I’ve just returned from a 10-day jaunt to Italy, a trip full of eye-opening experiences, but by far the most amazing thing that has occurred to me recently is occurring right now. In Bergen, Norway, the darkest and rainiest place I have ever been, the city which once experienced more than 80 consecutive days with precipitation, where clouds and fog conspire to keep the temperature a steady 45-50 in winter and summer alike, I am sitting in a hammock, in the sun, not wearing a sweater or wool socks, feeling comfortable, dry and warm all at the same time. Probably it will start sleeting tomorrow, but for the moment I'm feeling good.

Anyway, Italy. Speaking in broad strokes, my trip was enormously successful. I had a great week. When you look more closely, however, the trip was a mosaic of poor planning, unfortunate happenstances, and many different varieties of incompetence.

Like so many of my trips, this one began with a series of inconveniently timed flights. Fortunately, Schipol International Airport (in Amsterdam) is easily the best airport in the world. It is pleasant, with lots of good food, and most importantly, really great nap options. Normally I go for one of the quiet corners with a bunch of recliner chairs, but this time I found something even better – a hidden relaxation zone with muted colors, quiet birdsong, lots of plants and really cool kids-science museum stuff. And, amazingly, giant beanbag chairs long enough to lie down on. I played with the electric Tesla sphere thingie, and then I slept for two peaceful hours. I’m thinking my next vacation will be to Schipol.

Anyway, I eventually arrived in Naples, and was forced to take a cab to the BnB where I was staying, as it was too late to take the airport bus. Because I don’t have any money, this frequently happens to me, even when my first flight is too early for the airport bus in Bergen. In any case, I showed the cabbie the address, and 30 euros later he dropped me off at a street corner. It was midnight. The street was deserted, and there was no sign of a bed and breakfast. I called my host, only to hear a pre-recorded message in Italian that sounded suspiciously like this number is no longer in service. This is when I began to worry.

I called again, and (thank god) she picked up. The bed and breakfast was quite nearby, but cleverly hidden, and all was well, at least for the moment.

I spent my first day in Italy wandering around Naples, looking for a hiking map. My plan for the next few days was to go to Pompeii, then Paestum (another big ruin), then head down to Cilento National Park and do a little hiking, but the extremely expensive set of maps I had laboriously ordered from the Italian National Park web store had not arrived in time, and I needed a map if I was going to go hiking. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like Naples is a hiking town, and though I went into every bookshop I could find in the city, I did not find anything better than a 1:50000 road map, which is not good enough. I had heard the trails in Cilento National Park were not easy to navigate.

Naples, as one contributor to Wikitravel wrote, is totally nuts. The city is huge, crowded, dirty (guidebooks say ‘gritty’), covered in graffiti, and almost totally without traffic controls. Cars and scooters zoom down tiny cobblestone streets, swerving at the last second to avoid each other and terrified American pedestrians. The Neapolitan drivers, lacking sight lines or traffic lights, use a driving technique I have only seen on mountain roads in North Carolina – instead of stopping and looking around blind corners, they just honk a couple times before they get there, and then go for it. During my second night, I actually had traffic navigation nightmares.

But I loved Naples. Life happens on the street – there are people everywhere always, tons of outdoor restaurants (especially ice cream stands), and people greeting each other warmly and enthusiastically. Despite the constant risk of death, it feels vibrant and friendly. The graffiti and grime is shocking at first, but quickly seems normal – just part of Naples’s style. And, of course, the food was amazing. I have never eaten so much pizza.

In the morning, I hopped on the Circumvesuviana railway and made my way to Pompeii, which is utterly astounding. I had an idea that Pompeii was a small town. No. Pompeii was, and is, huge, beautiful, and very moving. The buildings are shells of what they once were, but it is easy to imagine the city as it once must have been – a major and impressive Roman city. Here are some pictures:

I returned to the Naples train station to catch my train to Paestum, only to find there was a train strike. My train was cancelled, as were all of the regional trains that stopped in Paestum. The closest I could do was to get to Salerno, which wasn’t really very close. But I managed to arrange an Airbnb room, and had a pleasant evening hanging out with some Americans I met in a restaurant.

I also spent some time wandering around looking for maps, but again, I didn’t find any. I was beginning to get worried. Fortunately, when I got off the train at Paestum, I saw a sign in semi-English pointing upstairs towards the Campania Office of Sport and Outdoor Tourism. There was a woman sitting behind a desk. “Ciao,” I said, “I’m looking for a map.”

She leapt up quickly enough to startle me, and then, over the next 15 minutes, proceeded to tell me everything that anyone might do in Campania, how to get there, where to stay, and what to eat. I tried to explain that I really had no desire to go see a buffalo farm or any of the 12 tiny old churches within 10 miles, and that I wasn’t interested in agrotourism (which seems to be where you pay someone to work on their farm), but I just wanted a hiking map.

But there was no stopping her. I left with dozens of crappy tourist maps with buffalo farms circled, guides to the Paestum ruins in three languages, and an exhaustive printout of the region’s bus and train service. I get the sense that people don’t stop in her office much.

