Tale of Three Cities – Part 3 of 3: Napoli, the Medieval city.

And another late post from our southern Italy trip to Rome, Naples, and Pompeii -- the third (and last!) installment!

I had read enough about Naples to know that it was a rather different city than the others we have visited. Although home to gelato and pizza, it is also a site of organized crime, ineffective city government, and 30% unemployment – not pleasing to either residents or tourists. Still, I wasn’t quite prepared for what we saw exiting the rather shabby train station. A different face of Italy, without a doubt.

Wednesday, 12 November:
Battling traffic in the piazza (usually traffic free), racing across a street to avoid being run over (no pedestrian crossways), and unable to find any street signs (where were they anyway?), I was about ready to turn around and catch the first train back to Rome. I asked a waitress where our hotel’s street was; she wasn’t sure (not a good sign, I thought). However, a nice elderly man came out of the café and directed us down only one block and there indeed was a sign for Hotel Nuovo Rebecchino. The hotel is very clean and pleasant; while the maid finished with the room (we were a bit early), the staff served us some tea. Our room was wonderful, very comfortable – and included a Jacuzzi, much appreciated after walking all over Rome.
Since the skies had clouded over, we decided to take in the Archeological Museum that afternoon, hoping for clearer weather another day for Pompeii. We walked to the Museum, and the sights along the way were a sharp contrast to everywhere else we had been. Trash, piled high on streets and sidewalks, was an efficient depository for those who had had too much to drink; traffic, loud and angry, ignored the few signal lights as drivers found sidewalks efficient ways around congestion; tramps and other “interesting” working people casually mingled with the crowds.
The Museum itself is excellent, although it is not kept up as it should be for its important collections. Much of what had been excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum is here: frescoes, dinnerware and pottery, tools, even some fabric remnants. The rain persisted on the way back. Not wanting to walk far for dinner, we asked the hotel for a recommendation. A block and a half away was a wonderful restaurant with lots of fish dishes. Naples is a port city after all. Tim was in his glory, and the maitre d’ clearly enjoyed his work. We met an American couple there; they come to Italy frequently to visit her relatives.
Heading back to the hotel, we saw a bit of Napoli’s night life: a man/woman (?) advertising his/her (?) wares enjoying the whistles from passing cars; a pick-up further down; some sort of goods & monetary exchange in an alley. It felt good to be back in the hotel.

Thursday, 13 November:
We woke to more rain, and after an excellent hotel breakfast, we opted to read and catch up on e-mail in our room. By early afternoon, the skies had cleared, and we visited some of the churches, including the Duomo and Cappella Saneverno for Guiseppe Sammartino’s moving sculpture, The Veiled Christ. San Gennaro, Naples’ Duomo, was built at the end of the 13th century. Its museum features much silver, one of the valuable metals in the area. According to the legend, the blood of San Gennaro (Naples’ patron saint) is contained in phials there and becomes liquid 3 days of the year; should is not, the city will have bad luck. I thought about all I had seen there and guessed that probably the blood had not liquified for some time! Later, our hotel directed to us another close-by restaurant, and again, we had a good meal. The same man/woman (?) was out as we made our way back, evidently unfazed by the pouring rain. Later a thunderstorm rolled in; we were quite happy to be cozy in our room.

Friday, 14 November:
After breakfast, we took the local train to Pompeii, passing in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius on the way. The site of what had been an extremely advanced and progressive city was phenomenal. Emma thought the ruins a wonderful maze; Abbey went crazy with the camera; Tim & I could only imagine what terror those people experienced with the 79 AD eruption. Ash and smoke killed most of the estimated 2000 victims; Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, witnessed the event with his nephew, Pliny the Younger; unfortunately the Elder ventured too close and suffocated. Careful excavation revealed much about life there: a prosperous civilization with some wealthy villas and a comfortable working class. Evidently much of Pompeii has yet to excavated. Although it was discovered in the late 1500's, archeologists really worked on it beginning in 1748. (Wasn’t that when Samuel Richardson published Pamela that prompted Henry Fielding’s satires, Shamela and Joseph Andrews? No connection; just a random insertion to see if anyone is paying attention!)
A storm rolled in, after which the most beautiful double rainbow I have ever seen appeared. With more clouds in the distance, we wisely decided not to venture down to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, now enveloped in fog. We trained back to our hotel, had dinner where we did the first night there, and packed for our 8:30 train back to Paderno the next day.
Naples had been a good experience. More like West Philadelphia with its dirt, graffiti, and atmosphere than like its sister Italian cities, Naples reminded us that beauty of a once great Medieval city can succumb to human greed and short-sightedness. It is a different face of Italy, a sad one, I suspect.