Our homebase in Naples, Neapolitan Cove RV Resort, is upscale and expensive. We'll be here three days. It's one of our favorite parks - not only very pretty, with lots of palm and bamboo trees between the sites - but also very neighborly. The quality and price level of the RV's in the park is quite high. Sadly, our motorhome is more modest than that of most of our neighbors.
Every week the managers host a potluck social for the guests, and one was scheduled for the afternoon we arrived. Some of the appetizers contributed by the residents were quite tasty. Again, we brought wine and glasses to the party, and again nobody else was drinking wine. We're slow learners.
Most of the residents are folks from Canada and the northern states who stay here for several months each year. So it's a true community, and one of the friendliest we've stayed at. We felt very welcomed. So far, the warmest and most congenial parks we've experienced have been the higher-end ones filled with these snowbirds, who are ecstatic that they've escaped the frigid temperatures back home.
Downtown Naples has a prosperous look about it. Lots of nice restaurants and high-end shops.
As we walked along a street in the historic district, Nancy was somehow drawn into the D'Or 24K store by a young Russian man named Igor, who promised to show her an amazing skin care product. He produced a syringe and extracted a couple of globs of a yellowish product onto the skin below her eyes, and massaged it in.
While we were waiting for it to cure, I asked Igor if he knew Vladimir Putin. He said that he didn't. After a few minutes, Nancy thought that her skin was noticeably smoother. Igor told us that the regular price was $650 but that luckily it was only $325 today - half price! Nancy said we would see how it worked overnight and would return if we decided to buy. Igor offered to drop the price to $200 if we bought today. We're gullible but not as gullible as Igor thought, so Nancy declined. As we stepped outside, I checked my back pocket to make sure my wallet was still there.
Sunday is real estate open house day in Naples. We were curious as to what money buys here. Condos and standalone estates on or near the beach are hugely expensive, but if you're willing to live a few miles away, prices drop precipitously. In many of the areas we've visited in Florida, including Naples, entrepreneurs have built a great number of impressive gated housing developments. Most of them have attractive landscaping and inviting guarded entranceways. We drove to an open house in one of these where a realtor we had met was holding court at a 3700 square foot home with four bedrooms and four baths, in a lush, pretty neighborhood. The open floor plan interior was lovely, and the view from the living area was of a private enclosed lap pool, and beyond that, one of the development's manmade lakes. The photo below doesn't do that view justice. It's a spectacular property. Twelve minutes from the beach, and fifteen minutes from downtown Naples. The asking price? $500,000.
On our last night in Naples we had one of our favorite meals of the trip at USS Nemo, a seafood restaurant. One can eat well in this town. We liked it here.
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