Sunday, March 28, 2004
The clocks have gone forward and it’s officially summer. The Neapolitans eschew New Year’s Resolutions and instead start their diets when the clocks change. It gives them two months to get into shape before they will be strutting along the beach in the tiniest swimwear available. I, on the other hand, celebrate the longer evenings by buying a large icecream and filling my face with cassata. Prices in the local shop have gone up another 20 cents since Xmas, 13% increase, and yet Berlusconi tells us there is no inflation to speak of.
Last summer I mistakenly got off a ferry at Pozzuoli. It seemed a dreary place and I spent my twenty minutes there trying to find a train to take me back to Naples. Today, however, I awoke and decided I should give it another try. It was a favourite spot of the Greeks and Romans, and they have left ample traces of their favouritism, the largest and most imposing being the Flavian amphitheatre which is but a hop and skip from the train station. It is, so the signs tell, the 3rd largest amphitheatre in Italy, and considering it is in the amongst the shops and houses of Pozzuoli it hasn’t fared too badly over the years. Admittedly the height is not what it was, but that isn’t the main attraction here. Below the floor, all the tunnels are still intact, and it’s a fascinating way to spend half an hour. It’s very easy to imagine the slaves, animals and gladiators being herded down the narrow pathways and cooped up in their cages before being let loose on the paying public.
I shared my thirty minutes with a coachload of French schoolchildren, and found myself imagining how they would be dismembered by wild animals if only any were to hand. One of my students, ( she’s a numismatist who wants to speak English as ‘it is speaked’), works at the big museum and told me that without a shadow of doubt, French children are the worst behaved, naughty and thoroughly unpleasant beings to have in the hallowed portals of the archaeogical museum. It seems they are wont to clamber on anything that has a ‘Do Not Clamber’ sign, run around precious objects at high velocity, totally ignore any helpful guides and generally behave as they are practicing for a student demonstration when they get to college.
Having watched the little buggers climb all over the ancient ruins, dive under the ‘do not enter’ signs and try and dislodge Roman bricks to take home, I was inclined to agree with her.
Fortunately the French were not at the Solfatara, a kilometer up the hill. A volcano that isn’t extinct, but which has numerous vents chucking vast amount of sulphurous smoke into the crater is what the Solfatara is. What’s more, for the payment of a couple of quid you can walk across the warm ash and inhale the toxic fumes. In fact most people in Pozzuoli can do the latter, as the place stinks and you know you are getting near to the entrance when the smell of bad eggs takes over from jasmine and wisteria.
Here there were Germans. A happy nuclear family sitting atop a fumarole, getting warm bums and lung cancer. In the olden days, it was considered highly efficacious of inhale the sulphuric gases. There’s even a little Victorian ‘sauna’ wherein people would sit for a minute or so, sweating and trying to breathe. The German wife tried it, sweated inside her cagoule, breathed and hit her head on the roof very hard as she came out. So not that efficacious then, unless concussion was part of her prescription.
As patches of free ground are not easy to come by in Naples, they have to take them where they can find them. For this reason half of the crater, away from the steaming vents, has been given over to a campsite. It’s 3 stars, and is therefore quite posh, there is a sign on the entrance, telling car drivers and anyone other likely offender ‘DO NOT HORN’. I wouldn’t dare. After 8.30 in the evening it is absolutely forbidden to walk across the hot mud, instead, you lie in your tent hoping that the wind doesn’t change direction and you won’t be asphyxiated in the night.
Down in the port area of Pozzuoli there is a little village like enclave which is returning to life after having been restored. The effects of Bradyism, which is not anything to do with the Brady Bunch unfortunately, but rather is the rise and fall of the land over a long period, mean that the old city is now under the water. The cliff atop of which sits the most ancient part of Pozzuoli was evacuated years ago as it was slowly sliding downwards. It is just in the process of reopening after a hugely lengthy restoration, and I might well venture in one day, when it's open.
Last summer I mistakenly got off a ferry at Pozzuoli. It seemed a dreary place and I spent my twenty minutes there trying to find a train to take me back to Naples. Today, however, I awoke and decided I should give it another try. It was a favourite spot of the Greeks and Romans, and they have left ample traces of their favouritism, the largest and most imposing being the Flavian amphitheatre which is but a hop and skip from the train station. It is, so the signs tell, the 3rd largest amphitheatre in Italy, and considering it is in the amongst the shops and houses of Pozzuoli it hasn’t fared too badly over the years. Admittedly the height is not what it was, but that isn’t the main attraction here. Below the floor, all the tunnels are still intact, and it’s a fascinating way to spend half an hour. It’s very easy to imagine the slaves, animals and gladiators being herded down the narrow pathways and cooped up in their cages before being let loose on the paying public.
