La Locanda dei Monacone, Napoli

Great – we can book this one. 7pm or 9pm. We’re old – guess which we go for? We’ve had a busy day strolling around Napoli. Tomorrow we head for the National Archaeological Museum to get our facts straight before heading for Pompeii etc. We’ve spent ages researching which is the best Museum access card (cheapest) to get into the various artefacts we want to see. It’s mad really, saving a handful of euros on a trip that cost quite a lot of money. Still, we’re from Yorkshire you know. We meet a couple from Vienna who (1) like us are keen to keep their step count up and (2) are experts on holidays via house swaps. They’re very familiar with North Yorkshire apparently.

The area used, until quite recently, to be a no-go rough location. Over the last few years it’s improved enormously and – perhaps with the innocence of tourists – we don’t feel threatened. The restaurant was determined to stay, provide jobs, and help in the regeneration. It’ll be just like Notting Hill in a few years. Buy a place now? There’s lots of choice…

So although we’re given a choice of times the place is far from full. A shared ‘anchovies’ (whitebait to you and me) followed by baccalà in a tomato sauce, or their beef and pasta special. Delicious. We let the server bring us some house wine (he chose red) in a 50cl jug and it went down a treat (6 euros). Just over £44 all in.

Restaurant La Locanda dei Monacone – we went quite a few times…and even at 9pm

…and we stayed at Casa D’Anna – have we mentioned it before? – a simply heavenly, decadent form of camping on the roof of a palazzo. Top floor; no lift; you can do it…equally exhausted cultured interesting geriatrics among the guests [inc us]