15th May 2000 Naples
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
19
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Naples,
Italy
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
We decided to spend the day in Napoli.
We took the bus down the hill, and it terminated at the Sorrento station, which is also the end of the Napoli/Sorrento line, known as the Circumversuvio line. It was a good hours run into Napoli. The entire run into Napoli, when not through tenement suburbs, is through market gardens and orchards. Lemons are grown the length and breadth of the peninsular, and primarily used in producing lemon liqueurs. Every second shop sells "Lemonchello" or some such. There are also plenty of olive trees as well, but primarily lemons. They are grown on terraced gardens stretching up the mountainsides. Each plot is surrounded by trellises made of long rough poles standing vertically, with the horizontals lashed on, to form a huge frame around the plot. In many cases, the outside frame supports grape vines, and in most cases they use large sheets of either black or occasionally green shadecloth to cover over the top. In many cases the shadecloth is rolled back and lashed to one side, like a furled sale on an old square rigger. We assume it is then rolled out and stretched over the tees, to slow down the ripening process, and regulate their supply. We initially thought it might be to protect from birds, but while there seem to be thousands of birds, they are mainly small and I can't imagine they really have a diet that involves lemons. The other market garden crops seem to be peas, beans, tomatoes, asparagus, potatoes and corn. Whole families working these plots, including young children (on a schoolday???). Also lots of flower glass houses-carnations, strelitzias and lilies. An inspector accompanies the train, checking tickets and controlling its departure from each station. We also experienced the unfortunate side of tourism. Two middle aged American women had backpacks, which they placed on the facing seats. That was OK on leaving Sorrento, but by the time we were half an hour out of Napless, the train was full, and no matter how many locals on their way to work stopped and looked at the seats, they failed to remove them, and remained standing while two backpacks had a comfortable seat.
After experiencing Rome's central Termini, we expected similar in Napoli. The same vast open space for the massive bus network, which also terminates our front, forming a huge central square. We thought Rome was dirty and grubby, but even central Napoli is almost as dirty as the dockside suburbs we drove through on Saturday. For the first time in Italy, we saw shops with chicken rotisseries out front, and decided to get one on the way home for dinner. We window shopped a kilometre or so to the National Archaeological Museum. Occasionally I took us off into a shortcut, and would stop to film these amazing back streets, only to terrify Ches, who thought we would be mugged any minute. On reflection, many days later, it probably wasn't the smart thing to do. I had just forgotten how much of Napoli is controlled by crime families, and how tourists in this city really are expected to limit themselves to the main tourist streets and sites. It was only late in the day, when we stopped a policeman to ask directions back to the station, that we appreciated what Napoli was. He was wearing a flack jacket, and was heavily armed. There has been a three year or so lull in the constant bloodbaths of Napoli and southern Italy and Sicily in general, and they normally try to keep it among themselves and not involve tourists (other than to target them to either pickpocket or steal handbags and cameras from the back of vespas).
Anyway, we arrived unscathed at the museum. This has the largest collection, and most significant collection of everything ancient in Italy. The collection of Farnese marbles (plundered by the Pope, most from the historic sites of Rome including the Baths of Caracalla and Hadrian's Villa), passed on to his relations, Charles of Bourbon in the late 1700's who established this museum. They also added many of the frescoes, mosaics and other relics from Pompei and Herculaneum, and the Borgia collections of Etruscan and Egyptian relics. Put it this way, we spent some three hours, and while footsore, weren't overwhelmed or suffering sensory overload, which is becoming a regular problem. The highlight would have to be the Farnese Bull , carved in 150 or so BC (a Roman copy of a Greek original), featuring larger than life bull, two men and two women, carved out of a single block of marble. Michelangelo restored it, inserting new marble into the sections that had been broken. This theme of the death of Dirce, Queen of Thebes, (who was tied by the hair to the bull, by two brothers as punishment for her tormenting their mother), we were to see often at other places including Pompei, in paintings, frescoes and mosaics. The other highlight for me was the fresco of the Battle of Alexander; a fresco some four meters by three meters. From the photos in guidebooks, I had thought there was only a remaining fragment depicting Alexander in armour. It was a wonderful surprise to find it such a vast mosaic, with only a small number of sections missing, and also picturing King Darius???? , leading his Persian troops. Archaeologists were working in the museum, we believe on new items. Several large mosaic columns were being wrapped in strips of linen, over which a white liquid was being brushed. Having read that a restoration process had been the use of papermasche and some other liquid, we assume this is the latest process. It would be left to dry and then peeled off, lifting with it all but the mosaic. As is usual in everywhere we have been, half the rooms are closed for restoration or re-arranging exhibits, and for the last time, I will note that everywhere is overrun by groups of schoolchildren on excursions.
