The Events of Monday, March 21, 2011

                Tilt. What a strange sensation. Tilt. There it was again. Groggily, I opened my eyes. Jim was sitting on the side of our bed, getting ready for his walk. Our bed here in this strange apartment in Naples is so hard, it is like sleeping on a wooden plank. And that was just the sensation I was getting. As Jim sat down on the side of the bed, my side rose like the end of a see-saw. Tilt. Finally, I was lowered back to earth and fitfully tried to sleep. The stresses of driving yesterday into Naples twice and the impossible search for parking, twice, had done a number on my stomach. Finally, I gave up and jumped into the shower, only to be disappointed. The shower power and temperature kept fluctuating, low-high, hot-cold. Just as I finished my quiet time and was wondering if I should wake the kids, Jim returned home.

                Jim had had an interesting walk. He had checked on our car; no ticket yet. We are in a “blue” parking spot, which means it is metered. He found it would cost us 20 Euros to park for the whole day. He checked out a “parking lot”, down a narrow side street, run by a seedy, grumpy-looking gentleman that would charge us thirty Euros for the day. Jim had also checked out the neighborhood, some nearby bakeries, and bought some bananas, forgetting he had purchased some the day before at the commissary on the naval base. After he woke the kids, we discussed the parking situation. We decided to purchase a few hours of parking, and then take our chances with the rest. We had not been ticketed in Rome, where things were more orderly and regulated. Here, in Naples, everything is so chaotic that we doubt anyone will be checking parking meters. So after a nice breakfast, where Jim enjoyed some more rum pastries, we headed out for our day. Stopping by a machine, we purchased half a day of parking and put the ticket on the dashboard. Then it was off to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

                Walking, in the daylight, on a weekday morning, Naples doesn’t appear nearly as scary and crazy as it had yesterday. The sidewalks were less crowded, the traffic was less (but still) crazy, and some cars and motorbikes were actually stopping at red lights and pausing for pedestrians to pass. It took a little walking to find the museum, but soon we had purchased our tickets, checked our backpacks and were ready to explore. The building that houses the Archaeological Museum is impressive in its size and grandeur.  Housing Spanish military headquarters in the 16th century and the university in the 17th and 18th centuries, it became the royal museum in 1777. It boasts an extensive collection of statues, mosaics and frescoes rescued from Pompeii and Herculaneum, towns destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The statues were impressive in size and detail, and we all enjoyed the display explaining how the different colors of the frescoes were created. We also learned how these mosaics and frescoes were removed and transported intact (mostly) to the museum. Abby even recognized that the mosaic of the grand Battle of Alexander had been in her social studies textbook. 

                However, there were two exhibits that were the most impressive. The first was in the great hall on the second floor. The hall is basically empty, except its walls and ceiling are covered with paintings and frescoes. Abby noticed that the fresco on the ceiling seemed to portray George and Martha Washington ascending to heaven to receive their laurel crowns. It turns out it was another famous couple that we didn’t recognize, so we stayed with Abby’s description. In this room is a fully functional sundial from 1791. Through a pinhole in the wall high in the corner of the room, the sunlight falls, and, at noon, accurately marks the date on the zodiac signs on the floor below. Since today is the Spring Equinox, we didn’t have to know too much about our zodiac signs. We arrived in the room around 12:15pm and the circle of sunlight on the floor was just off the zodiac sign for the Spring Equinox. Amazing.

                The second exhibit we enjoyed was the scale model of the archaeological site of Pompeii, created in 1879. This model, made of clay, cardboard and wood, takes up most of the room. It is a 1:100 scale model complete with identical frescoes painted on the walls. It shows the town’s protective wall that would keep out enemies, but not molten lava. It shows how the streets were laid out, the two amphitheaters, the remains of houses, courtyards, and pillars and even the bread ovens. The detail is amazing.

                Finishing up the museum, we realized we were hungry. There was a bit of confusion about exiting the museum. It seems that even though the cloak room is located next to the entrance, one must exit the rear of the museum, through the gift shop (hey, I didn’t know we were in Disneyland!), walk all the way around to the front of the museum, essentially re-enter and then you can enter the cloak room to retrieve your belongings. Whew! Finally we exited and made our way to a grassy little plaza nearby. Setting up on benches surrounding a fountain and pool, we enjoyed our lunch of familiar food purchased by Jim at the commissary yesterday. After eating, we revisited the museum to utilize the restrooms, and then we embarked on our walking tour of Naples.

