Hello, Gorgeous

You say goodbye and I say hello.

Today we said a fond farewell to Florence and boarded the fast train for Naples.

Three hours on the bullet-looking train allowed time to get back to my book, "Chanel: A Woman of Her Own" and tales of Coco's one true love (a man called Boy) while eating soprasetta on crusty rolls.

The Naples train station has the same pigeons-in-residence population inside as Rome did, but it doesn't even register as surprising anymore.

We take the subway from Naples and while the map on the wall looks just like the Metro maps with routes marked in red, green and blue, it differs in a couple of ways besides un-pronounceable stops.

Amazingly to me, the windows not only open but are opened.

As we breeze through the country side, fresh air blows in the subway windows. I like it.

And there's music.

First a young woman with an accordion gets on with her young son holding a can for contributions.

She plays throughout the car, collects a little change from some Americans in the back and gets off at the next stop.

One stop further on, a trio of accordion, tambourine and drum gets on and proceeds to play for our car, this time netting change from a Dutch couple with rosy cheeks.

We come around a bend and all of a sudden there is the bay of Naples shimmering in the afternoon sun.

Okay, so maybe I can leave behind a city of unparalleled art and architecture for the Neapolitan countryside after all.

28 stops later, we arrive in the cliffside town of Vico Equense and come up the steps from the station to a small harbor and straight ahead Mount Vesuvius.

A few steps later and we arrive at Hotels Astoria, sounding for all the world like someplace Coco Chanel would stay with her lover Boy.

Our room is seaside with a sweeping view of water and the volcano framed in the large windows which I immediately open.

Moments later we begin hearing fireworks on the cliffs nearby and by sitting on the window ledge, we see their multi-color bursts up on the hills.

We have no idea why pyrotechnics are being set on a Sunday afternoon, but we feel welcomed by them nonetheless.

Then the bell towers start ringing, first the six-sided one with the crenolated top nearest us and soon the terra cotta-pink one with the dome top further up the hill.

The combination of explosions over the cliffs and bells ringing is an intoxicating one and we do the logical thing - buy some wine and watch.

With a bottle of Colle D'oroAglianico Beneventano procured from the front desk, we head to the flower-bedecked terrace mere steps from our room and settle on a bench in the early evening air.

White boats trace white patterns in the bay back and forth between unseen destinations.

A crown of clouds hangs low over Vesuvius' blue-gray landscape straight ahead.

The Neapolitan next to me is instinctively content.

Me, it took a mere two hours to settle into it.

I hate to be fickle, Florence, but wow.

Hello, Vico Equense.