I am not a morning person.

So this is a bit of a comment on the lavish breakfast spread at our hotel in Napoli. We stayed at a pretty swank old hotel (claims to fame: Bill Clinton, Sofia Lauren and some Italian opera singer named Caruso all stayed there at one point) and breakfast was included in the price of the room. Obviously, you take advantage.

The buffet was big, but oddly thin on meat: tiny German sausages that were bland, floppy bacon. The scrambled eggs did not look appealing. It did include, however, at least 15 different pastry items, five different types of rolls, homemade jams and marmalade, Nutella (labeled “Chocolate Jam”). Highlights included biting into a popover-looking item minutes after brushing my teeth and discovering that said item was actually soaked in rum. Not the worst way I know to start the day. Also several actual cakes, that I never did manage to try. Somehow Nutella at breakfast is ok, but chocolate torte is over the line.  Come to think of it, chocolate-filled croissants are really an afternoon thing too. 

They had about four or five different types of cut fruit and, in the same case, cherry tomatoes and not one, not two but three different fresh cheese options. They had golf-ball sized cow’s milk mozzarella, crumbly-creamy ricotta and, my favorite, bite-size mozzarella di bufala in buffalo cream. Perhaps a little rich for breakfast, but I had to go for it. I had to go for it three days in a row.  And I’m absolutely adding mozz and tomatoes to my breakfast repertoire when I get back to the states.

The beverage selection was pretty solid: four or five fresh juices, both regular and chocolate milk for your cereal or muesli, a few casual bottles of prosecco in case you were interested in a mimosa. And the coffee only distantly related the weak-ass American coffee we call espresso. The coffee in this part of Italy is no joke. Italians from other parts of Italy, according to the guidebooks, think that the Neapolitans are a little crazy for how strong they take their espresso. Order one and you are presented with about half a tablespoon, or maybe a little more, of black, viscous, seriously flavored liquid. I put sugar in it, or else I might not be able to drink it. And it will wake you up in a hurry.

Incidentally, I need to note my extreme satisfaction that neither Starbucks nor McDonald’s has managed to gain a foothold in Napoli, though it is Italy’s third largest city and a tourist destination. These are my kind of people.