I shared my thirty minutes with a coachload of French schoolchildren, and found myself imagining how they would be dismembered by wild animals if only any were to hand. One of my students, ( she’s a numismatist who wants to speak English as ‘it is speaked’), works at the big museum and told me that without a shadow of doubt, French children are the worst behaved, naughty and thoroughly unpleasant beings to have in the hallowed portals of the archaeogical museum. It seems they are wont to clamber on anything that has a ‘Do Not Clamber’ sign, run around precious objects at high velocity, totally ignore any helpful guides and generally behave as they are practicing for a student demonstration when they get to college.
Having watched the little buggers climb all over the ancient ruins, dive under the ‘do not enter’ signs and try and dislodge Roman bricks to take home, I was inclined to agree with her.
Fortunately the French were not at the Solfatara, a kilometer up the hill. A volcano that isn’t extinct, but which has numerous vents chucking vast amount of sulphurous smoke into the crater is what the Solfatara is. What’s more, for the payment of a couple of quid you can walk across the warm ash and inhale the toxic fumes. In fact most people in Pozzuoli can do the latter, as the place stinks and you know you are getting near to the entrance when the smell of bad eggs takes over from jasmine and wisteria.
Here there were Germans. A happy nuclear family sitting atop a fumarole, getting warm bums and lung cancer. In the olden days, it was considered highly efficacious of inhale the sulphuric gases. There’s even a little Victorian ‘sauna’ wherein people would sit for a minute or so, sweating and trying to breathe. The German wife tried it, sweated inside her cagoule, breathed and hit her head on the roof very hard as she came out. So not that efficacious then, unless concussion was part of her prescription.
As patches of free ground are not easy to come by in Naples, they have to take them where they can find them. For this reason half of the crater, away from the steaming vents, has been given over to a campsite. It’s 3 stars, and is therefore quite posh, there is a sign on the entrance, telling car drivers and anyone other likely offender ‘DO NOT HORN’. I wouldn’t dare. After 8.30 in the evening it is absolutely forbidden to walk across the hot mud, instead, you lie in your tent hoping that the wind doesn’t change direction and you won’t be asphyxiated in the night.
Down in the port area of Pozzuoli there is a little village like enclave which is returning to life after having been restored. The effects of Bradyism, which is not anything to do with the Brady Bunch unfortunately, but rather is the rise and fall of the land over a long period, mean that the old city is now under the water. The cliff atop of which sits the most ancient part of Pozzuoli was evacuated years ago as it was slowly sliding downwards. It is just in the process of reopening after a hugely lengthy restoration, and I might well venture in one day, when it's open.
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Tufo is an amazing thing. It's used for everything here, buildings, roads and pavements. The most desirable form of this stone is the Vesuvian, which comes from just down the road. In recent years the commune has preferred to import tufo from Etna, but ours is not to reason why... merely assume that organised crime has something to do with the awarding of the contracts.
Here its been raining for two days, and yet a mere half an hour after the rain stops, the roads are bone dry. Tufo is like a sponge, a highly porous but incredibly strong and durable stone, that soaks up any moisture. It means that the problem in the Uk of run-off, when millions of litres slides off impermeable tarmac and straight into the rivers, doesn't exist here. The rain simply soaks straight through the tufo and out the other side. Which explains the damage done when alot of water washes away the substrata of sand and earth, leading to huge craters in the roads.
There are more problems when using tufo to build houses, as my wringingly damp flat will testify. The water soaks straight through the stone and come out on the inside... the problem of damp flats in Naples is so endemic it is a rarity for anyone not to have damp patches in winter time.
Here its been raining for two days, and yet a mere half an hour after the rain stops, the roads are bone dry. Tufo is like a sponge, a highly porous but incredibly strong and durable stone, that soaks up any moisture. It means that the problem in the Uk of run-off, when millions of litres slides off impermeable tarmac and straight into the rivers, doesn't exist here. The rain simply soaks straight through the tufo and out the other side. Which explains the damage done when alot of water washes away the substrata of sand and earth, leading to huge craters in the roads.
There are more problems when using tufo to build houses, as my wringingly damp flat will testify. The water soaks straight through the stone and come out on the inside... the problem of damp flats in Naples is so endemic it is a rarity for anyone not to have damp patches in winter time.
Sunday, March 21, 2004
The first day of Spring, and the weather in Naples is less than springlike. Cloudy and damp. All over Italy the Fondo Ambiente has thrown open the doors of buildings for the interested to have a nosy round. In Naples there are just two buildings on the open list. This is mainly because May is the month when tourists and Neapolitans alike can poke around otherwise closed buildings. Today was merely a rehearsal.
