With Nonna's words of advice to avoid Napoli like the plague ringing clear in our minds, we got off the train in Napoli at the outer Garibaldi station and followed the crowds, ever conscious of keeping our hands in our pockets over our wallets and valuables, and for good reason. Not 3 hours earlier in Rome I had a hand in my jacket pocket- maybe he was just trying to keep warm.
Napoli has a running history as a Gang land town- akin to Melbourne, but in Napoli it is actually a functional underworld that runs the city. In the past year there has been some debate over the adequacy of the local government as the refuse systems in place fell into disarray because of an underworld falling out. Garbage piled on the streets after a feud between underworld figures caused the trash collection to become non-existent. The reported number of shootings is dropping, but that could just be because they are not being reported. We took it all with a grain of salt as we navigated our way about 6 stations from the edge of town to our hostel station Portici del Liberta. It did give us a laugh though as we walked down the bustling shop lined city street, and we were greeted with what we though was a public open air disco that turned out to be the aftermath of something a little more sinister. An Ambulance- the first on the scene, with its crew of 3 standing on the sidewalk obviously stressed, paced frantically as police on motorbikes and cars tried to pick their way through the peak hour 6pm traffic and the crowd of around 400 on-lookers that was growing, forming their own barrier a good 20m away. We wondered what was happening, until the police arrived and we noticed the medics were refusing to enter the building until they had a police escort- A bit unusual we thought. We never did find out what happened there, and took it as our cue to leave when the count got to 2 ambulances, 5 police vehicles, a fire and rescue truck and a number of local carabinieri. Welcome to Napoli!
Our hostel here is pretty sweet I have to say. 14 EUR, free internets, a number of huge flat screen TVs around, sat TV, a huge DVD collection, instruments to whip out and jam with, a ping pong table and 1.50 EUR 660mL Peroni beeros! The last carton of Peroni I scored in Aus set me back $48- here it works out to $20 at pub prices. The rave-style strobe and siren welcome to town aside, the place has been a sweet experience and a stark contrast from what we were expecting. We are based in the cheaper part of town, our street becoming a 1km long market place every day, the main street a mix of one-euro stores and top end fashion, and the traino connecting us to everything we were interested in: Sorrento beach, Amalfi coast, Pompeii, town... Awesome.
The first day into it, we decided to scrap our initial plans of a pompeii trip and headed with Will, the part-time accountant and full time traveller/rally driver/drinking buddy from Tassie (not sure where that is) and hired a Renault to cruise the winding Amalfi coast road towards Salerno. I was more than happy to ride shotgun on this one with Will behind the wheel and as I navigated our way through town and down the coast, I once again got a new appreciation for Lynda's skills at navigation when I have driven as I discovered street with no signs, ones that are not marked on the map when they quite clearly exist outside the comfortable metal cage we were sheltering from the local crazies in, and other streets that are marked on the map as being 2-way, but are quite the opposite, and you will be losing your deposit if you argue with the stream of buses coming down them. At the tip of the peninsula that Sorrento beach is on, we once again discovered the elusive figs and I contracted Will to share my burden. Long story short: the sour grapes fable extends to figs. If I had my drag chain from my 4WD here, there would be a legacy of fig tree devastation trailing our Renault Scenic.
Along the coast there were all sorts of pleasant and not so pleasant scenes to be seen- not so pleasant is a public or tourist coach spontaneously appearing in the middle of the road at the apex of a blind hairpin corner. On the other extreme is the sight of a sparkling sunset across an ocean facing mountain side, now converted to a giant staircase of white washed hotels and houses precariously balanced on rocky outcrops chiseled into the cliff. At the half way point from Sorrento to Salerno, we stopped in at a local restaurant that was perched on stilts at a hairpin bend. The view was awesome across the olive tree fields and whitewashed houses with bright orange terracotta rooves as we got stuck into the Napoli specialities- local vino, antipasto and pasta/brace. Come 6pm we tried to head back to return the car- say tried, as the Autostrada that criss crosses Italy can be a bit of a challenge at the best of times, let alone peak hour. A 4-way intersection we came across for example quickly deteriorated into a 5-lane traffic jam of cars facing any of 10 different directions. I have to salute will on his use of the horn and traffic jam finesse- Conservative but effective, we were up there with the locals- merging, tooting and swerving with the best of them. Armed with his trusty whistle-compass we managed to get ourselves across 4 different highways and back into familiar territory senza scrapes or any panel damage!