From the museum, we assume we walked through the University district. Assumed because both schools and tertiary institutions are just buildings like every other building you pass in the street, and we only discovered the schools because of the noise every classroom in the world generates. The number of young people in groups with bundles of lecture pads and books was the first clue, and then when we came across a medical bookshop, and a street of educational bookshop, it was the clincher. I introduced myself to the manager of the medical bookshop, and he said if we need any Italian language tests, they deliver anywhere in the world in two weeks. Should be a good contact for us. Yeah, right!!!
In my determination to only experience the real Italy, not the touristico Italy, we decided against a cross city walk to Antic Pizzeria Brandi, supposedly the birthplace of the modern Pizza. I have convinced myself that this is just propaganda to lure American tourists anyway. We instead sought out the real pizza place; the place where the local Neopolitans eat; the Pizzeria that featured in a local newspaper article on community eateries. In a back street, which turns out to be one of the main streets, Via San Biagio del Librai (we didn't realise that the main streets are only 5 meters wide), we discovered Pollo Alla Spieda. On a corner with a narrow street (maybe three meters wide), we sat in back and had a sensational Pizza each. Ches had Tomato, mozzarella (sliced from the ball and set as little puddles over the surface of the pizza) and fungi. I had tomato, mozzarella and sausage. A large local family also dining, so we knew we were at the right place. Throughout lunch (2.00 pm) vespas used the side street at a hundred mile an hour, and we could constantly hear the sounds of suburbia from the flats that line the street. On leaving, we looked up this side street, to see that the verandahs almost touched across overhead, that a young boy had tied a shopping basket to a rope, attached to a pulley some five floors up, and an elderly woman was hauling it up. As we walked on down V S Biagio dei Librai , we noted that every fifty meters or so was an illegal cigarette stand. Often two or three people sitting on chairs half into the street, with a tray on their laps, containing American cigarettes. Police just ignore them.
Collected a chicken on the way back to the station, and with rain threatening, returned to Sorrento, where it was still sunny. Sunny isn't exactly true of the peninsular. It's certainly warm, but the sun is always shrouded in mist, as is the entire countryside. If my geography serves me correctly, warm air from northern Africa crosses the Mediterranean, where is becomes moist, and on reaching the Italian coast, with mountains rising out of the sea, the warm, moist air rises, and condenses, creating mist?????? Whatever, everything is shrouded in mist, and you never see the horizon. On the return train trip, we had an altercation with the ticket inspector. He takes our tickets, and then just stares at us. I shrug my shoulders. He says "Pompei", I shrug my shoulders. He says, you haven't paid to go to Napoli. I say, that's not my problem, I specifically told the ticket seller "Napoli" and Ches even questioned the fare-if it was enough to Napoli (9.600 lira for us both). He continues to stare, I continue to shrug my shoulders. Ches says "do you want us to pay extra?" Of course he does, including a 6,000 lira fine for fare evasion. Me being me, every ticket inspector from now on receives an indifferent response, which embarrassed Ches on the train to Pompei, when he was trying particularly hard to be pleasant to me. Also spent most of the trip trying to avoid eye contact with an Aussie couple; she of the loud variety (we suspect from Tasmania). On the rare occasion she wasn't holding forth, she was looking away disinterestedly. Poor English couple bore the brunt. "long way from home..." "large country you know. Fly from Sydney to Darwin for four hours and you are still over the same continent/country".
Stopped in Sorrento for Ches to buy shoes!!!!!! Also bought bread, tomatoes etc. An icy beer on the verandah, brief chat to a couple of Poms-he is in Engineering at Bath University, and a soccer fan, she is a rugby fanatic who bears only a little ill will that us Aussies denied her darling Jeremy (Guscot) the glory he deserved. etc etc etc. Picnic dinner on our deck; the chicken and the usual fare. On extracting the chicken from its bag, we noticed that the bag said "pollo alla spieda". Who feels like an idiot now???? The pizzeria back in V.S.Biagio dei Librari was Trattoria something, that also happened to sell fresh roast chickens "pollo alla spieda" We will never know the name of that great little Pizzeria, but it's about half way down on the left heading back to Garibaldi Square (the station). Finished with strawberry tart and custard pastry we brought back from Napoli.
