spend outside the hostel gate, buzzing the intercom in the sticky heat.  This is before a delightfully passive aggressive email somehow finds its way to the hostel’s email inbox.

As if by magic, the main door gate buzzes open with a satisfying click – by which time there are probably several new legions of bacteria thriving in my back sweat: having evolved in the tropical ‘furnaces of hell’ in the spaces between backpack, t-shirt and skin.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the hostel was a complete sh*thole upon first glance, however, after ascending the million or so steep steps to the second floor, I’m treated to some absolutely beautiful murals, adorning the walls of the common areas and kitchen.

‘Bohemian Neapolitan chic’ comes to mind, as I find my way to the kitchen and whack the percolator onto the hob, selecting one of the mismatching mugs from the side, to flood some much-needed caffeine into my system.

It’s not long before I’ve made a merry clan of international hostel buddies: British Will, Aussie Will, Alma and Mic from Canada, Nico from Italy and Max and Lilly from the US.

Within a few hours of knowing each other, we have forged our own dysfunctional little family unit, built on ‘in’ jokes and barrels o’ laugher - accelerated no doubt by my token oversharing and the breaking of bread (and several glasses of cheap plonk).

The world is put to rights whilst munching on snacks, imparting travel tales and bonding over our third-degree burns (trying to light the gas burners with a lighter).

Let us not forget mocking the kitchen wall mural (spookily resembling Michael Jackson being told off by a teacher for hiding a sweet in class).

I don’t even bat an eyelid, as I recall leaving the kitchen at one point during my stay, to discover Alma and Mic choreographing and practising a line dance in the common area. ‘It’s a vibe’ as Mic would say.

On one of the mornings during my stay, the hostel owner, angrily bursts into the communal area with a face like thunder - “Were you guys drinking wine late last night?’. I avoid eye contact and plead the fifth. Apparently, the locals aren’t too keen on clinking of wine glass and echoes of laughter, echoing out into the Neapolitan skyline.

One of the many wonders of travel, is the absolute certainty of forming lifelong friendships.  I love the way ‘us strays’ flock together – we always find our tribe.

I’m not exactly sure how, in an alien place, where no-one knows you – you can be fully cherished as your wonderful weird self…even celebrated for that matter.

I’m also never surprised by how small the world is, as I bump into Vinny in the communal area (who I met in Malaga last month) he is also staying here!

I’ll look back at my 5 days spent in Napoli, mainly through the lens of my heart, liver and stomach: no doubt the best pizza in the world, far too many spritzes consumed and a wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling of friendship.

The one thing I know to be true (despite it being a massive cliché) is that anywhere you lay your head you can make your home – coming from a man who ‘borrowed’ two fans and directed them onto his hostel bed.

I can’t help but smile to myself at some of the fun and laughter we all shared at 1am, outside the grumpy Italian guys newsagent/ bar, round the corner from the hostel, as he begrudgingly pours out our 1.5 EUR limoncello and aperol spritzers.

Mic was right – it’s a vibe.

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I’d love for you to check out some of Max’s amazing art – I’ve put a link to his work here.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/limbics/shop

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/limbics

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📸 'My hostel family'

📸 Out For Dinner with my new buddies

📸 Is this Michael Jackson being told off by a teacher for eating a sweet in class?

📸 Drinks at our fave Newsagent/ Bar and spitzers for 1.5. EUR!

📸 British Will

#ianstracks #naples #italy #travels #travelblog #adventures #solotraveller #blog #britabroad #adhdblog

The Blog That Never Was 🇮🇹

My weary feet, tiptoe over the uneven, grimy, cobbled streets of Napoli. I skilfully dodge the constant stream of motorcycles, sprinting, recklessly through the narrow, twisting pathways between buildings. I don’t quite fancy losing a limb today cheers.

Today, I have decided to lose myself in the winding city streets, although how do I get lost if I don’t know where I’m going and there is no plan in the first place?

My tired brain is a jumble-jungle of thoughts and I’m lacking motivation to do anything, so I allow my feet and thoughts to wonder off. I wonder if we all need to wander off the beaten track sometimes, to remain wonderful.

Gazing up at the many high rise Neapolitan apartment buildings, I wonder what will happen if we carry on building upwards indefinitely? Will we eventually burst through the sky and hit the stars? Even so, should we build downwards instead, or will we simply end up building upwards by accident?

I pass a cool, quirky little book stall on one of the many winding roads, stacked high with an array of fiction in different languages – I wish I had the time to read them all.

There are so many important details we all miss because we’re moving too fast, but there’s just never enough time to, even though time is seemingly infinite.

Here, everyone on the buzzing streets has a hustle. Everything has a price assigned to it but holds a different value to who you ask. So many people here are begging me for change as if it’s something I can deliver.

I’m trying to find a clearing in the chaos but perhaps I should be clearing my own.

Context

Over the last couple of days in Napoli my ADHD brain has been struggling. It’s a mix of exhaustion and lack of preparation for this trip. I took a 5am flight to Naples with very little sleep after three gigs in a row and 10 hours in a car.

