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Published: April 26th 2008
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Way back when, the head guy in Naples began doing knock-offs of the Vatican and St Peters Square to try to keep up with the Joneses in Roma Tim and I made our way on foot to the closest Metro station to get to the Termini early Saturday morning, bags in tow but with a lot of excitement toward the upcoming part of our Italy experience. The conference was great, so many great memories to take away from it, but we had designed this part of our trip intentionally to provide a real wind down before heading back to the States on the 10th. We navigated the Termini with no issues, taking an intercity (rather than Eurostar) train to Naples. It made a few stops, but it still only took a couple of hours to make our way south, out of the region of Lazio and into the region of Campania. Naples differs from everything we have seen in Italy so far because it has the actual look of a city. There is a city center with modern skyscrapers, and endless apartment buildings (with laundry hanging out almost every window, as is common in every Italian city or town). This place had a real city feel to it.
Naples is known for its pizza, its trash, and its proximity to the infamous Mt. Vesuvius, which is a backdrop
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The original palace of the Neopolitan heirarchy to the Bay of Naples, Napoli, and its endless suburbs and urban sprawl. More on the trash later… we had designed this part of our trip to include the accompaniment of a driver. I found Marcello by happenstance. He was mentioned in numerous traveler reviews on virtualtourist.com and tripadvisor.com, and every mention of his services made me more convinced than the last that we could really benefit from his expertise while in the Naples/Amalfi Coast region. It is not something I had ever really considered while traveling anywhere else, but this region is unique. Marcello Maresca is a native, and he uses his vast knowledge of the area to customize and optimize your trip based upon a list of things you want to see or experience. This is great because one doesn't waste a lot of time navigating the city of Naples (another place on the planet I would never drive!), you get to your touring objectives easily and expeditiously (Vesuvius, Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast villages, Capri… there is so much see here), and along the way he imparts his own native Campania to you… the parts of the region that one would not want to miss but would never
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A later palace with European influences (the French usually brought castle-inspired architecture to Italy, said Marcello) find on their own. Perfect.
I had exchanged a number of emails with Marcello before leaving the States and seen a photo of him on his website (seesorrento.com). He met us on the train platform upon arrival in Napoli and was immediately warm and engaging. His mastery of the English language was impressive, leading me to believe he had probably spent significant time in an English speaking country. However, as we got to know him we learned that he speaks several languages and is self taught with all of them. Marcello gave us the “real deal” on Neopolitans… he spoke of the way of his culture when it comes to work ethic (there is little), navigating the mafia (still alive and kicking down here), and how the tourists drive the entire region economically and the Neopolitans still don’t really get why they all come. Well, realistically he understands that he lives in a very beautiful place - and that is why they come - but he repeats a number of times how comical the Neopolitans find it that the millions of tourists keep on coming, and what they come for seems to begin and end with blatant consumerism. The
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Even in Napoli, gardens are important... this terrace garden is pretty choice shopping! It baffles him… because he states the Italians do not spend this way, they never would. They live a simple yet quality existence, not centered around the procurement of STUFF. He has spent many an afternoon waiting for his clients to get their fill of tourist boutiques full of stuff that may have been (but probably was not) created in this region. That, of course, is nothing new. People do that in every corner of the planet. But he finds it completely amusing, if not ridiculous. And if those people who insisted on stopping for the shopping would stick with Marcello for the hours they devoted to retail therapy in Italy, they would have an experience they had never planned for or imagined just by spending some time listening to him relate the history, culture, and lore of his region. He was a priceless find.
Ok, about the trash… Naples, as one of our contacts in Rome had established, is “full of rubbish.” Apparently a short time before we made our trip, there was an expose that hit the world news about a garbage service strike in Naples. (We missed this.) And everyone in the region that relies
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So tell me... how did that umbrella pine grow up out of that building? upon the tourist dollar was pretty concerned about this, knowing that millions of people are not going to flock to this city and this beautiful region if it is covered in garbage. Well, the strike is over and the city DOES have its share of trash lying around. It was mildly disconcerting for us, as we have been in the other regions in Italy where the most fundamentally disturbing issue was the graffiti, but we always noticed streets and homes and gardens and estates are otherwise well tended. But as Marcello so succinctly put it, “See that pile of trash? That has been there since I was born!” Apparently, garbage on the streets of Naples is really no new deal. The new part of it is the publication of its presence there. We were amused by Marcello’s whole presentation of the big to-do about the garbage, and as you ease into the experience of being in the city of Naples and its grittier vibe… you really don’t see the trash. You see a very concentrated energy, decidedly more intense than the Florentine ambience, and decidedly less cosmopolitan than that of Rome. But no less intriguing than either of those cities,
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Had the best pizza I've ever eaten on this Neopolitan street in its own Neopolitan way.
Here are some street shots from our arrival in Naples.
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