Naples is a pile of shit with flowers growing out of it. The pungent odor of life in this intoxicating city was dizzying. Known most recently for overflowing with trash due to mafia corruption, our first impression of this notoriously dirty, dangerous, and hectic city lived up to the expectations 100%. Dodging Italians on motor scooters, running across lanes of unregulated traffic, getting lost in dark unmarked alleyways…Ah, Italia, there is nothing quite like you. This was the beginning of our tour of Southern Italy. We were based in Naples, the southern metropolis and the birthplace of pizza, but spent only a little time in the city. One thing has to be said for the capital of the boot heel, the food was very rich and pure and the people were genuine and vibrant. A person with a love for order and efficiency would blow a gasket staying in Italy; it takes a special kind of patience, alertness and laissez faire attitude to feel comfortable in the buzzing but ultimately slow-moving lifestyle.
Or first trip out of the city was to the famous island of Capri. An hour off shore, Capri was first used as a favorite holiday retreat for Roman emperors in AD 27 and it is crystal clear why. Flavorful pastel homes built up the cliff sides, long winding stairways, and treasure troves of sea coves (ha), all of it was right out of a postcard. The island is very small and is separated down the middle by a few mountains with the city of Capri on the East side and the city of Anacapri on the West. I had to wonder, with names like these, do these two towns have an enormous football rivalry or what?
After spending some time in the blue lagoon on the North side of Capri, my numero-uno swimming spot in the world as of now, we took the rickety little bus along the mountain ridge to Anacapri. The towns are identical. We picked up a bottle of the local liqueur, limoncello, which is a syrupy lemon based liquor (80 proof); it goes really well with sparkling water and immense amounts of sunlight. Most of the day was spent wandering white stone staircases, eating local vegetables and cheeses and bathing in Capri sun (not to be confused with the fruit punch, Capri Sun, because that would be messy).
Our next day was a trip to the archaeological dig of Pompeii. Pompeii was a Roman city destroyed by the volcano Mt Vesuvius in AD 79 which preserved most of the city (and a few inhabitants) under a river of ash for centuries. And so it went, one disaster for a Roman granary town turned into a jackpot of relics and insight into Roman life for archaeologists. The city was surprisingly large, much larger than the adjacent New Pompeii. We walked for hours up and down the wide cobblestone paths (which we later discovered were used as open sewers). Perhaps the most interesting sight, if I am permitted to say, were the bodies that were frozen in their last contorted expressions as the tons of poisonous gas pouring down from the volcano suffocated them and even more tons of ash covered their freshly dead bodies. The organic material was left to decompose under the ash and when it was completely deteriorated it left a cavity in the ash that was then filled with a liquid chalk to give us:
The city also had a remarkable intact coliseum, amphitheatre, and many bakeries, manors, private estates, and street front shops. We followed a tour group around for a while and really learned some interesting facts. Pompeii, aside from its unique volcanic history, is also famous for providing the world with the first recorded instances of graffiti. Ancient Romans wrote all over the walls advertising politics, religion, sales of goods, and even insults. The variety of messages ranged from “the finances officer of the emperor Nero says this food is poison” to “Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls” to “Chie, I hope your hemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than they ever have before!”. So, as the tour guide Enzo liked to say, the lives of humans change very little (except we engineer our rivers of poop to flow underground).
Our final trip was down a stretch of Southern Italy known as the Amalfi Coast. We took a ferry ride along the bay passing the cities of Sorrento, Positano, and finally docking in the city of Amalfi. To me the Amalfi Coast seems to be an experiment in beautiful living. Everything had a custom feel to it, thorough, rich and flavorful. Old ladies picking enormous lemons, children chasing each other down the streets with sticks, an old woman grocer who piled a bunch of vegetables in a bag for me as if she could sense exactly how much of what I needed, delicious wine, fresh mozzarella cheese, the stereotypical fat Italian baker wearing a tank-top and an apron: we were tasting the heart and soul of the Italian South.
A wonderful trip, it really felt like a good slice of Italian life. There are dozens of pictures on Picasa that really communicate the variety of the trip. I am very happy that we decided to get out of the city and do a more local tour; it turned out to be unforgettable.
Buon Giorno!
Thomas
