A Naples New Year
Dear readers, December 31st
How do I begin to tell you what New Years in Naples is like?
We started off early with a train ride to Paestum, Italy. This was the last day we could use our current Eurail Pass so we decided to visit a somewhat far-away place. Paestum has ruins much like Pompei but with considerable differences.
First of all, it has three almost intact temples. At least one of these temples dates back to 500 B.C.. The most intact of the temples was the Temple of Apollo. There was an error in identifying this temple in the 1700’s so it is actually erroneously named the Temple of Neptune. To get to the point of all this, this temple of Apollo is so well preserved, all someone would have to do to make it complete would be to add a roof. It is almost that easy. The other two temples were not that far behind it in preservation.
Second, a person can actually climb on the ruins of the town. Only the temples were fenced off. This is unlike Pompei where a person was only allowed to go down certain streets or into certain houses. I walked on walls and went up stairs to get better views of things. It was fantastic and very different from the Pompei experience. It was far more hands on.
The train ride back to Naples was uneventful but this was just preparation for what was to come. There was a pasta party that evening at the hostel. Free pasta is always good. There was plenty of wine to go with it. Then we began to hear the beginnings of what was to come that evening. Actually, we began to hear these beginnings a few days earlier but now, it began to crescendo. Bombs are what we heard. In Minnesota, we all know what a firecracker is. Little did Tim and I know, a Naples “firecracker” is an unregulated, homemade thing. Naples is known for these “firecrackers”. Imagine bangs from the tiny firecrackers a Minnesotan knows about, to huge, low sounding thunderbooms from a piece of homemade dynamite that could probably damage a car if put next to it. We heard some of these explosions from across the city. It was unbelievable.
But I am not done with the excitement. We saw a bonfire in the middle of a street. From this bonfire, people lit regular fireworks and sent them into alley skies, not too far from peoples apartments. I am talking about 4th-of-July type fireworks flying by peoples apartments about 10ft away. There were so many fireworks, the city was smoky and smelled of burnt firework. I felt like I was in Iraq during the first days of the war. Don’t worry, moms who read this blog, we never felt we were in any danger.
These “bombs” went off through the whole night…but that wasn’t the only sounds we heard. There was a live band playing in a public square with live dancers. They had the square all rigged with speakers and two jumbotron video screens. The hostel gave Tim and I a bottle of champaign as we and several others went to the square to have fun. Many of the others also got their own bottle of champaign as well.
We were away from residential buildings between midnight and 1a.m. so Tim and I didn’t see anyone throwing out chipped dishes or old washers and dryers or anything out of their windows. Apparently, it is the thing to do on New Years in Naples. “Out with the old, in with the new”, and that kind of thing, is supposed to be represented by throwing things that are no longer useful out the window. I would hate to be in that area of street at that time…so we weren’t.
We watched fireworks…barely…at 2:15am until about 2:30am. It was foggy by this time in the morning so we didn’t actually see much. It was fun to hang out with people from the hostel during this, however.
Since New Years, we have visited the Amalfi coast as well as explored more of the city of Naples. It has been really fun.
Write more later,
Dan
Tags: Europe, Naples, New Years
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