Napoli- Prima Parte

This weekend in Napoli felt like my first real travel experience--only two of us instead of a big group, hostels instead of hotels, no itinerary, and a city that was so much more than a tourist destination.  I have so much to say and not much time before class, so I'll focus on the city for now and write more about our excursions to surrounding areas later.

At 1am Thursday night/Friday morning, Speranza and I hopped on a train at Bologna Centrale and arrived 8 hours later to a sunny morning in Napoli.  We transferred over to the metro and got off one stop later in the city's historical center, where we quickly found our hostel, Giovanni's Home, located on the third floor of a residential building.  Before we even had time to wash the train filth off of our sweaty selves, Giovanni sat us down with a map of the city and colorful guide books to help us make the most of our three days.  After giving us a quick run-down on Napoli's history, he highlighted a route through town that would take us past all of the places we'd been hoping to visit, adding in his own suggestions and advising us not to waste our time with others that we had thought might be interesting.  He also put a lot of effort into convincing us that Napoli wasn't as dangerous as a lot of people make it out to be--in his opinion, the presence of the Camorra, Napoli's version of the Mafia, means that organized crime replaces random acts of violence, which would be more likely to affect tourists.  In other words, as long as we stayed away from the areas highlighted in purple on our maps, where we could unintentionally end up in the middle of turf wars, we were actually safer than we would be in other, more petty-crime affected cities such as Rome.  He had a bunch of statistics to back this up, but just to be safe, he showed us a few surveillance videos of pick-pockets so we'd learn how to avoid being victims, and he recommended that we walk around with our money on our person instead of in a purse.

The one place where the Camorra's influence was immediately visible was in the amount of trash everywhere--a lot of their power comes from their control over garbage collection.

After a quick lunch of leftovers from the previous night's cooking class back in Bologna, we headed out to start exploring the city.  The first place we saw was the Cappella Sansevero, home to what Giovanni called the second-most beautiful sculpture in the world, next to Michelangelo's David.  Called the Veiled Christ, it's a portrayal of Jesus after the crucification, covered by a thin piece of cloth.  The entire thing was carved from marble, and his musculature is defined and vivid under the extremely realistic folds of the "material" over him.  Two other sculptures, another which was also veiled and one entwined in a marble net, were fascinating as well.

Napoli was without a doubt the busiest place I've ever been--the whole area consists of Greek ruins buried under Roman ruins buried under a modern-day city, itself covered in trash and graffiti, and over all of which swarm people: little boys kicking soccer balls, old woman hoisting buckets with goods from the street up through their windows, and cars and scooters barreling through streets so narrow that pedestrians are forced to press themselves up against the walls of buildings to avoid being run over. 

We got to check out some of the city's layers in an underground tour. Our tour guide spoke really fast (we, with perhaps a bit too much confidence, chose Italian over English), so I didn't pick up a lot of details, but the gist of it was that we were climbing down to a Greek city that the Romans used as an aqueduct and the WWII-era Italians used as a bomb shelter.  At one point, we used candles to explore unlit passageways that were so narrow, we had to walk sideways, which was slightly panic-inducing, but also really cool.

Greek or Roman quarry, can't remember which.

Exploring underground

According to Giovanni, there are Greek roads like these right underneath our hostel.

Back above ground, the city was still it's bustling self, and I never saw it calm down for a second--until Sunday, that is.  We ventured out in search of some fried pizza, one of Napoli's delicacies, and were surprised to find that absolutely nothing was open.  We were able to cross streets without fearing for our lives, and could walk for blocks without seeing another person.  We peered inside some open windows and realized that everyone was home, watching the Napoli vs Roma soccer match.  Each time Napoli scored a goal, the empty streets would erupt with noise--shouts and cheers bursting out from every building.  It gave us goosebumps.

Coming soon: The best pizza in the world and other local food, climbing Vesuvius, a visit to Capri, and new friends