This morning we found ourselves back on the hard seats of the Circumvesuviana but not going as far as Pompeii this time. Today it was a trip to the Funivia del Faito, a cable car to the top of Mount Faito.
As the train was approaching the station we were stood by the door with my hand gripping the pole to stop myself falling over when I felt someone touch my wrist. Turning to look I found some creepy bloke next to me trying to squeeze the crown on my Apple Watch in an effort to get it to light up and show him the time. I was a bit put out by this, particularly as he already had a watch! I might have said something but everything but the swear words were lost in translation!
With just a couple of minutes to go before the cable car was due to depart we dashed across the platform to the entrance only to be stopped by a station employee. Turns out that you can’t actually buy tickets for the cable car at the cable car (who knew!) but only from the station ticket office. With that obstacle out the way we got on the car just before it was due to leave.
There were probably about maybe 30 people stood in this car and I was left hoping that the journey was a short one as one or two of the other occupants had an aversion to deodorant.
It was a lot higher up than I expected and this meant that we were treated to some spectacular views at the top over the bay of Naples. We first walked away to the right as we had read online that was the best views and down a couple of hundred steps was a viewpoint and a place to stop for the obligatory coffee.
That done we went back to the start and off to the left. This was a ridge trail that lead to a church. Despite the lack of people and distance from civilisation it actually wasn’t very quiet up there. The ridge was lined with telecoms masts each with its own generator running away. And from far below came what sounded like gunshots. I’m still not sure whether this was thunder, quarry explosions, a disaster at a fireworks factory or a skirmish in the war for Silvio Berlusconi to regain control of the country!
By now I was running out of energy due to the continuing cold so we didn’t make it as far as the church but still got some fabulous views.
The trip down had amazing open views across the bay of Naples but it was very painful on my ears with the change in pressure. I hope it’s not like that on the flight back!