I enjoy being spontaneous and adventurous, but too far the other way and it’s a struggle to get myself organised. The result can be complete paralysis: even making a decision on where to sit and grab a coffee can take hours.

I was hoping to present this a one of my travel stories: a cohesive body of work, but alas, some days are frustrating as hell as I can’t concentrate for long enough to bind them together.

As part of me better managing my condition, I realise I just need to ‘roll with it’ and sometimes present these as more like a journal of ‘thought trains’. It's actually just nice to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the page.

Although I find experiences like this frustrating, I only received my diagnosis in January and am learning what works and doesn’t work for me.

Going forward I intend to make a flexible schedule for my days, with ideas of where to eat and drink in advance. A lot of this is finding places that have good vegetarian food and little spots to drink coffee and watch the world go by, that aren’t too loud or chaotic – helping me to get into the zone and not get too hyper stimulated.

Even just making a list of logical steps listed in my phone will make a huge difference, freeing me up to be my fun and carefree self.

It’s funny sometimes, you think you’re ordering a coffee and the universe brings you one, along with a big old learning opportunity. Cheers uni.

Out exploring 📸

The little book store that caught my eye 📸

A little selfie from Castel Sant'Elmo 📸

My artistic attempt to frame Naples 📸

In the path of Vesuvius 📸

Really worth taking the Funicolare to Castel St Elmo 📸

#ianstracks #naples #italy #travels #travelblog #adventures #solotraveller #blog #britabroad #adhdblog

Canapés & Canopies 🇪🇸

It’s a random chat with a fellow Brit in the hostel kitchen that sparks what turns out to be one of my funniest adventures to date! Eddy and his friend Vivi (from Germany) have a hire car and are heading to Granada tomorrow – I casually invite myself along for the ride.

We’re joined by Tom (an Aussie) and Aida (from the USA) and once all of our stray limbs are crammed like sardines into the hire car, it’s an hour and half car ride through the Andalusian mountains to Granada.

We amuse ourselves with a singalong Spotify jam car ride to pass the time. The first stop is the Granada vista tourist shot - it takes about five attempts to try and squish all five of our massive heads and the background in at the same time.

Walking along the vista, we’re distracted by the world’s largest colony of ants doing a conga line across the ridge – I’m mindful not to create ant pate with my trainers…

The early afternoon is spent enjoying a cappuccino on a restaurant terrace overlooking the monument.  Plans are drawn up to visit the local supermarket and to make a DIY picnic lunch, somewhere scenic in the Granada sun (forever the optimists).

As we take a brisk walk down the hill, some rather ominous looking clouds are forming above. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a tree full of ripe looking oranges. Not one to miss out on the novelty of an orange wielding climate, I hitch a ride atop of Vivi’s shoulders, scrumping for the world’s smallest orange.

As we exit the supermarket with our picnic spoils, we’re started by a deafening crash of thunder, bellowing out through the skies. As the heavens open, we make a life-or-death dash across the road, to the shelter of a closed restaurant’s sun canopy - who’d have known it was monsoon season in Granada?

Wanting to make the best of a bad situation, I assume the role as the group’s sandwich chef, stuffing the baguettes full of humous, cheese, olives and crisps. It’s incredible how resourceful you can be with a humous lid (acting as a makeshift knife). We commandeer one of the restaurant’s plastic tables as a kitchen work station and settle in for the afternoon.

As the rain crashes down, sheltered under the canopy, we amuse ourselves with a newly devised ‘inappropriate word association throw and catch game’, using the world’s smallest orange as a ball.

We spend the next hour or so, sheltering from the rain, chugging cans of beer, laughing and stuffing our faces full of gourmet baguettes. As the downpour shows no signs of relenting, we seek refuge in a nearby bar for, you guessed it…more beers!

The friendly waitress brings over a small bowl of courtesy tapas: although you’d be forgiven for thinking they were a newly castrated pair of testicles, smothered in a rather suspicious looking gravy, garnished with a meagre handful of chips. Perhaps it was the gourmet lunch, but suddenly I have lost my appetite…

On the rather rainy walk back to the hire car, we pass a large, modern looking, open plan office. Through the panoramic window, I make awkward eye contact with a random office worker: unsure on what else to do, I smile and wave awkwardly, before making a hasty exit, stage left.

On the treacherous trek back up the hill, Vivi kindly ascends via every single puddle, splashing my already rather damp shorts and t-shirt. It seems that every single item we pass on the route up provides yet more amusement – from sifting through skips to one climbing inside an abandoned sofa. Who says entertainment has to cost the world?

Before the heavens opened 📸

We never did take a good picture tbh 📸

Scrumping for oranges 📸

Gourmet lunch 📸

Vivi approves of my culinary skills 📸

Might give the tapas a miss tbh 📸

Checking out the interior of an abandoned sofa 📸

#ianstracks #granada #spain #travels #travelblog #adventures #solotraveller #blog #britabroad