Walking through Neaples -S.Lucia
The feeling you have walking through this part of Neaples is to be an ant. The streets are eng, the houses are monumental, enormous, and you are so little near them... I have seen many interesting castles but I've never had the same feeling as I stay near Maschio Angioino. It's Goliath.
And then, you are near the sea and there are parts of the city you need more than an hour to reach at feet, situating just over your head.
The feeling is different as you have in Rome, for example. In Rome is Empire you see round you, here are XVIII-XIX centuries. And the distances are only meters long.
The cities in Italy grew inside the walls till XIX century, so the residents made the best of everything they had from the past. Neaples is situated on the rocks too, and when you turn your head from the central street of this or that part of the city, you see incredible human capacities of adaptation.
When I see houses like this I think: how has to be the angular room here?
Central streets are beautiful and large enough and it's a pleasure to walk here... oh yes, if a driver like this, that thinks these 10 meters are his private freeway, doesn't run over you...
Finally I'm near Castel dell'Ovo. My husband says this word means "wolf" in spanish. Can be. Spanish was a regnant family in this region for many centuries, so that local dialect is very near to catalan language. And the uses too. ( I controlled in a translator: "lobo"-wolf -can be pronounced "del lobo"-"del lovo"-"dell'ovo")
Sincerely I was sure to find it open. But ... the holy sunday... I like this castle very much. It seems to be a town pressed all inside this walls. As some of important characters centuries ago, you think here, enemies couldn't reach you in this place. You are fortunate you have not to prove it. Because don't exist a safe place till there are persons that sell themselves. This teach us the history of this castle.
It's possible to see Vesuvius from here! I didn't knew it. And it's so near from the city! If you have to see eruption from this place... From here you see clearly human being is more little as an ant for natural forces like Vesuvius.
The sea-front is very long in Neaples. Once it was a beach with a road and farm-houses of rich persons. Other houses rose on the rocks behind them.
How many fortresses are here! But if you immagin this place without all this houses, that have to be modern I think...
Later, there was created a garden on the beach, rebuild in the last years. Sunday evening you can find all the population of the city walking in the garden and along the sea-front.
I don't understand why architects used modern yellow stick-lamps in the barocco-style (?) garden. Maybe they thought you "don't see" them in this form and there is enough light in the evening.
You can find a not very great and very ragged house in this park. On my memory it's always under repair. This is the oldest Acquarium in Europe. If you are a fan, you HAVE to visit it. No, I don't promise you the same you can see in Genova, those enormous fish-tanks and sharks coming out from under your feet.
This acquarium is what you could immagin for your house, maybe you dreamed it: walls-tanks devided with columns... And then, they are soooo old, you see it... It will be a great pity if it will be closed.
By the way, in this old building is situating a very modern institution that works much to preserve the sea-world. Local turtles. And they have very interesting studies of the octopuse behaviour.
I have to go home. But walkers begin to reach seafront at this time. Neaples is a city that goes to bed in the morning, I think. If you come here in the midnight you find great movement. It's a mystery for me, how they get up monday to go to work?
Category Article Italy
