A Heck Of A Trek
Hitting the ground in Naples last night was an assault on the senses. Our flight didn’t land until 11:30 so we were pretty weary when we arrived and had to join a long queue for a taxi. Car horns were beeping uncontrollably with people yelling at one another and hurling abuse. Finally getting into a cab, we started the angst-filled journey across town to our apartment with our driver who didn’t know a word of English. Our street is a long one and apparently the place to be on a Wednesday night. Weaving in and out to avoid packs of pedestrians and zipping mopeds, our Italian cabbie dropped us in front of a large dirty gate, Even he seemed concerned to be dropping us here in this seedy, graffiti-covered laneway. If we’d been in the rough end of town in Athens, this was like the Bronx. Roberto, our elderly well-dressed host emerged from the shadows to rescue us from our neighbours that had been either trying to sell us things or beg us for cash.
Roberto opened the huge metal gate to lead us into a big courtyard which was like a central area for all the surrounding flats. Roberto had as much English as we had Italian (ciao, prego) but managed to instruct us to start our climb up to the 5th floor via about 50 concrete stairs. He had clicked his fingers to summons a hulking neighbour who grabbed my big bag and unflinchingly delivered it up to the door (while poor Ross had to carry his own bag all that way. At the bottom of the stairs there was a kind of shrine; a vase of fresh flowers, 3 mounted pictures of Jesus & Jesus and Mary and then another framed picture of a bearded guy-a dead ringer for Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The only thing on our minds was hitting the pillow as the clock neared midnight but the activity on the street below was crazy! The constant revving of mopeds up and down and people having conversations and arguments at unthinkably loud decibels for the time of night. Things were being wheeled loudly on the cobblestones and bottles were being smashed. It was like trying to fall asleep on the side of the track at Parramatta Speedway.
The novelty of being able to flush our toilet paper and drink water from the tap hadn’t worn off as we headed downstairs for some breakfast. Our street has a couple of coffee shops very nearby and we picked up a coffee each (in plastic cups - sooo hot to handle) and two sausages wrapped in pastry (only €5 for all of that) before walking the short distance to the big Central Station where we’d be picked up for our day trip adventure.
We were met by Rosa and bussed, along with about 20 fellow-passengers to the well-preserved UNESCO heritage site: the village of Pompeii. An unexpected eruption of Mt Vesuvius, in AD79, covered the city in lava and ash, preserving its buildings and its inhabitants - who were literally stopped in their tracks, forever frozen in time - offering a rich understanding of everyday Italian life in the first century. We were gobsmacked at how many buildings still stand; rows of shops, a church, fountains, bath houses…It was incredible. With plumbing capabilities that far outstripped those of the Greeks, an ingenious and Intricate system of drainage and irrigation had been set up - the original lead pipes even still in the ground. Our young guide, Gennaro, was brilliant and very capably showed us around town, arming us with facts and pointing out all the quirks and features of the place (including the ancient Italians’ obsession with phallic symbols, carved into the walls in different spots - some things never change!)
The site at Pompeii no longer holds any of the frozen-in-time bodies caught unaware when Vesuvius roared on that fateful day. Many of them are now in the British Museum or other historical institutions around the world for safe keeping. The museum on site at Pompeii does contain plaster casts of actual bodies preserved when the ash rained down for a relentless 18 hours. Even the plaster casts are very sad and confronting to see.
Next on our tour’s agenda was a visit to the perpetrator of all that destruction, Mt Vesuvius himself. Our bus driver Antonio, wound up the precarious, narrow, winding mountain road, tooting his warning, yodelling car horn around every bend. There were some close calls with buses having to pass each other on crazily narrow stretches of tar. We were dropped about a 45 minute walk away from the crater and set off in pursuit of the peak. There was a man offering wooden sticks at the bottom of the hill, in return for a tip at the end of the journey. I grabbed one, needing all the help I could get. It was a steep, unshaded, arduous climb in the heat - like walking up Alexander St (for those of you who know Collaroy) about 10 times. The gradient was ridiculous and the volcanic gravel and rocks slippery underfoot. As we ascended above the clouds, the view down to Naples was incredible. Apparently when it’s clear you can see all the way to the Amalfi Coast.