The next day after a bit of a boozeathon with the other hostel residents studying 3rd class captaincy at a local uni for their fishing trawler, tanker and freight liners, we set off to Pompeii. Smashed by an earthquake in the first century AD, the town was under some serious reparations and rebuilding efforts by the emperor Octavius when there was a thundering boom, followed by 2 days of darkness and the town was covered in 2m of rock debris from the volcano Mount Vesuvius the town had previously sheltered in the shadow of. The weight of the rock collapsed rooves, choked the population and deprived everyone of food, water and to further challenge them the darkness drove some to madness, murder, pillage and suicide. Its a sad tale to hear- even if you managed to live through what was the daylight, the falling ash over the night as you tried to sleep would crush or choke you if you didn't constantly brush our self off. Of those that died, the encasing ash that settled and hardened on them formed perfect moulds, trapping in time their facial expressions, clothing and actions. The museum curator of the ruined city from there founded the process of plaster casts, simply by pouring in plaster, letting it harden then removing the ash-rock layer and exposing the perfect reproduction of the person trapped inside. The casts on display were pretty impressive in detail and quality, and the way the ash had preserved the buildings was amazing. Walking down streets, you could tell where 2nd Century shopping malls were, see hotels, fast food places, bakeries, and the bit I loved: every other house had an outdoor pizza oven. Where else, but where the pizza was invented: Napoli! The Chinese can take the claim over inventing noodles, but I think the credit for the golden discs of nutritionally barren deliciousness is safe with the Nepolitans.
On that topic, we couldn't get away without trying the local cuisine, and decided to make it something a little different on our 100th night of travelling together. On recommendation from Will we hit a nearby pizzeria- Starlight. Between the three of us hungry hippos, I thought the Starlight special wouldn't be enough so we got an extra small pizza. Dumb idea. The starlight special came out, and what a masterpiece. Each slice was totally different, and more for the sake of me recreating it later, each slice was: Prosciutto, sauce, radicchio, Parmesan; Hazelnuts, ricotta; french fries, cabanossi, sauce; spinach, broccoli, pork sausage, sauce; sweet corn, ricotta, ham; fresh tomato, mozzarella, sauce; funghi, ham, sauce; marghherita. After that half a metre diameter pizza art work, the second pizza was definately not needed but like the Aussie battlers we are, we powered through it. When they brought up the nutella-hazelnut freebie dessert pizza though, we were in struggle town. Come the end, we rolled back downhill to our hostel and got stuck into the Amalfi brewed limoncello well fed and faring much better at our Italian skills thanks to the Romanian waitress we had that helped us along the way.
There have been a few things that have stuck with us we will take away from Napoli- another confirmation that every warning and advisory should be taken with a grain of salt, the fact that as much as me and Lyn can speak some basic Italian, we should never attempt conversation and that Napoli people should never be blamed for the hideous combination that should be left to rot in dodgy supermarket freezers: "Nepolitan Ice Cream". I have to say as well that there have been more than a few times now, walking through europe with its 2000+ years of history, art, architecture, cultural and government systems that I have been somewhat humbled but embarrassed as well at our Australian roots. Over the 60,000 years of Aboriginal inhabitant in our Flat brown land we had hit the scientific pinnacle at the boomerang, and further, it is only the kids toy version that returns to you! Yes, if you didn't know, throwing a stick that turns corners at something you want to kill and eat is an unnecessary challenge.
On our last night in the hostel, the Moroccan night shift bloke fired up on the big screen a movie that he recommended: Babel. It was pretty cool- Its an art house flick that has an abrupt ending, and doesn't follow the usual conflict, resolution, closure pattern of western movies which just pissed me off but it was good. Based in Morocco, it tells the story of a poor goat farmer that buys a rifle and his kid, shooting at targets decides to try a pot shot on a tourist bus driving through the deserts in Morocco, and nails a tourist inside. It was a different twist, and put a new perspective on the whole regulations that control how tourists movements across the country. It was pretty cool seeing the sights, food and hospitality of Morocco again in a new light. As we knocked back our limoncello, cheap beers and lounged on bean bags in front of the enormous plasma watching the movie I was glad we made it through the place and back to the western culture we are so used to.
