Napoli

So much effort I had put into learning the Neapolitan Folk Song back when I sang in a children's choir, so many delicious chocolate Napolitanos I had eaten on lunch breaks in Spain, so many times I had heard Neapolitan this and Neapolitan that; and finally, I made it to Naples, Italy.

Now, it wasn't as good as it sounds.  We only had two days in Naples, and the first one was mainly spent dealing with accommodation and traveling problems.  We got to see a glimpse of the bay as the darkness fell over the city.  Other than that sight though, we spent most of the afternoon wondering around the train station and our hostel right next it - an area filled with dirty streets and tricky street vendors.  We got a clear view of the city's street life.  And although we were all worried about finding a place to sleep and making the most of the trip, I let myself feel the vibration that ran through these unruly streets, and the life, that is so much more vivid in a city where law is just a piece of paper.

My next and last day in the area I completely abandoned any thoughts from the previous day, and embraced the cares of a tourist.  By ten in the morning I was entering Pompei.  Pompei is too large and too strange of a place to understand in one visit.  I didn't get to see even half of it probably.  I kept staring at the preserved frescoes and jars and trying to understand how distant, and at the same time similar, those lives must have been to ours.  And still it was so long ago that Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the city.

There are three theaters in the city.  I'm not sure which one we found, but that was the highlight of the day.  As we walked up to the theater it didn't look extremely promising: less grand than any Spanish bullfighting ring, just a curved wall with openings.  So many doorways are blocked off among the ruins, that I did not even think we could get in.  But I walked up to an entrance, and we walked through a long, dark, cool tunnel, that led us right into the center of a huge open air theater.  It was amazing, so many steps were still preserved, the whole structure was practically unhurt; but that wasn't all.  "I wonder if we can go up into the seats," my friend said.  I went back to towards the entrance and saw a partly broken fence.  I signaled to my friend and in a couple of steps we seemed to transform into the audience in an ancient theater...

We ran up and down the stairs, in and out of all the top entrances.  We tried to imagine emperors and their court having their own viewing areas in the shaded archways.  It was amazing to think how long that structure has been standing there, and how real it still was today.

We returned to Naples to wonder around the city and the National Archeological Museum.  What a fantastic museum!  I have never seen so many statues in one place.  It is possible that I have never been to an archeological museum before, nevertheless, I was mesmerized, quite truly.  I wish the Laocoon statue that I saw at the Uffizi was in this collection.  It would look even better among the leaning Hercules, the gracious Aphrodite and the numerous bronze athletes.

On the walk to the museum, we saw part of the center of Naples.  I held the map and guided our group through the streets to all the churches marked on it.  But between every two churches on the map there were three more on the street.  I have seen many colorful cities, but Naples might be the winner.  Every church is different; white, blue, yellow, red...  

Napoli is Napoli though, it's shining narrow sunlit streets are an inescapable net.  It's not as busy as Rome, but the city is so full and energized that one does not even notice the lack of tourists.  I tried to capture the sun, the moist air, and the playful atmosphere as best I could.

two hot days in Florence

I got to Florence at noon.  It was HOT.  I made it to the hostel (it was right next to the train station, but it was still hot), showered, and went out.  After a quick meal and a cold beer, I found the famous Duomo.  I did not go into into the main chapel part.  Il Duomo is beautifully decorated on the outside.  It is of an unusual green and white combination with countless statues and designs.  And next to it, of course, is the Baptistry, with Ghiberti's bronze doors.  I barely looked at the doors, because of the heat and tourists.

I walked around the historic city center, trying to match the buildings on the street with the pictures in my Eyewitness travel book.  There is a church on every corner.  Each one is different, quiet, and beautiful.  And you never know when you might come across a jewel, like Filipino Lippi's "Annunciation" or one of Giotto's frescoes.

Towards the evening I went onto the Ponte Vecchio, and admired all the jewelry shops.  The best part were the weddings though.  Couple after couple posed on the bridge with a photographer following them.  There was also a guitarist playing romantic Italian songs, who I saw the next day at the Uffizi Gallery.

The next day was much more productive, from the point of view of a tourist at least.  I had a reservation to the Uffizi at 10 AM.  Surprisingly, the line for people with a reservation was actually shorter than the line for those without one.  I finally saw the "Venus of Urbino," which was the most impressive.  From there I headed straight to the Palazzo Strozzi, which happened to be holding an exhibition of De Chirico, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, and others.  Also an awesome exhibition, and it couldn't be more timely considering my spring class on Modern European Art.  Finally, after standing in a line (where the reservation side was longer than the non-reservation), in the heat, and damning everything in the world, I saw Michelangelo's masterpiece.

People say that there are two copies of "David" in the piazza's of Florence, but they do not even come close.  It is the most realistic and living statue I have ever imagined.  He seems to be relaxed if you look from the front.  But his neck and muscles have so much tension, that it is easy to forget that this is only a statue and is not about to move.  I must say though, that Michelangelo's women, which are said to look like "men with breasts" remind me of anti-war Soviet posters, where muscular working class women demand that their sons stay home away from the army.  I got a deck of cards from Florence for my collection, and you can guess which part of the David was close-up on the Jokers.

Finally, with two hours left, I made up my mind to go up to the Piazzale Michelangelo.  It's not really a long walk, but the heat and stairs, and standing up all day...  Anyways, it was well worth it; a view of the whole city from the top, of the Arno River, the bridges, and of course the Duomo marking the skyline.

Italia...

I arrived in Italy and waited for my pick-up by the meeting point, only to meet with the program representative half an hour later, who had been waiting be another meeting point.  I was not surprised to find out that different people knew of different meeting points in Italy, but I was surprised to run into this situation so soon.

After a nap, I left my cozy apartment to find the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.  I walked through a maze of streets and walked up to the Pantheon from the back - a large circular old stone wall, sitting low in the ground, but that was it.  I felt like it crept up on me.  Unfortunately, half is under reconstruction.  Nevertheless, you clearly feel how old this building is.

Already I love the sunsets in Rome.  The sunlight is so tender as it falls on the buildings.  The sun doesn't shine as brightly as it does during the day, and sometimes you don't even notice it.  But it creates a very special atmosphere; quiet and soft.

After the sunset, however, it started getting dark, and I had not yet done any grocery shopping.  I saw a sign for a supermercato right off of my street, then realized I didn't have enough cash, asked a lady where the "bancomat" is, and made it by the time the shop closed.

Today I started of with the Colosseum - it turns out perfect in every picture.  The Colosseum is something absolutely majestic, it's huge, it's old; it is absolutely out of this world, and at the same time it is standing right there.  It was too hot to stand the line and go inside on a busy Sunday, but it was quite a site anyways.

I used both the metro and the bus, which turned out to be very manageable.  The metro is just like in Spain, and buses have clear stop posters on each stop.  I decided to go to the Galleria Borghese to get out of the sun.  It's not a huge place, but has a very nice Italian collection.  It houses some of the most famous statues by Bernini, including Apollo and Daphne, which really is remarkable, and many paintings by Caravaggio; at least those are what grabbed my attention.  I didn't have the strength to explore the Villa Borghese, the actual park, which is huge and beautiful, like the Retiro in Madrid, but I will certainly go back there soon.  Here is an image of the Piazza di Popolo and the Rome skyline from the park.