Having nothing better to do, I ventured into the Basilica of San Giovanne Maggiore at the bottom of my road. A colossal, typically baroque, church greets the eye, but the high altar shows it to be a colossal typically baroque church, built over a Roman temple and, in turn, a Greek temple. The restoration has peeled back the layers and its fascinating to see a marble pilaster of the high Baroque, next to a Roman corinthian column above a Greek pavement. And its one less to see in May.
Having nothing better to do, I ventured into the Basilica of San Giovanne Maggiore at the bottom of my road. A colossal, typically baroque, church greets the eye, but the high altar shows it to be a colossal typically baroque church, built over a Roman temple and, in turn, a Greek temple. The restoration has peeled back the layers and its fascinating to see a marble pilaster of the high Baroque, next to a Roman corinthian column above a Greek pavement. And its one less to see in May.
Friday, March 19, 2004
March 19
Today is Father’s Day, not in the vulgarised American tradition of ‘pick a Sunday in part of the year when Hallmark doesn’t sell many cards and invent a day to ‘honour’ your male parent, but because it’s Saint Joseph’s day. Nit picking Bible buffs may say that Joseph wasn’t the biological father of the Baby Jesus, but that is only a minor detail here. More importantly Saint Joseph is the patron saint of working men, which resonates more strongly in Naples than elsewhere in the peninsula. Certainly, I would rather that the day celebrated the man who was Christ’s adoptive father than somewhere in June between ‘Thank you for being my pet day’ and ‘Happy haircut’ day. Perhaps there is a movement in America to outlaw Fathers’ Day as it denigrates single mothers. I don’t care. What is of immediate importance is that the bars are selling a special bun to celebrate the festa of San Giuseppe. It’s a sort of baba, with cream and cherries. I don’t think Nazareth had patisseries like Naples, but then no doubt there is a folktale somewhere that tells of Joseph being a Neapolitan.
A survey in the paper asked how many Italians believed in reincarnation. Actually it was phrased as ‘Would you like to come back as a tree’ which seemed a little biased against our Buddhist friends. The answer was 4%. Not that surprising in a Catholic country, where the Church can barely sanction, let alone promote, the idea that purgatory may only be a stopping point on the way to the heavenly garden centre.
More telling was the fact that 74% of respondents would come back as a man, with only 12 % as a women, which is proof, it were needed, of the balance of Italian society, and may account for the fact that father’s day has a special bun whereas the festa delle donne has some rather nasty yellow weeds as its symbol.
Now spring has arrived I find myself starting to explore areas of the city which have thus far been a closed book to me. As the weather is warmer and the evenings are steadily lengthening, I have ample time and opportunity to wander at will around the city. Having avoided churches for the first six months of my stay, I now discover my feet leading me into some. It’s not difficult. Naples must have more churches per square kilometer than any other city. For those disposed to cross themselves as they pass churches and shrines, such actions must be done almost continually leading the casual observer to think the religious one is in the early stages of Parkinson disease.
Amongst the proliferation of Baroque temples there are a handful of churches that haven’t suffered at the hands of the restorers. The Neapolitans obviously gathered the baroque style to their collective bosom, as its more colourful and busier than the more spare, formal Gothic which predated it. Exuberant is a word that springs to mind. But then so is overblown kitsch confection. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Today is Father’s Day, not in the vulgarised American tradition of ‘pick a Sunday in part of the year when Hallmark doesn’t sell many cards and invent a day to ‘honour’ your male parent, but because it’s Saint Joseph’s day. Nit picking Bible buffs may say that Joseph wasn’t the biological father of the Baby Jesus, but that is only a minor detail here. More importantly Saint Joseph is the patron saint of working men, which resonates more strongly in Naples than elsewhere in the peninsula. Certainly, I would rather that the day celebrated the man who was Christ’s adoptive father than somewhere in June between ‘Thank you for being my pet day’ and ‘Happy haircut’ day. Perhaps there is a movement in America to outlaw Fathers’ Day as it denigrates single mothers. I don’t care. What is of immediate importance is that the bars are selling a special bun to celebrate the festa of San Giuseppe. It’s a sort of baba, with cream and cherries. I don’t think Nazareth had patisseries like Naples, but then no doubt there is a folktale somewhere that tells of Joseph being a Neapolitan.
A survey in the paper asked how many Italians believed in reincarnation. Actually it was phrased as ‘Would you like to come back as a tree’ which seemed a little biased against our Buddhist friends. The answer was 4%. Not that surprising in a Catholic country, where the Church can barely sanction, let alone promote, the idea that purgatory may only be a stopping point on the way to the heavenly garden centre.
