A Week in Italy

All the tips, trials and tribulations from Naples, Pompeii, and Ischia Island

September is a fantastic time to go away; flights and accommodation will be greatly reduced, as will the masses of tourists, but it’s the smugness that really pushes this period over the edge. As you soak up the last of the rays on the beach, your friends at home are turning on the heating. We shouldn’t go away on holidays to be smug, but ot doesn’t hurt either.

Choosing a week that coincided with my birthday, so I wouldn’t have to compete with Culture Night for just one year, my pal SuHu and I built our holiday around the destination of Ischia Island. Inspired by Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, the natural pairing for Ischia is Naples, which is where we flew in and out of.

Between Naples and Ischia, our aim was to be warm, eat plenty, swim, and rest. But to avoid being philistines and to acknowledge Culture Night in our own way, we threw in a day trip to Pompeii too. This is how we got on.

TL:DR: Naples is mayhem, Pompeii has every right not to be accessible but it is… and maybe they should try a little harder, Ischia is heaven.