She did tell me that I might buy a hiking map near the ruins. Paestum is a tiny town with a big archeological site that includes three of the largest and best preserved temples anywhere in the Mediterranean. It's also probably the best lizard habitat anywhere on earth - there were green ones, blueish sparkly ones, and yellow stripy ones. I loved it. Here are some pictures:

And, after lunch, I found a map! I was thrilled, and sat beneath a shady tree to plan my route. I was about 10k from the edge of the National Park which was just outside a small city called Agropoli. I figured I could get some food there, and then set off along a pleasant-looking trail called the Trans Parco Costiero (TPC). It ran pretty much along the coast all the way down the National Park. There were a few towns along the way, some cliffs, some wilderness areas, some mountains, and what looked like a lot of rambling through farmland. It looked really nice.

The trail ran in shrubs and grasses along the edge of the bluffs, which fell sharply away into the bluest and brightest-shining sea I’ve ever seen. There was a beach bar under construction and a few abandoned shacks, but other than that there was no sign of civilization. I set up camp on the edge of the wilderness on a lumpy piece of grassy land just beneath the ruins of a medieval watchtower at the edge of the bluff. I watched the sun set, called Megan, and then slept soundly and peacefully under a moon bright enough to read by.

Megan had suggested that it was risky to sleep without my tent – actually what she said was “Doesn’t that sound like the beginning of one of those Fas Co stories?” – but the only moisture on me or my sleeping bag when the sun rose was dew. There were some clouds swirling, but rain didn’t seem imminent. I packed up, ate a quick breakfast, and prepared to head south.

I had a big day ahead of me. Since none of the hotels were open yet, I was relying on Airbnb, and the only place I could find to stay was in Casal Velino, which is pretty far from where I was – probably 17 or 18 miles. That’s not impossible in a day, certainly, but it isn’t easy, especially if you want to make it before dark.

The other problem I had was that my phone had run out of minutes. This would make it difficult to communicate with my Airbnb host and find the place, but my route took me through several towns of various sizes and touristicality, so I figured there’d be a pizza restaurant with wifi somewhere.

The beginning of the walk was not great. I was going along the main road of Santa Maria di Castellabate, which is a pleasant enough beach town, but the roads were a little narrow for comfort. Eventually, after an idiotic navigational error that cost me 30 minutes, I climbed up off the coast into the town of Castellabate. Like many medieval towns along that coast, Castellabate is highly fortified – perched on the top of a small mountain, walled and pretty much inaccessible. The town’s inhabitants in times past would have had to climb up and down that mountain every day to get to their fields and their fishing boats, carrying their harvest and tools with them. Almost all of the old towns I saw (but not the Roman ones) are placed similarly, suggesting how unstable Italy has been for much of its history. Only in a place where invasion was a real possibility would anyone put up with such an inconvenient place to live.

I left the TPC and made my way across farmland and villages towards the town of Ortodonico, where I would join the TPC. The trail wound among rolling hills covered in vineyards, pasture, and olive groves, all glowing with wildflowers and buzzing with the energy of springI only made a couple small navigational errors, and though I got a little confused on the approach into Ortodonico (another brutal climb from the valley into town), I was no further off my pace than I had been in Castellabate.

It was about 11am, and I was doing well. Misfortune, however, was looming. Ortodonico is not a big place – in fact, it is a tiny place with a few houses, a hardware store, and a church, perched on a steep ridge. The map clearly showed the trail following the one road that dropped off the ridge to the south. Investigating the southern slope of the ridge, however, revealed five or six roads, all equally unpaved, lightly travelled, and unblazed. Which one was the trail? I wandered down several, going until the road died in an olive orchard. “No matter,” I would say as the road turned into a muddy rut among the trees, “I’ll just go back and turn left at the rusted out shell of a Fiat this time.” I did this again and again, turning all different ways at the Fiat, the field of goats, and the shack being swallowed in ivy, but every road died within a kilometer. There were also no people, at least not that I could see. It was like the twilight zone.

It was now 1pm, and I was still in Ortdonico – or, actually, I was somewhere beneath Ortodonico in a random olive grove. I was hungry, pissed off, and hot. Even if the trail magically appeared at that moment, and I didn’t make any more navigational errors, I would still not make it to Casal Velino before dark. Part of me wanted to wander to where I was going and set up camp wherever I could when I had to, but I didn’t have any food left, and it didn’t seem likely that I would stumble on a grocery store or restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

I decided to change strategies. I would follow the highway (not much of a highway) towards Casal Velino, and try to hitchhike my way there. I could drive there in 30 minutes probably, and even a short ride would make a huge difference to my time.

The highway was a perfect hitchhiking road - not much traffic, low speed limits, wide shoulders. I could hear the cars coming well in advance. This was going to be a cinch.

When the first car went by without stopping, I wasn’t concerned. Neither was I at the second or third. By the fourth or fifth, I was getting a little worried. By the 25th, I had stopped counting. By the 125th, I was despondent.

