“Cold though, no?” Antonio pressed. To Keira he seemed to really be wanting to find the worst in her home city. “Like now it is cold. While we still bask in glorious sunshine.” He laughed wheezily, showing off crooked yellow teeth.

“Have you ever been?” Keira asked, a little offended by his comments.

“No no no,” Antonio replied, shaking his head as if the suggestion was ludicrous. “Never will I go to a godless city like that. Here we’re good Catholics.”

If Antonio had set out to rub Keira the wrong way he had certainly achieved his aim.

But if Antonio himself was a shock to the system, Naples was not what Keira was expecting either. The roads were very narrow, with terraced five-story apartment blocks towering up either side, with balconies made of rusting metal, clothes lines stretched between them covered in colorful linen that fluttered in the wind. There were next to no sidewalks, which meant people wandered into the road, often without looking, darting out from behind parked cars. Even the road signs and street lamps, Keira noted, were actually attached to the walls of the houses, since there wasn’t even enough space for a pole.

None of these obstacles made Antonio drive any slower, however. He just cursed loudly in Italian every time someone stepped into his path, swerving, sometimes honking his horn.

“Che cavolo!” he exclaimed loudly, gesticulating at an old woman who’d just stepped in front of him.

Despite not knowing exactly what Antonio was saying, Keira could tell it was some kind of expletive and felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment and shame for the old woman on the receiving end of his rage. But the woman just gestured rudely at Antonio. Clearly she was used to such occurrences.

Vespas whizzed past them. Keira noticed that the walls were covered with graffiti. There was so much that people had started drawing over the graffiti that was already there!

Keira lost count of the amount of pizzerias they passed. Her stomach grumbled. It had been hours since her bland airplane dinner.

They turned a corner and zipped past a stall set up at the side of the road selling fish. The smell made Keira gag and completely lose her appetite.

“Watch out!” Keira cried, as Antonio careened toward a filthy, mangy cat sitting in the middle of the road.

Luckily it ran out of the way just in time.

“Strays,” Antonio said, as if to explain why he hadn’t even attempted to slow down. “Pests. We’re infested with them.”

The cobbled streets made the car bump up and down. It was an uncomfortable journey to say the least.

“You’ll be able to see the mountain in a minute,” Antonio said. “Vesuvius.”

“Oh,” Keira replied, almost alarmed at what she perceived to be his first attempt to make small talk.

“There,” he said, suddenly, pointing to her left.

If the mountain had been visible it was only for a second, because Keira didn’t manage to see a thing.