Getting a little homesick, we decided it was a good time to Bogan it up, and tried to use every Australian saying we could think of for the rest of the day. Like the troopers we are, they were flowing thick and fast- Everything from bashed crabs, pissing in pockets and shaking sausages to skinning cats and dead dingoes. Its been a pretty good laugh.
Napoli has a running history as a Gang land town- akin to Melbourne, but in Napoli it is actually a functional underworld that runs the city. In the past year there has been some debate over the adequacy of the local government as the refuse systems in place fell into disarray because of an underworld falling out. Garbage piled on the streets after a feud between underworld figures caused the trash collection to become non-existent. The reported number of shootings is dropping, but that could just be because they are not being reported. We took it all with a grain of salt as we navigated our way about 6 stations from the edge of town to our hostel station Portici del Liberta. It did give us a laugh though as we walked down the bustling shop lined city street, and we were greeted with what we though was a public open air disco that turned out to be the aftermath of something a little more sinister. An Ambulance- the first on the scene, with its crew of 3 standing on the sidewalk obviously stressed, paced frantically as police on motorbikes and cars tried to pick their way through the peak hour 6pm traffic and the crowd of around 400 on-lookers that was growing, forming their own barrier a good 20m away. We wondered what was happening, until the police arrived and we noticed the medics were refusing to enter the building until they had a police escort- A bit unusual we thought. We never did find out what happened there, and took it as our cue to leave when the count got to 2 ambulances, 5 police vehicles, a fire and rescue truck and a number of local carabinieri. Welcome to Napoli!Our hostel here is pretty sweet I have to say. 14 EUR, free internets, a number of huge flat screen TVs around, sat TV, a huge DVD collection, instruments to whip out and jam with, a ping pong table and 1.50 EUR 660mL Peroni beeros! The last carton of Peroni I scored in Aus set me back $48- here it works out to $20 at pub prices. The rave-style strobe and siren welcome to town aside, the place has been a sweet experience and a stark contrast from what we were expecting. We are based in the cheaper part of town, our street becoming a 1km long market place every day, the main street a mix of one-euro stores and top end fashion, and the traino connecting us to everything we were interested in: Sorrento beach, Amalfi coast, Pompeii, town... Awesome.
The first day into it, we decided to scrap our initial plans of a pompeii trip and headed with Will, the part-time accountant and full time traveller/rally driver/drinking buddy from Tassie (not sure where that is) and hired a Renault to cruise the winding Amalfi coast road towards Salerno. I was more than happy to ride shotgun on this one with Will behind the wheel and as I navigated our way through town and down the coast, I once again got a new appreciation for Lynda's skills at navigation when I have driven as I discovered street with no signs, ones that are not marked on the map when they quite clearly exist outside the comfortable metal cage we were sheltering from the local crazies in, and other streets that are marked on the map as being 2-way, but are quite the opposite, and you will be losing your deposit if you argue with the stream of buses coming down them. At the tip of the peninsula that Sorrento beach is on, we once again discovered the elusive figs and I contracted Will to share my burden. Long story short: the sour grapes fable extends to figs. If I had my drag chain from my 4WD here, there would be a legacy of fig tree devastation trailing our Renault Scenic.Along the coast there were all sorts of pleasant and not so pleasant scenes to be seen- not so pleasant is a public or tourist coach spontaneously appearing in the middle of the road at the apex of a blind hairpin corner. On the other extreme is the sight of a sparkling sunset across an ocean facing mountain side, now converted to a giant staircase of white washed hotels and houses precariously balanced on rocky outcrops chiseled into the cliff. At the half way point from Sorrento to Salerno, we stopped in at a local restaurant that was perched on stilts at a hairpin bend. The view was awesome across the olive tree fields and whitewashed houses with bright orange terracotta rooves as we got stuck into the Napoli specialities- local vino, antipasto and pasta/brace. Come 6pm we tried to head back to return the car- say tried, as the Autostrada that criss crosses Italy can be a bit of a challenge at the best of times, let alone peak hour. A 4-way intersection we came across for example quickly deteriorated into a 5-lane traffic jam of cars facing any of 10 different directions. I have to salute will on his use of the horn and traffic jam finesse- Conservative but effective, we were up there with the locals- merging, tooting and swerving with the best of them. Armed with his trusty whistle-compass we managed to get ourselves across 4 different highways and back into familiar territory senza scrapes or any panel damage!