I may have let out a couple of “are we there yet”s and had to visualise that ice cold drink of water waiting for me at the end in order to push my feet forward. Looking like some sort of profusely sweating, deranged Moses figure with my wooden stick, Ross showed extreme patience and stamina, walking in step with his slow wife and… somehow we made it to the top of the crater! Yeehaahh!
It felt good to be coming down, encouraging people that were on their way up, that if I could do it, anyone could. I passed on my stick to an equally needy climber as we were nearly down and she still had a LONG way to go.
I’d read about a company in Italy, that send you out into the private home of a local budding home cook, where you can either have a cooking class or see a cooking demo and then sit together to eat the spoils. We were scheduled to be at Anna’s place at 7pm and had planned to jump in a taxi. Getting a taxi was not as easy as it sounds. Uber didn’t come to our neighbourhood (that’s saying something) so we walked to the square where we thought we’d have a better chance of catching one. Taxis here in Naples only take cash too and shops don’t do ‘cash out’ so finding an ATM was also proving tricky. In Greece, there were ATMs absolutely everywhere - even in the most remote locations - but not so in the land of Italy.
The traffic here I’m Naples is off-the-chart crazy! Car horns are a constant and the road rules (if there even are any) are very loosely adhered to, if followed at all. Crossing the road is like an Olympic sport, with a level of difficulty at ten out of ten. Pedestrian crossings painted at different points on the road give false hope of a safe passage from one footpath to another but drivers take no notice of them whatsoever. There seems to be a first-in-first-served system in operation, for both cars, motorbikes/mopeds and pedestrians. If you’re the first person to nudge your nose out into the fray, everyone around you says “ok fair enough, you were here first, you go”. Right of way is just determined by who gets there first. As far as crossing the road goes, you virtually step off the gutter into oncoming traffic and adopt the “I was here first” philosophy and miraculously, cars seem to stop to let you cross. There’s always a real chance that a rogue moped will zoom through any gap and bowl you over. Ross is loving the power of holding up a road full of speeding traffic with just a hand. He’s way braver than I. Walking in front of a coming car, that incidentally is not yet slowing down, does feel excessively risky and my self-preservation instincts kick in, preventing me from stepping off the curb. Ross, with his ‘Stop Sign’ hand in full play, has to coax me across to the other side, a cacophonous horn-tooting chorus accompanying the feat. Far out brussel sprout - it’s stressful!
Our cab driver tonight was as highly strung as they come and aggressively employed his horn generously. Flustered and with no English whatsoever, he took us on the longest route possible, through road work traffic jams and eventually left us in the wrong street. It just so happened that two lost looking Aussies, wandering around the neighbourhood aimlessly, attracted the attention of a lovely Brazilian neighbour of our host. What are the chances? The lovely Gisella took us on a frenzied dash down and around a few corners to deliver us safely at Anna’s door- 45 minutes late.
Anna Spaniola was a character - so gregarious and fun! We were teaching her how to say food names with an Australian accent and she was doubled over, laughing so raucously I thought she might wet her pants. Anna was a patriotic Napolitano and we learned all about her family and how proud she was to be a Nonna. She had prepared a veritable Italian FEAST for us, showing us how to make everything and having gone to so much trouble. We started with olives, cheese and some crunchy bacon, cheese and almond biscuits (taralli formaggio), followed by pizzelle do cavolfiore fritters, mozzarella breadcrumbed toasties (carrozza), delicious bruschetta, meatballs and specially prepared capsicum (peppers) & mushrooms (funghi) all made with fresh herbs from her garden. If that wasn’t enough, she laid on the BEST lasagne we had ever tasted. We chewed on in silence, almost a sacred moment for our tastebuds. and then…we had to squeeze in 2 desserts: dolce limone and tiramisu to die for. Like Anna’s own olives, were completely and utterly stuffed! It was such a fabulous experience.