                The Rick Steves’ walking tour of Naples is supposed to take about three hours, and so it did. We walked and walked and walked for three hours. Leaving the Museo Archeologico, we “ambled” down the street for a mile to Piazza Dante, which features a statue of Dante, considered the father of the Italian language and a symbol of nationalism. However, today, his statue was adorned with protest banners about military action in Libya. Passing a few banks, representative of Fascist Architecture, we turned right down an alleyway and headed uphill into the Spanish quarter. Here, the apartments are very close together, so close that they could steal one another’s clothes from the laundry lines hanging from every window.

                Returning to Italy, we made our way to Piazza del Plebiscito. This plaza seemed as big as St. Peter’s Square in Rome, but probably so because it was virtually empty. On one side is the Church of San Francesco di Paola. Facing it across this grand expanse of space is the Royal Palace with statues of all who have stayed there (Norman, German, French, Spanish, Italian) adorning the front façade. The entrance to the Piazza was lined by souvenir hawkers. Just behind them were three dogs, equally spaced about ten feet apart, all aligned with each other and all lying down. I thought they were dead. It was a bit creepy, so I suggested we walk to the center of the Piazza, away from the dead dogs, before Jim read the description to us. Midway through the description, I suddenly realized we were not alone. A sunglasses salesman had brought his portable table of wares and set up shop less than a foot away from Jim’s left shoulder. Creepy‼ The street peddlers of Naples are not as pushy as they were in Rome; however, they are quietly persistent.

                From here, we walked down to the port for a wonderful view of the harbor. The sky was blue, the Mediterranean Sea was blue and the port was bustling. I smiled to realize that we were in Italy, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, seeing in 3-D something that we had only seen on flat maps. Next we swung by the Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest opera house in Europe. Romeo and “Guiletta” will be performed starting Saturday. The kids were disappointed to learn this, as one of the events they had hoped to experience was an Italian Opera, but it was not meant to be. They soon forgot their disappointment as we visited the Galleria Umberto I, a 100-year-old Victorian iron-and-glass shopping mall. Ben was wowed by the architecture, Jim by the mosaics on the floor, and the girls by the red- and green-haired mannequins in the shop windows sporting some very interesting brightly colored ensembles.

                Next, we visited – or attempted to visit – two churches: Church of Gesú Nuovo (New Jesus) and Church of Santa Chiara (Saint Clare). Both were closed until four o’clock, so we decided to visit the sprawling nativity scene in the cloistered courtyard of Santa Chiara. However, just to enter the courtyard now costs five Euros per person, so we decided to take a pass on this. Instead, we opted to take a well earned rest, sitting on benches by the church and wait for the churches to open. Fifteen minutes later, we entered the Church of Gesú Nuovo, and I was amazed at the contrast between the exterior and the interior. The outside is an ugly, dark pyramid facade from a fifteenth century noble palace. The interior is done in a brilliant Neapolitan Baroque style. Every square inch was covered with decoration – gold leaf, frescoes, and marble, all stunning. Hanging in a corner is a bomb casing from WWII that fell through the dome in 1943, but caused little damage. Leaving this church, we found the other was not due to open until 4:30, so we decided to move on and find some refreshment.

                Scaturchio Pasticceria is a little shop lined with pastries whose prices are clearly marked. As we were the only people in the shop, it was not difficult to make our choices known to the woman behind the counter whose English consisted of numbers, “sugar”, “cheese”, “chocolate”, and identifying Jim as “Daddy” and me as “Mom”. Soon, we were out on the Piazza San Domenico Maggiore, enjoying our treats. Each of us had something different. Since I don’t know the names you’ll have to check out our pictures to see what we ordered. Some of them had “cheese”, some had “chocolate”, and all had “sugar”.

