street kids of Naples

With our wonderful time in Rome up we headed south to Naples. One last stop in Rome though to Fabriano - the paper shop established in 1256 that Leonardo Di Vinci used to frequent - how very cool is that! We 'aahed' and 'oohed' over the very beautiful notebooks and pens and all sorts of delights but travelling light as we are we had to resist. Part of the essence of this trip is to aim to carry with us very little - so to enjoy the simplicity of a life with less possessions.

Back to Rome Termini - where the old 'don't believe everything you read' rang very true. For if I were to believe what I had read - we would have been robbed ten times over! It was certainly no more chaotic that Euston (London) during a Friday rush period and certainly not threatening! As for the train (that cruised at 300km an hour!) it was magnificent - even more so when the platform highlighted where each carriage would stop - none of the running forever down the platform trying to find your carriage - we were all impressed!

Then it was Naples with Mt Vesuvius looming over large and the glinting blueness of the sea framing the city - we were in the Italian south! Our apartment is on the edge of the historic centre - entered through a courtyard and surrounded by other apartments whose lives they contain spilling out onto the street - it is brilliant and just as we hoped. The person who checked us in gave us the insight into the best places for pizza and sfogliatelle and a rundown on the Italian state of affairs with a particular slant on the downtrodden role of the Italian male - I left my husband and him to it!

After the usual negotiation of who has which bed (complicated by the very specific and random needs/desires of the seven year old) we set forth into the heart of Naples in search of what else but pizza! But what we also found was a city that was warm, noisy, alive, real, chaotic and a bombardment of the senses - all of them!

The streets were narrow and deep and yes there was washing hanging everywhere, there were overdone baroque churches and shrines (including a sizeable number of skulls) around every corner, pizzerias and cafes haphazardly hugging the slivers of pavement of the tiny roads and the non-stop beep beep of a vespa racing by. It was dirty with the expected rubbish scattered everywhere but it was oh so real and alive. We were all entranced.

Pizza was delicious, the shaved iced fruit perfect and the expresso a treat - we loved it all and as you can see it seems the kids are right at home in the streets!

Now back in the apartment listening to the drama of domestic life happening around us - nice for a change that it is not our family!!!

Tomorrow it is the ruins of Herculaneum...