Naples - Napoli

We are staying in the Centro Antico (historic center) of Naples.  To get a sense of what the typical streets are like, imagine the Lower East Side of Manhattan 60 years ago, and then imagine that the streets are narrowed to less than 15 feet wide, so six-story tenements loom over streets so narrow that they never get sunshine.  Finally, imagine buildings covered with graffiti and old posters, and buildings and streets covered with centuries of accumulated grime.

There are some main streets that are wide enough for two lanes of traffic and sidewalks (no parking lanes), and there are many alleys as narrow as six feet, but those 15-foot streets give the neighborhood its feel. They are just barely wide enough for a car to pass a pedestrian or a parked motorcycle. In fact, the taxi driver who took us from the station hit a parked motorcycle on the way, everyone standing around it grabbed it before it hit the ground and stood it up again, and the driver went on as if nothing had happened.

To top it off, motorcycles go the wrong way on these streets; you can imagine how tight it gets when a motorcycle going the wrong way passes cars going the right way.  Motorcycles and scooters routinely disobey the law: they treat red lights to mean yield right of way rather than stop, and they weave in and out among cars and pedestrians at high speeds.

But occasionally the narrow streets open up into little plazas with monuments or magnificent churches. The best one is Santa Chiara monastery, which has a large courtyard surrounded by murals of biblical scenes and tiles showing rural scenes; the courtyard itself is filled with orange trees, benches with tiles showing rural scenes, and columns with tiles of decorative foliage.

There is also one excellent restaurant after another with outdoor seating wherever there is room to fit it in.

There are tiny stores, only about fifteen feet wide by twenty feet deep, with very limited selections. We shop at a couple of local grocery stores with just a deli counter with cold cuts and cheese, one small refrigerator case, and about 15 shelves of packaged groceries, and there are equally small stores selling limited selections of clothing, books, meat, dark glasses, pizza, pastries, and so on

There are local pastries that cannot be found anywhere but Naples, and the souvenir stores sell endless variations on Pulcinello, whom we haven't seen anywhere else.

Walk a short distance to the waterfront, and things change completely.  The Gulf of Naples is beautiful, with a view of Mount Vesuvius. There are well maintained old Italianate buildings that look freshly painted (they paint masonry buildings here), clean streets, and even normal size grocery stores.

In the park next to the waterfront, individuals sell amusements to the children. One person brings a pony, and sits on a bench waiting for parents to buy their children pony rides.  Two people bring coin-operated bumper cars (actually bumper motorcycles) and the children insert coins and ride around on the sidewalk bumping each other.

There is a lot here that is very appealing, but it is still hard for me to see past the grime, graffiti, and aggressive motorcyclists.