More telling was the fact that 74% of respondents would come back as a man, with only 12 % as a women, which is proof, it were needed, of the balance of Italian society, and may account for the fact that father’s day has a special bun whereas the festa delle donne has some rather nasty yellow weeds as its symbol.
Now spring has arrived I find myself starting to explore areas of the city which have thus far been a closed book to me. As the weather is warmer and the evenings are steadily lengthening, I have ample time and opportunity to wander at will around the city. Having avoided churches for the first six months of my stay, I now discover my feet leading me into some. It’s not difficult. Naples must have more churches per square kilometer than any other city. For those disposed to cross themselves as they pass churches and shrines, such actions must be done almost continually leading the casual observer to think the religious one is in the early stages of Parkinson disease.
Amongst the proliferation of Baroque temples there are a handful of churches that haven’t suffered at the hands of the restorers. The Neapolitans obviously gathered the baroque style to their collective bosom, as its more colourful and busier than the more spare, formal Gothic which predated it. Exuberant is a word that springs to mind. But then so is overblown kitsch confection. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
The evenings are lengthening and there is real heat in the sun. Consequently the via Partenope and the other roads on the sea front are submerged under parked cars, 3 and four abreast. Needless to say, the papers are full of outrage, the latest victims being taxi drivers. I find it hard to say victims and taxi drivers in the same sentence, as in all my dealing with Neapolitan taxis the only victim is me. Nevertheless the general feeling amongst all citizens is that something has to be done. No doubt those who quadruple park only do so under duress, but here once someone has broken the law it’s only fair that everybody else follow suit.
Already the tourist season has started. For three days the commune played host to 600 American travel agents, trying to cajole them into sending package tours of John Jason Juniors and Mary-Belles to complain about the litter, noise, food and people. The group I saw took no interest in their surrounding but had their faces thrust deep into The Wall Street journal, icecreams and, unaccountably, a guide to Munich. There is a dearth of one and two star hotels in the city, and I toy with the idea of selling up in England and opening a B&B in the city centre. I entertain myself with the image of knocking up a nice breakfast and playing mine host, guiding strangers around the centro storico and regaling them with stories over long lunches. Then I remembered I hate tourists and the fantasy recedes rapidly.
Already the tourist season has started. For three days the commune played host to 600 American travel agents, trying to cajole them into sending package tours of John Jason Juniors and Mary-Belles to complain about the litter, noise, food and people. The group I saw took no interest in their surrounding but had their faces thrust deep into The Wall Street journal, icecreams and, unaccountably, a guide to Munich. There is a dearth of one and two star hotels in the city, and I toy with the idea of selling up in England and opening a B&B in the city centre. I entertain myself with the image of knocking up a nice breakfast and playing mine host, guiding strangers around the centro storico and regaling them with stories over long lunches. Then I remembered I hate tourists and the fantasy recedes rapidly.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
A keen north wind sends me seeking shelter in the Museum at Capodimonte, due to a cock up on the washing front and a distinct lack of thermal vests. I had avoided this museum for six months on the grounds of a) waiting for a cold wet day, and b) not having a passion for baroque Neapolitan art. It served me right. The place is stuffed to the ginnels with Old Masters, and it’s huge. Admittedly there are no famous pictures that have been made into mouse mats and ceramic plates lovingly hand finished with 9 carat gold in a limited edition of two million, but there is lots to see. Bruegel, Van Dyck, Rubens, Caravaggio, Canova, Titians galore, and even a Renoir. This last is the first of his nude bathers, which he daubed while on a boat in the Bay of Naples, and just goes to show that if at first you don’t succeed,……
Stuck up on the third floor, a warehouse that has been attached to the roof houses a modern art collection, which includes a whole wall of black crazy paving, some neon lit newspapers and an Andy Warhol painting of Vesuvius. Add in to this heady mix the royal apartments newly painted in vivid blues and purples and it’s quite a museum. Typically, the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the stairs. The rooms are so high that there are four flights of stairs, 68 in all, between each floor. It must have been a bugger to heat. And I only saw one fireplace.
Stuck up on the third floor, a warehouse that has been attached to the roof houses a modern art collection, which includes a whole wall of black crazy paving, some neon lit newspapers and an Andy Warhol painting of Vesuvius. Add in to this heady mix the royal apartments newly painted in vivid blues and purples and it’s quite a museum. Typically, the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the stairs. The rooms are so high that there are four flights of stairs, 68 in all, between each floor. It must have been a bugger to heat. And I only saw one fireplace.
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