Monday, January 27, 2003
We drove in to see Naples by doing two Volksmarches there. We first tried to start the one in downtown Naples, but the ice cream shop wasn’t open until 11:30 and it was only ten o’clock, so we drove north a little bit and tried the walk looping around the northern section of Naples. That walk started at a Ben and Jerry’s in a strip mall that was already open. We were driving thru the strip mall to get to the Ben and Jerry’s when I saw valet parking. For some reason, having valet parking at a strip mall gave me the giggles. Somehow I put that together with the normal K-Mart strip mall and imagined having a “flashing Blue Light Special” on valet parking-- “Attention, K-Mart shoppers, for the next 10 minutes there will be a special on valet parking, so come and get your discount tickets at the flashing blue light!”

The northern walk at Naples is a very large loop around Venetian Lagoon. Some of the houses are built on stilts somewhat in the Venetian style, so I guess the name fits. Several parts of the lagoon also have docks built in so that folks can take their boats out easily. The northern end of the loop went thru Clam Pass Park, a nice county park that featured a boardwalk across a mangrove swamp to the beach. Everything was prohibited in the park, but we were almost run over by a golf cart shuttling people from the parking lot to the beach, so apparently golf carts were the one thing NOT prohibited.

Returning south along the beach was fun because we enjoy walking on beaches and this one had a nice selection of shells. We noticed that the property lines or walls of the beachside development did not come all the way to the high water mark like in Palm Beach, and there were several large, well-marked public access ways to the beach, which also contrasted with the miniscule access routes in Palm Beach. From the beach we hopped over one block to the lagoon side and returned to the upscale strip mall to complete the walk.

After a quick lunch we decided we were energetic enough for a second walk and returned to the start/finish for the downtown Naples walk. This walk started at an Edy’s ice cream store and was another very large loop. This time the loop went north thru residential neighborhoods featuring very nice houses before turning west to reach the beach. Some of the houses were painted rather striking colors, but most were subdued. The beach section of this walk was quite long and again fun because we could look for shells along the high-water mark. Walking on the wet sand was also easier on our feet than pavement, but there is an option where you can walk back south along the streets if, for example, you have dogs or strollers.

The checkpoint was a plaque on the Naples City Pier which marked the southern end of this stretch, and the directions were not clear about whether the plaque was to the left or the right on the pier. For anyone else taking this walk, I will tell you that the plaque is to the left by the entrance with the flagpoles. We, of course, turned right and walked all the way out to the end of the pier before asking someone where the plaque was and getting it straight. But the walk to the end of the pier is fun—you can watch pelicans watching fishermen in the hopes of stealing a stray fish, just like they do with cormorants! Some species never change!

From the pier we curled back thru a southern shopping strip that was heavy on art galleries and fancy women’s clothing stores. Again it reminded us of Palm Beach except there were no jewelry stores and it seemed more playful. There was an alligator statue entitled “Baroness Von Lator” on display, for example, that lampooned the patron who had sponsored the work by having very exaggerated clothes and makeup, and, of course, a crocodile smile. I also saw a store featuring Matisse paintings--reproductions, I assume, but very pleasant nonetheless. This stretch ended at the old Naples dock area on the inlet side of the peninsula, which was colorful but we were getting pretty tired by this point and just headed north down the home stretch to the ice cream parlor. After 20 km of walking, we decided we could indulge ourselves with hot fudge Sundays using 95% fat-free ice cream to keep the guilt level down! Despite our fatigue we stopped at Wal-Mart for some snacks and necessary things like batteries and propane that we were short of before returning to camp for the evening, fixing a minimal dinner, and going to bed.