It had started raining, and I was still very far from Casal Velino. The road went up and down steep valleys along the coast. The wind began to blow and the rain fell harder. I was getting soaked, and though I stuck my thumb out at every car that went by, no one stopped. I felt like an outcast from society.

It stopped raining for a moment on top of a high, remote bluff 11 or 12 kilometers north of Casal Velino. I was feeling weak, and I decided to eat my last calories – a bag of peanut M&Ms I had bought from a vending machine in the train station. I opened the bag, ate a couple, and began to feel better about the world, at least for a moment. Then it started raining again.

A few minutes later, I waved down a bus, and a few minutes after that, I was in Casal Velino. It is amazing how a bus can travel two hours’ walking distance in less than 15 minutes, and also how you don’t get rained on while you do it. Really makes you appreciate motor vehicles.

I refilled my phone in Casal Velino, and soon enough I was lying in bed in a very nice Airbnb apartment, clean, fed and dry.

My plan for the next day was to ramble down to the next town over – just an hour’s walk away – see some ruins, and then get on the train and head up to Rome. I had had enough walking. It was a lovely day, and the walk to Ascea and the Velia ruins flew by – until I realized that I had left my phone in the apartment in Casal Velino. I was literally at the gates of the ruins at this point.

This was one of those moments that really cause me to question my competence. I seem like a pretty sensible guy most of the time, and I did pretty well at school, but moments like this really make me wonder whether I’m cut out for adult life. I may have a job lined up next year, but until I can remember to not leave my phone in random Italian apartments, I don’t think I can consider myself a fully-functioning member of society.

Getting my phone back was a long and irritating process that involved a lot of waiting around for the public internet point to open. On the bright side, my host in Casal Velino, a beautiful engineering student (which I now realize is my type) gave me a ride to the train station, which at least saved me the third hour-long walk to Ascea.

I spent a couple more hours sitting on the platform waiting for the train to Rome (I’d missed the three earlier ones), contemplating the fields and the distant mountains as the sun slowly fell behind them. Birds sang, the wind blew lightly, and I felt pretty good. Several hours after that, I was in Rome, where I quickly fell asleep.

Rome was an incredible experience. I love art museums and good restaurants, and so Rome way well be heaven. Here are some pictures:

I also met interesting people in the hostel. One guy was particularly fascinating – a 29-year-old Australian/Indian guy who had been laid off of his job at Goildman Sachs. He had gone to an all-boy school and never had a girlfriend, and was, in fact, terrified of talking to women, and so during his three months of travel, which were just coming to an end, he had made himself a goal to talk to as many women as possible. He talked to women (and actually men as well) in all sorts of places, like hostels and bars, but his most important strategy for overcoming his fears was to confront them directly by talking to women on the street. Now, as he is quick to say, he’s not a pickup artist. He’s not exploiting any one. He doesn’t try to sleep with anyone or get anything out of these women. Rather, he approaches them, tries to strike up a conversation for as long as they’re willing, and then keeps on walking.

I found this fascinating. He told me, in response to my endless questions, that it’s best to approach women while they’re walking, so they can choose whether or not to stop. He tries to talk to between 10 and 20 women each day, and said that approximately one in ten have conversations with him. One in fifty give him a phone number or an email address. Of those, he’s still in touch with three. He talks to attractive women mostly, but not exclusively, and finds that the women most likely to talk to him are in their twenties, from Northern Europe, very beautiful, and have a friend with them. He uses a number of different strategies to approach women – his favorite is to walk slowly and “softly” towards them, hand outstretched with a specific and truthful compliment on his lips. Even after three months, he reports, he is still nervous when he does this, but much less so than before. He hopes that these skills will help him find a girlfriend when he returns to Australia.

He offered to show me how it works the next day, Easter Sunday. I was planning on heading down to St. Peter’s Square to see the Pope and check out the scene, and so I invited him along. And as we walked from the hostel to the Vatican, I found that he did, in fact, approach women on the street. It hadn’t seemed really possible that this is what he did all day. I got nervous just watching him, but I saw that he was quite well-mannered, non-threatening, and the women, even when they didn’t want to talk to him, which was the vast majority of the time, left the interaction smiling. I joined him in a couple – we approached pairs of women – and while I was surprisingly terrified, we ended up having a nice conversation with two friends from Sweden and Germany. It was a revealing experience.

The mass at the Vatican was as well, though in my opinion, they could do a lot to liven it up. The beginning was ok because the Swiss Guards have a couple of pretty lively marching bands, and it was very exciting when the Pope showed up, but other than that it was a lot of praying and tuneless psalm singing in languages I don’t understand. Not the stuff to give the troops.

That afternoon, I caught a train to Naples, and then the next morning caught a plane to Bergen. It was a fantastic, eye-opening trip, but I can hardly wait till my upcoming trips to Oslo, Vienna, and Stockholm. Stay tuned to hear about those as well!