Wandering Where We’ll Be

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

OK, I’ll pick up where Dan left off with Midnight Mass. Yes, St. Peter’s Basilica IS huge, beautiful and very impressive, but the mass left me feeling a bit cold — both literally and figuratively. We were able to get seats, but we were fairly close to the back and one of the back doors was left open during the mass, so there was a cold draft coming into the basilica. Of course, most of the mass was in Italian, with a couple readings in English and some readings and petitions in other languages: German, Spanish, French, Arabic, etc. And, the music was performed by an all-male chorus, accompanied by organ, mostly in a traditional chant style. Plus, the congregation sang only one traditional Christmas carol — Adeste Fidelis — and we were only supposed to join the choir on the “O Come let us adore him” part. Truly, the music was beautiful, and the gospel reading was sung by a male cantor who had a GORGEOUS voice! It was just very different from the Christmas mass that I am accustomed to and I missed THAT mass. Overall, it was a great experience to attend midnight mass at St. Peter’s and I’m glad we had the opportunity to do it.

On our way walking back to the hostel from the basilica, we called my parents’ place, where the rest of my family were celebrating Christmas Eve. They put us on speaker phone and sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for us. It was great to talk to them and hear all of their voices!

Once we got back to the hostel, we slept for a few hours, got up for the free hostel breakfast and, then, went back to sleep for a few more hours. In the afternoon, we went to a grocery store in the main train station and picked up our “Christmas dinner” that we ate at the hostel — a small, roasted chicken, a salad, breaded and deep-fried olives (we’re in Italy, afterall), milk, wine and cream-filled croissants for dessert. It sure wasn’t anything like Christmas dinner at home, but it tasted good, and it was kind of fun.

We looked and looked — along with a young woman named Emily from Wisconsin who was also staying at our hostel — for an English-language movie to see both Christmas evening and the following evening. Our search, unfortunately, led us only to theaters that were no longer open or movies that were dubbed in Italian — oh, well. We had fun walking around and seeing more of Rome at night with our new-found friend from our neighboring state. “HI” to Emily, who is probably back in Austria, where she is currently teaching.

After running around to four different Rome post offices on Wednesday morning trying — unsuccessfully — to track down a card that my sister, Brenda, sent to us via “Poste Restante” (that’s a whole other story), we got on a train destined for Naples and arrived at about 1:30 pm. The energy of Naples is unlike any I’ve seen in any other city! We walked down a very crowded street loaded with sidewalk markets and many, many people to our hostel — about 30 minutes or so. The streets are packed with cars, buses and motor scooters; red lights are somewhat optional for scooters and pedestrians generally don’t have the right-of-way. But, if you need to cross somewhere, you just need to assert yourself, walk with purpose and you’ll be OK. In the evenings, Neapolitans enjoy “strolling” through this seemingly chaotic mess. Somehow, it all seems to work!

That evening we walked to and visited a couple churches — the Cathedral and another one (I don’t remember the name) where nuns from — presumably — a local convent were participating in their daily, evening prayer service, including the rosary. We sat in on it for awhile and, then, made our way slowly back to the hostel, where we had a pasta, bread and wine supper compliments of the hostel — good and fun!

Thursday, we visited Pompei, the city that was buried by the volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, in 79 AD. More on Pompei and Vesuvius later.

Friday we decided not to go anywhere or see any sites; we took care of some errands and just walked around Naples a bit. We’ll be here for 12 nights while we wait to activate our two-month Eurail pass (so it lasts until the first part of March). So, we have plenty of time to see Naples and the surrounding area.

And, today we took a bus and hiked to the crater of Vesuvius, which hasn’t “blown” since 1944. We saw steam rising from several areas of the crater, but there was no bubbling lava or anything like that. In fact, we watched a group of three climbers descend down into the crater. The sky was a bit hazy, but we still had good views of Naples, the sea and the surrounding area. It was fun!

OK, more later.

Tim