Napoli (Italy Post #2)

Buon pomeriggio miei lettori! Hello again from Italy! I've decided I will try to create a post every 2 or 3 days, just to not get lost in all the photos I'm taking and to try to share as much as I can. It ends up working out to a post for every city, lucky you 😉

We woke on October 4th to the sound of scooters revving to life outside our door. Being on the ground floor in Italy means that your street is packed with cars and the sidewalk becomes a parking space for anything that'll hop a curb.

First thing to figure out in Napoli was breakfast. We knew that Italians don't really serve a sit down breakfast. Not a full meal of eggs, bacon and toast kind of thing. More like a pastry and a coffee. And it costs more if you sit down too, which we discovered after paying 8€ for 3€ worth of coffee and pastries.

"Caffè e sfogliatella" is the norm in Napoli. Coffee isn't coffee here, it's espresso. A tiny, rich cup of pure caffeine. Not what I'm used to. Sfogliatella is a wipped ricotta filled pastry made up of layers. If you have a bit more of a sweet tooth, you could try a cornetto, a soft croissant-like pastry with a filling of some kind.

Day one we tried both. The sfogliatella was intricate, with dozens of flaky vertical layers wrapping around the inner filling. How, I have no idea. I also drank a cappuccino and Carson thought about sipping espresso, even though the fool doesn't like coffee at all...when in Rome?

The cornetto quickly won out as the morning breakfast food and we tried a different kind every morning during our 3 day stay in Napoli: custard, pistachio, and Nutella. All from different shops, all with different textures of pastry, all with pros and cons to the filling, and all absolutely delectable.

We ended up going on two tours of different catacombs, San Genarro and San Gaudioso. Both were run by the same collective which has restored and excavated 4 sites in Napoli since 2006, after years of abandonment.

Each catacomb truly demonstrated the overlapping layers of history. Imagine a honeycomb of tombs, sometimes with up to 6 bodies per slot or hole in the wall or floor. Both dated back to the 3rd century and they displayed different relics and artwork from different eras up until the 19th century. They technically didn't get dug downwards, but rather into the volcanic stone of the hillside. And they were large, bigger than most catacombs in Rome or Egypt.

San Genarro operated as both a tomb and as multiple churches. It held the tombs of two Neapolitan patron saints and was partially turned into a baptiserie in the 17th century.

San Gaudioso started as a pagan tomb, was taken over many times by different cultures (Spanish, Byzantine, etc) and had a draining room and skeletons inset into the walls. Draining was a process where before burial, all your liquids were squeezed out. The process took months. Grotesque.

The soul was believed to be housed in the skull, so many rich nobles and wealthy folk would pay the church to keep their skulls or set them into the wall outside their tomb. No whole bones really remained, just the ones half set into the stone.

Annorthern anonymous ndividual who was set into the wall was part of a warning: "Death wins out over time, knowledge, and wealth/power". An eerie message in the depths of a dark tomb.

Different parts of history were prevalent everywhere else in Naples too. We saw old city towers and walls, a part of which was still standing as a wall in a new apartment building.

There were castles everywhere too. Some had been converted for modern uses, like museums or universities, but some, like the Royal Palace and Castle Otto still stand as historic monuments.

Two places both Carson and I really enjoyed visiting were the Botanical Gardens and the Cathedral of Naples.

Once inside the tall, imposing building of Napoli Cathedral, we were taken away by the details surrounding every aspect of the building. A photo does not capture the glistening gold painted saints or the carved marble designs on the pillars and on the ceiling or even the depth of the art displayed on the walls, on the pillars, above the alter, and covering the ceiling. Looking up was the most impressive artistry I've ever laid my eyes on. The colors and expressions were so delicate and precise.

I imagined how moving religion must have been when the churches were first built, especially with so much wealth, jewels, silver, and gold on display in such establishments, demonstrating the power of faith and the church.

The Ortho Botanico di Napoli was a raised and gated scientific park of over 25,000 specimens, originally created in 1807. It was close to our second AirBnB so Carson and I took 2 trips here. We would consider ourselves lovers of the outdoors, nature nerds, or tree huggers, if you will.

The garden was divided by systematic and ethnobotanical traits so one could follow the trails towards desert plants, magnolias, citrus, and even insectovores.

There was such a variety of trees in the forest, from towering palms to ancient pines to blooming magnolia to gargantuan grapefruits and abundant lemon, lime, and even gingko trees. They were all so beautiful and varied, it was a definite highlight.

We leave the bustling city of Napoli behind to head down south to Taormina in Sicily. But first, a longgg train ride. Departure was 10am on October 6th and we will arrive after 4pm. I'll be posting this update once we reach our next destination: Giardini Naxos.

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