9/11 Wednesday
We
take a walk through the streets of Naples to the city center. The traffic is
just insane, roaring through the streets like a swarm of bees. At the
stoplights, all the scooters, and there are many, rush to the front of the
line, driving down the wrong side lane, piling up between the cars. As the
light turns green, they’re off in a mad scrum! If any car sits for an extra
second, all the drivers lean on their horns, reminding the guy that people are waiting!!!!
All
along the street, there are small shops, each with its own specialty poking out
the doorway to the sidewalk. On our first block, we walk by four bakeries.
Another shop sells “stuff to clean with” – dish soap, laundry detergents, mops,
toothpaste, shampoo. There are antique dealers, fish mongers, lamps stores,
newsstands and barber shops. It’s a very lively place. A gentleman sees Bob
reading his map and stops to ask if he can help. He tells us to walk along this
“not important” street, and we’ll get to the main avenue. We head down the
narrow cobblestone street, full of cars on the sidewalk and laundry hanging
from the balconettes. All along the sidewalks, we find memorials, statues of
Our Lady, glass cases with flowers and engraved plaques. Some are bigger than
phone booths, taking up whole sections of sidewalk, with life-sized statues of
a saint, surrounded by plants and bouquets. We navigate our way between the
statues and the clothes racks, trying to avoid getting knocked over by the
scooters flying by us.
The
main avenue into the city is Toledo Street, which becomes a pedestrian zone
soon after we reach it. We stop into a church on the way, enjoying the luscious
baroque interior, but disappointed in the electric candles for our offering.
Toledo Street is very 5th Ave., where you can purchase Lacoste
shorts for your toddler to poop in for a mere 60 Euros. We feel right at home
with all the African street peddlers selling sunglasses and hair ornaments from
their cardboard displays. We enter the Galleria Umberto, a gorgeous,
glass-covered arcade. It’s not at all crowded, and after the bustling streets,
we enjoy the open plaza, with the requisite wedding photographer posing his
clients at the center.
We
continue our walk through the streets without much of a plan, and find ourselves
in the university district. The streets are full of bookstores, one after
another, and vintage shops, funky cafes and hipsters. Very cool, just what we
like. We turn up one narrow, cluttered side street and find ourselves in the
land of weird model dioramas. We have stumbled upon the Via San Gregorio Armeno,
where one finds everything presepe, elaborate
Italian Nativity scenes. This street is the Holy Grail for the more obsessive
presepe modeler, with generations-old workshops creating Baby Jesus figurines
and all kinds of accessories, down to the most minute detail – little ceramic
rolls of bread or small chicks and eggs - for the fully articulated townscape.
Some small figures are animated: women rolling bread dough or ironing, a man
shoeing a horse, someone cranking a pail from a well. Some shops specialize in making the base
strucutres, a collection of stages made of rough wood and moss, anywhere from a
single small tableau to practically room-sized. It’s completely freaky,
especially since we hadn’t heard of this before and spent some time marveling
over the shops trying to figure it all out. Why, why, does this shop sell small clay heads???? We would advise any
visitors to AVOID this street any time near the Christmas shopping season.
1 Video Included
Naples Walk
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