The next day after a bit of a boozeathon with the other hostel residents studying 3rd class captaincy at a local uni for their fishing trawler, tanker and freight liners, we set off to Pompeii. Smashed by an earthquake in the first century AD, the town was under some serious reparations and rebuilding efforts by the emperor Octavius when there was a thundering boom, followed by 2 days of darkness and the town was covered in 2m of rock debris from the volcano Mount Vesuvius the town had previously sheltered in the shadow of. The weight of the rock collapsed rooves, choked the population and deprived everyone of food, water and to further challenge them the darkness drove some to madness, murder, pillage and suicide. Its a sad tale to hear- even if you managed to live through what was the daylight, the falling ash over the night as you tried to sleep would crush or choke you if you didn't constantly brush our self off. Of those that died, the encasing ash that settled and hardened on them formed perfect moulds, trapping in time their facial expressions, clothing and actions. The museum curator of the ruined city from there founded the process of plaster casts, simply by pouring in plaster, letting it harden then removing the ash-rock layer and exposing the perfect reproduction of the person trapped inside. The casts on display were pretty impressive in detail and quality, and the way the ash had preserved the buildings was amazing. Walking down streets, you could tell where 2nd Century shopping malls were, see hotels, fast food places, bakeries, and the bit I loved: every other house had an outdoor pizza oven. Where else, but where the pizza was invented: Napoli! The Chinese can take the claim over inventing noodles, but I think the credit for the golden discs of nutritionally barren deliciousness is safe with the Nepolitans.On that topic, we couldn't get away without trying the local cuisine, and decided to make it something a little different on our 100th night of travelling together. On recommendation from Will we hit a nearby pizzeria- Starlight. Between the three of us hungry hippos, I thought the Starlight special wouldn't be enough so we got an extra small pizza. Dumb idea. The starlight special came out, and what a masterpiece. Each slice was totally different, and more for the sake of me recreating it later, each slice was: Prosciutto, sauce, radicchio, Parmesan; Hazelnuts, ricotta; french fries, cabanossi, sauce; spinach, broccoli, pork sausage, sauce; sweet corn, ricotta, ham; fresh tomato, mozzarella, sauce; funghi, ham, sauce; marghherita. After that half a metre diameter pizza art work, the second pizza was definately not needed but like the Aussie battlers we are, we powered through it. When they brought up the nutella-hazelnut freebie dessert pizza though, we were in struggle town. Come the end, we rolled back downhill to our hostel and got stuck into the Amalfi brewed limoncello well fed and faring much better at our Italian skills thanks to the Romanian waitress we had that helped us along the way.There have been a few things that have stuck with us we will take away from Napoli- another confirmation that every warning and advisory should be taken with a grain of salt, the fact that as much as me and Lyn can speak some basic Italian, we should never attempt conversation and that Napoli people should never be blamed for the hideous combination that should be left to rot in dodgy supermarket freezers: "Nepolitan Ice Cream". I have to say as well that there have been more than a few times now, walking through europe with its 2000+ years of history, art, architecture, cultural and government systems that I have been somewhat humbled but embarrassed as well at our Australian roots. Over the 60,000 years of Aboriginal inhabitant in our Flat brown land we had hit the scientific pinnacle at the boomerang, and further, it is only the kids toy version that returns to you! Yes, if you didn't know, throwing a stick that turns corners at something you want to kill and eat is an unnecessary challenge.
On our last night in the hostel, the Moroccan night shift bloke fired up on the big screen a movie that he recommended: Babel. It was pretty cool- Its an art house flick that has an abrupt ending, and doesn't follow the usual conflict, resolution, closure pattern of western movies which just pissed me off but it was good. Based in Morocco, it tells the story of a poor goat farmer that buys a rifle and his kid, shooting at targets decides to try a pot shot on a tourist bus driving through the deserts in Morocco, and nails a tourist inside. It was a different twist, and put a new perspective on the whole regulations that control how tourists movements across the country. It was pretty cool seeing the sights, food and hospitality of Morocco again in a new light. As we knocked back our limoncello, cheap beers and lounged on bean bags in front of the enormous plasma watching the movie I was glad we made it through the place and back to the western culture we are so used to.Getting a little homesick, we decided it was a good time to Bogan it up, and tried to use every Australian saying we could think of for the rest of the day. Like the troopers we are, they were flowing thick and fast- Everything from bashed crabs, pissing in pockets and shaking sausages to skinning cats and dead dingoes. Its been a pretty good laugh.
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