14:00 crew!
I was so antsy and excited to visit CrossFit Napoli in Naples, Italy. After France, I traveled around Italy for about 10 days. There are only a couple CrossFit gyms in northern Italy, outside of Milan, and there were either no gyms in the cities I visited, way too far, or a pain to get to. So I was pretty much itching for a workout. We were briefly in Naples to catch a ferry to Capri. Along with trying the original pizza, visiting CrossFit Napoli was top of my list of things to do in Naples.
CrossFit Napoli is very new. Its grand opening was in September 2011. It is also pretty much the only box located in southern Italy currently. Luckily, it can be easily reached by public transportation. Two brothers, Luca and Silvio Travaglione own and run the box. In addition to CrossFit classes, they also have boxing and personal training classes.
This is what we did:
This is what we did:
- Warm-up
- Clean and Jerk: 4x3
- 6min AMRAP:
- 5 KBS
- 5 Thrusters
- 5 Pull-Ups
- Cash out: 50 Sit ups
Some things I really liked here:
- Luca! Luca does most of the teaching at CrossFit Napoli. Along with great coaching and being really helpful, he was super enthusiastic and welcoming. I'm not sure how to say this properly, but he knows how to work up a class and get you extra excited and motivated. Everyone was so pumped! He can also speak a bit of English which helped me a ton. Too bad Silvio wasn't around. Would have been nice to meet him.
- Community. The members were really sweet and friendly. Despite the language barrier, we all quickly became friends. In fact, I still communicate to a couple of them over email now. They were comfortable enough to lift my shirt up to feel up my gelato belly, haha. After class, they helped me get a ride to the dock. Wish I had more time in Naples, to eat all the delicious must-try foods with them!
- Prime location. CrossFit Napoli is ~400m away from the metro station. Line 2 takes you right there! There is a bus stop nearby too. A lot of CrossFit gyms in Italy are in the suburbs and kind of hard to get to without a car. Regarding safety in the area, it should be fine. The neighborhood is nice. I was alone with all my stuff and no one tried to pickpocket or harass me.
- Full schedule. So I did a ton of research for possible boxes to check out while in France/Italy and a lot of boxes only had one or two class times per day. CrossFit Napoli has a full schedule with lots of options and even a class on Saturday!
- Large, fully equipped and ridiculously clean bathrooms. Probably the cleanest gym bathrooms I've been in. Showers, mirrors, lockers, hair dryers, etc. They have everything... even a sauna, haha. Seems to be the culture here. Come in to the gym, change, do the class, shower and get back into normal clothing. Had I known this beforehand, that would have made more class times available for me.
- No charge for visitors! When I emailed them they said they would waive *all* my visits at their box, not just one. They even let me come in early and stay late to get some strength work and skills practice in. So sweet and generous!
Some things that could use improvement:
- English version of the website. Haha. Google translate failed a bunch of times.
Some pictures:
3. Private outdoor space.
4. Pretty big space.
5. The rack, and plates.
6. DBs, KBs.
7. WOD board.
8. Rowers, GHDs, bathrooms, sauna.
9. Apparel, lol. Booty shorts, panties, sports bra.
10. Office.
11. Blurry but it's Luca and I.
12. Luca + ladies.
Wish I had more time in Naples to get a workout and food with Luca and such! It also would have been nice to meet Silvio. Thanks for letting me stop by! I'll be reppin the sports bra and booty shorts here, yea yea.