                Re-energized, we moved on, stopping at several stops that we chose not to enter due to the fee. We spent a few minutes searching for the Statue of the Nile in what used to be the Egyptian quarter, and stumbled upon it just after we had given up our search. We passed by a large number of jewelry shops and several shops that sold figurines for Nativity displays. These shops also had figurines from all walks of Napoli life, some in action. The kids’ favorites were the ones of mothers giving their children a bath in an old-fashioned barrel.

                Finally, we found that our walk had taken us full circle, and we were on Via Duomo, in the heart of old town Naples, a few blocks from our apartment. We took stock and decided that we’d like to go home to rest for a bit, then venture out for dinner. The famous pizza place we wanted to go to for dinner would not be open again until 7pm. So we headed home. To enter our apartment, we need to use three keys: one into the lobby, one into the hall that leads to our apartment, and one for the apartment. However, we have had difficulty with the final key every time we have tried to use it. Today was no exception, and it took about 15 minutes to finally get into the apartment. There, we rested, slept, read, or blogged, and soon were refreshed and ready for more adventures in Naples.

                Before we headed out, Jim read from the guide book about the area we would be traversing. It turns out that we are staying near the center of the Camorra, the mafia or organized crime of the area. Pizzeria Trianon is located only two tenths of a mile from our apartment, in the heart of the Camorra. However, a lot of living takes place in that short distance. As we made our way single-file through the crowds and up the narrow streets, making room for racing scooters, we saw open-air vegetable markets, widows selling cigarettes from buckets, and hordes of people standing, talking, walking, and smoking. We carried our GPS and soon looked up to find Pizzeria Trianon, established 1923.

                Naples is the birthplace of pizza. Legend has it that pizza was invented to honor Princess Margherita who was to visit Naples. A baker covered dough with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and basil, to represent the colors of the Italian flag and it has been a hit ever since. We entered Pizzeria Trianon shortly after it reopened at 7 pm and were directed upstairs. We had been encouraged to each order our own pizza as the crust is thin and it is a meal in itself. After a bit of decision making, we were ready to order. The waitress set our table with placemats, knife and fork combos rolled in napkins, small plastic glasses and an order slip. It took a bit of communicating to finally tally six pizzas, five Cokes and one beer. Minutes later, our pizzas arrived, hot and steaming and overflowing the platters on which they were served. We took pictures all around, and we soon were eating with gusto. Jim had taken a picture of the waiter carrying three pizzas at once, and he soon returned the favor by taking a picture of us. It was a very enjoyable meal. However, the highlight for the kids occurred during our exit. To pay, we needed to go downstairs to the cashier near the door. While we were standing there, a man arrived with dinner for the restaurant’s workers – bags and bags of food from McDonalds! The kids thought it was hilarious that we Americans had eaten Italian “fast food” – pizza and here these Italians were eating American fast food – McDonalds.

                Leaving the pizza place, we crossed the street for another “must-do” Naples experience – gelato from Polo Nord Gelateria. This is the oldest gelateria in Naples, and has had four generations of family working there since 1931. After tasting some samples, we all ordered and were pleased with the results, except for poor Ben. He had tasted nociolata, and thought he liked what he tried, so he ordered it, only to find out that it included chunks of the rum pastry that we had all passed on to Jim. He was disappointed with his choice and chose to brush his teeth immediately upon our return home. At the gelateria, we ran into some fellow Americans, from Wisconsin. They were following the same guidebook, and had seen us at dinner at the pizza place. We swapped travel stories and advice, and then parted ways.

                On our way home through the mafia neighborhood, Jim was almost beaned in the head by a bucket lowered on a rope. Our guide book had shared that we could patronize a poor lady who sells carrots from her fifth floor apartment by lowering them in a bucket. However, her tactics were a little startling with this bucket appearing through the darkness from the sky. Exhausted from our long day, we were eager to get home and to bed. However, once again we were stalled at the door of our apartment, unable to gain access. After twenty minutes, we had made enough noise to disturb our neighbors, who thought we were lost and belonged in the B&B across the way. By dropping our landlord’s name and showing the keys, we were able to communicate that we belonged in the apartment, and the man had mercy on us and helped us get into the apartment. Quickly getting ready for bed, the kids were all soon asleep. Jim and I soon followed. We had survived our day in Naples without incident.