Silverado

What stood out most was how at home I felt. I was there for work with a colleague who’s also a real friend.

Getting to Naples took an hour by bus, which was a hassle. The breakfast included in the booking wasn’t there at all, and the nearby nightclub made the music pretty loud. On arrival, the staff didn’t know we were coming and handed us keys for the wrong room. The listing also said they spoke French, but that wasn’t true. In the room, the light switches needed rewiring and there was no hairdryer.

Dinner was good and there was plenty of it, but it took ages. I have no intention of coming back. The one bright spot was a friendly kitten that made me smile. The stairs were dark at night, so we used our phones to see our way up. The last flight was covered with all sorts of dumped materials. At breakfast, there was no service at all. The room was old, with huge amounts of dust and cobwebs, and the tables were propped up with paper shims like at a Unity Day celebration. In the room, the toilet seat was missing, and the TV and air conditioning didn’t work. There were no blankets. The faucets and shower head were badly corroded, the shower curtain was filthy and in an awful state, and the light sockets were missing. The bathroom window was electric, with a loose cord dangling from it. I hope the power was off. It looked out onto the hallway. The mattress seemed to date from World War II and had strange stains, and the handles were broken.

The room they moved me to was still dated, but at least it was clean. The first one had damp walls, and what I found in the bathroom made for a terrible stay. I arrived Monday afternoon and saw a fresh roll of toilet paper. When I came back the next afternoon, there was toilet paper in the toilet bowl with yellowish liquid at the bottom, and the roll was almost empty. Pulling off the top sheet revealed a strange stain on the sheet underneath. I told them what I’d found. They said it had never happened in 23 years, and that we’re all human, so to speak. They changed my room in the end.