New Year's Day 2016 in Napoli, Italy

After a fun New Year's Eve celebration that ended before the clock turned 12 in London, we left our house this morning at 6.30 to begin our sojourn to Naples, Italy. It was a bit disappointing to land in cloudy and chilly conditions but there's little you can do about the weather!

Napoli is as ugly as most guide books say! It's been a good place to stay for this first, tiring travel day and we did manage to wander around a bit and get a feel for the city.

The Christmas lights are still adorning the streets and we did stumble upon a charming pedestrian street. It was nice to see people out and about enjoying the evening.

Tomorrow we'll take a city walk and then hop on a boat that will take us over to Sorrento where we'll base for the coming week. Forecasts are not great so we'll see how it all pans out. 

We did manage to find our way to a local pizza place to indulge in the most neopolitan of all foods...the stone oven pizza!

 I stuck with the classic margherita pizza, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and olive oil. It was delcious made with such fresh ingredients.We started with a caprese salad and that mozzarella was some of the freshest and best I've ever had.

Doug ordered a calzone and it was, sadly, a mistake. Fortunately my pizza was large enough to share so we both went away with happy palettes.

I love Italy and am thrilled to be back here.

 This is the view from our room.

We've never been to Naples and I spent a couple of days in Sorrento many years ago with a friend, but haven't seen anything else on this legendary Amalfi coast. We look forward to taking it all in, sunshine or not, and enjoying the cuisine, the people, the language, and the sights.

It's hard to believe that 2016 is upon us. 2015 was a year of profound change, loss, growth, and new experiences. I feel blessed by the ways in we feel taken cared of by God's gentle hand in our lives and as always, am ever thankful that Doug and I are given another year to begin together. It's a good life we're leading and we look forward to what adventures, hopes and dreams come about in the coming 12 months.