Naples - Day 4

Today was Museum Day! We woke up around 9ish and lolled around the room drinking our free in-room Wolfgang Puck coffee - it's really good!

We had an early lunch at one of our favorite Naples haunts Lindburgers Restaurant which boasts 50 varieties of gourmet burgers - and their boast is substantiated. The burgers are delicious and the prices are reasonable. It's got a funky hole-in-the-wall vibe. I had a burger smothered with grilled onions and cheddar cheese made extra-super rare - delicious! I was very good and didn't eat my fries and only ate one bun.


Then we went to the Naples Museum of Art to see the Pablo Picasso: Preoccupations and Passions exhibit. The exhibit was wonderful, it included portraits, still lives and the themes of Harlequin, Jester, Minotaur and Faun. There was another visiting exhibit called Visions: Contemporary Drawings from the Dyke Collection which included pieces by Hockney, de Kooning as well as three Cuban artists I was surprised to see.


The museum which shares a large area with the Naples Philharmonic is absolutely beautiful and houses an impressive permanent collection which includes exhibits such as Modern Mexican Masters and Leaders in American Modernism. In addition to beautiful Picassos, I saw several works by Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco and Tamayo - surprisingly there was no Frida Kahlo. The American Modernists included Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove and others. The different exhibits are hung in perspective with the style or school, which is different from most museums which follow a traditional hanging style.


Once my soul was nourished by the beautiful art we stopped for a snack at a work of art i n and of itself - Sonic. I ordered my usual Large Chocolate Coke (sigh...yummy) and some popcorn chicken. While sitting in our car noshing, I saw some thing new on the menu and of course ordered it (DUH!). When we got the order and we tasted the new item everything changed...


The sun shone brighter, a choir of angels sang to the heavens...it was magic. We had...Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese Bites! OHMYGOD! You can't even imagine how amazingly good these things are. They are these golden nugget sized fried chunks, but when you bite into them there are actual little macaronis with creamy cheese in there - it incredible. Of course there is absolutely no nutritional value to this, which probably makes it that much better. Here's a picture I took, but it doesn't do them justice.


We're back in the hotel for the night. We're hunkering down for election results, American Idol and room service. Life is good.


I have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow, but it'll be better than working!