Italy 9 – Naples

Naples, Italy - church

On the 45-minute ferry ride from Sorrento to Naples, we encountered two cruise ships in Sorrento plus six cruise ships in Naples, and expected to fight crowds. We took a cab to the Underground City, and our “mad man” drove like a New York taxi driver, barreling across town, honking most of the way. When we stopped, he surprised us by recommending that we see Cattedrale di San Gennaro, honoring the city’s patron saint, and that we try the pizza at Pizzeria Dal Presidente. He was right on—Naples Cathedral is one of the most beautiful churches we’ve ever seen, and the Naples pizza is the best we’ve eaten worldwide.

Naples, Italy - underground

After pizza, we took the Naples Underground Tour. You travel back in time 2400 years, from the time of the Greek-Roman aqueduct, to WWII when the underground became air raid shelters as Naples was the most bombed city in Italy, on to current times when they are experimenting with growing crops that require no water to grow (due to high humidity). The second part of the tour included walking into an obscure apartment at street level, sliding a hatch under a bed, then accessing an ancient Roman theater at the basement level. This is not a tour recommended for claustrophobic people, as there were dark and tight spaces to maneuver. However, we loved it.

Naples, Italy - artist

A bonus was seeing the visually dramatic works of Alessandro Kokocinski, an internationally-renowned painter, sculptor and set designer, in his current solo exhibition at the Archaeological Museum. A critic said that Alessandro observes the world through the eyes of the heart.

Naples, Italy - museum

The primary goal to visit Naples was to see the Archaelogical Museum, which only 1% of the visitors to Pompei go to. Many of the original sculptures, frescoes and mosaic floors from Pompeii and Herculanean (see prior blog post here) were moved to this museum to preserve the best antiquities from the ruins that were excavated in the late 1700s. This is a world class museum, and surprisingly was not crowded.

Naples, Italy - secret room

Our Pompeii guide told us to be sure to the “Secret Room”. There’s a sizable collection of erotic frescoes, bawdy statues, and well hung pottery that once adorned bedrooms, brothels and some of the grandest homes in Pompeii and Herculanean.

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