tales of wander

It hasn’t all been about food since I arrived (though maybe a little). I’ve also done a lot of sightseeing to get a feel for the city. I mentioned before that Naples is loud, dirty, and chaotic—while I still stand by those descriptors, they barely skim the surface of a city that has so much going on that it’s hard to pin down. I’ve been to many Italian cities at this point and I can honestly say that none of them are quite like Naples. 

Yet, interestingly, Naples is exactly what Hollywood depictions of Italy are based on, which is not surprising given that many of the Italians who immigrated to the US came from this region. So, imagine the most cliché version of Italy you can think of: laundry hanging from balconies above narrow streets, open air markets with vendors trying to sell you something, scooters and motorbikes buzzing their way through the crowd, restaurants with crowded outdoor seating, and people yelling—at each other, to get your attention, on their phones, or just to make their voices heard above the din. Add to that visible signs of poverty and some of the craziest traffic I’ve seen in Western Europe and you’d have just a slice of Naples. 

To get just a little more of the pie, you’d need beautiful, historic buildings from various ages and architectural styles, medieval castles, a hilltop fortress, and ruins that just seem to pop up at you while you’re walking through the old town. Just today I visited a part of the city that was so drastically different from the parts I’ve seen that I had to add yet another slice to the pie. Naples seems to be a place of contradictions. In this respect, it reminds me just a little bit of my experience of India—stay with me here—yes, that’s a completely different culture, but it’s a place similarly overwhelming—full of noise, dirt, and visible poverty—and yet beautiful at the same time. It’s a place that has that something.

While I’ve been enjoying examining slices of the Naples pie, I was also relieved to get out of the oven, so to speak. Here are a few of the day trips I took: 

Sorrento: Sorrento is a picturesque cliff-top town about an hour south of Naples. It’s a popular place to visit for those looking to escape the chaos of Naples, or to stay a while for those visiting the Amalfi Coast and nearby islands (all of which are things I’ll miss seeing on this trip—alas, the list of ‘places to see’ grows ever longer as I travel, not shorter). Nevertheless, Sorrento was a nice temporary substitute for the Amalfi Coast, offering a lively main center, a charming historic old town with lots of great shopping, colorful marinas, and streets overflowing with limoncello (Sorrento is home to many citrus groves, so lemons are a big focus). It was the perfect spot to get away from the noise and sample some of the best gelato I’ve had this entire trip (and that’s saying a lot!). 

Pompeii: The day before visiting the ancient city, I took a friend’s advice and visited Naples’ National Archeological Museum to see its collection of the artifacts that were recovered from Pompeii so I could visually place them when I visited in person. I was amazed by the quantity and quality of what was at the museum—beautiful mosaics, frescoes, pottery, glass, portraits, statues—a glimpse into the wealth of the city and the lives of the people who died so tragically. 

Then, the next day, I visited Pompeii. We all know the story of how it was buried under ash when Mount Vesuvius blew in 79AD, and I think we all have a mental picture of what it might look like based on that story. In my mind, I pictured the ruins to be truly ruined—as gray as the plaster casts of its dead—a place so skeletal and desolate that it’d require a lot of imagination to get the context of what I was seeing. So when I went to the actual site, I was blown away. It wasn’t just that I’d seen the artifacts at the museum the day before, but the ruins themselves weren’t nearly as bare as I imagined them and the outlines of what remains are clear enough that one can easily fill in the blanks. Though the city had been covered in 13-20 feet of volcanic ash, the ash acted to preserve it—not destroy it—and in doing so, provide us with a snapshot of an advanced, wealthy Roman city, complete with palatial homes with tiled atriums and courtyards, temples, public buildings, bakeries, theaters, forums, brothels, public baths, and fast-food places just outside all the busiest public spaces(!). There are even 2000-year-old lead pipes running under the city streets and into the homes, indicating the homes had running water and bathrooms. Amazing. While I wasn’t keen on the amount of tourists that I had to navigate on a weekday, I can see why 2.5 million people come to see this site every year.

That’s a snapshot of my time in Naples, which is now nearing an end. It’s been a fun city to uncover, layer by layer, but it’s nearly time to return home…