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From: "bobbybats" <>
Subject: NAPLES: A CITY WHOSE REPUTATION PRECLUDES IT
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 03:42:55 GMT

NAPLES: A CITY WHOSE REPUTATION PRECLUDES IT

By Robert A. Masullo








Imagine a history-filled city of enormous natural beauty.
One packed with great architectural structures, many of them
filled with incomparable works of art. A city with an
amazing musical heritage, a theatrical tradition, a
literature, even a language of its own, and a cuisine loved
the world over. A city with wonderful year-round weather,
situated on one of the most beautiful bays on the planet,
and with magnificent mountains and a dramatic volcano on its
outskirts.

Wouldn't a country fortunate enough to contain such a city
be proud of it? Promote it? Encourage foreigners to visit
it?

You might think so.

But such is not the case for Naples, Italy's third largest
city, and in many ways its most important cultural treasure.
(I say this mindful of how rich all of Italy is in cultural
treasures.)

Pick up almost any English-language guidebook of Italy and
read its acknowledgment of Naples' attractions. Inevitably,
these will be followed by warnings about its dangers,
dirtiness and disarray. The same is echoed by travel agents
and, alas, residents of other parts of Italy.

Northern Italians speak of Naples as if it were a
third-world hardship outpost and even Italians from other
parts of the south rarely refer to it kindly. I can recall
being sternly warned about going there by acquaintances in
Calabria and Sicily.

Nevertheless, German, French and British tourists do not
seem to be afraid of Naples. They love the warmth of its
people and its spectacular physical beauty. They regularly
fill Naples' hotels and provide the backbone of its tourist
trade.

Americans, however, are conspicuous by their absence. If
they see Naples at all, it usually is on a breezethrough to
Capri, Sorrento and the Amalfi coast. Even Italian Americans
rarely visit it, despite the fact that as many as a third of
them have ancestral roots in or near the city.

What is going on? Is Naples all that bad?

My wife and I decided to find out for ourselves.

After numerous trips to Italy, none of which included a
visit to Naples, we elected to spend a week there on our
last trip. It turned out to be the best week we have spent
in Italy and our only regret is that we didn't budget more
time in Naples.

We found a city that knows its own worth but is little
concerned with what others think of it. Its people lack most
modern-day inhibitions and exude a charm rooted in a
no-nonsense view of life. But, it must be added, they are
hardly the opera-singing, happy-go-lucky paesani of TV
commercials.

Years ago the noted New York author, Pete Hamill, in an
article explaining his city to non-New Yorkers, advised
visitors to accept it on its own terms. Those who faulted it
for not being like Des Moines or Peoria, he suggested, would
never appreciate its wonders.

Ditto for Naples. Like New York, Naples is highly
idiosyncratic. There is no other city remotely like it, and
that includes the usual three sisters of Italian travel …
Rome, Florence and Venice.

True, Venice with its watery streets, has a special allure.
But only historically is it a city. Today few people
actually live there. It has become almost exclusively a
tourist attraction, much like Disneyland.

Naples, on the other hand, is a thriving, pulsating
metropolis of more than a million people. It welcomes
tourists, but doesn't beg for them. Its size means it has
the problems of any big city, some of them exacerbated by
its age, and yes, that includes petty street crime.

But Naples' virtues, we found, strongly outweigh its
negatives. And the negatives have been exaggerated out of
all proportion.

Take the street crime, for example. Guidebooks would have
you belive the only safe way to walk through Naples' streets
is with an armed bodyguard. Nonsense. We spent many hours,
day and night, strolling its streets and didn't feel
threatened.

Naples, of course, has its share of muggers. But what large
city does not? It has no more, percentagewise, than Paris,
London or New York. Walking around Naples one is as safe as
in any major city in the United States or western Europe. In
fact, safer … because Neapolitan street criminals confine
themselves almost entirely to stealing. Physically harming
tourists, so common in other large cities, is almost unheard
of in Naples.

Neapolitan streets, however, are generally narrow and
crowded with automobile and pedestrian traffic. At first
sight they seemed overwhelming. But once we let ourselves
get into the city's rhythm, we found them fascinating.

What seemed crazy, we soon learned, had its own order.
Drivers, we noticed, were exceedingly tolerant of people
crossing mid-block or other drivers making quirky moves. In
this respect, Naples is something like downtown San
Francisco, only more so. But such behavior should be
enjoyed, not feared. Think of it as part of the "Theater of
the streets," one of many things for which Naples is famous.

But don't rent a car. We did and found it spent most of the
time in a garage. Getting around on foot was easier; if the
distances were too far to walk, we took a bus, taxi or
funiculare (a train that goes up and down the city's hills).
They were cheap, widely available and … most importantly …
didn't have to be parked.

Nevertheless, our rental car provided us with the first of
many Neapolitan experiences. Driving from the Hertz office
to our hotel, we got caught in a traffic snafu that put us
in a lane we weren't supposed to be in. Before realizing
what we were doing, we were confronted by a barrier … and a
policeman.

"Oh, oh," I thought. "We're going to get a ticket before we
even get to our hotel."

But no. The police officer sensed our predicament; said, "Un
momento," and moved the barrier so we could make a U-turn
and get back in the traffic flow.

"You're in Napoli, amico," shouted an Italian friend who
accompanied us. Although she now lives in Perugia, our
friend grew up near Naples and loves the warmth of its
people. The officer's action confirmed her faith.

While driving around that first day we found a radio station
that played Neapolitan music. This was a pleasant experience
as most Italian stations play international rock, much of it
non-Italian, and all of it as cacophonous as that heard on
the worst American stations.

We tuned in the station again at the hotel. Calling itself
"Studio Napoli," after every third or fourth song it played
an identification jingle that contained the line: "solo
musica napolitana" ("only Neapolitan music").

What other city, we thought, has a musical tradition so
vibrant that one of its radio stations could play nothing
but the music of the city? We couldn't think of any.

And Studio Napoli did not rely on a steady diet of "O Sole
Mio" or other tunes of that ilk; it played contemporary
songs with modern beats, whose lyrics were, nevertheless, in
the ancient, beautiful, often haunting Neapolitan tongue.

In a bookstore I picked up an Italian-Neapolitan dictionary.
At last, I thought, I would be able to find out the meanings
of words I heard my second-generation parents (whose own
parents came from Naples' outskirts) speak but which they
were unable to translate (and of which teachers of standard
Italian always expressed ignorance).

It should be noted that while Neapolitans are able to speak
the language of their city … and it never ceased to amaze us
that a city could maintain a language of its own … they more
often speak Italian. Italian is what is used on Neapolitan
airwaves, in its newspapers and in most daily transactions.

When I showed the dictionary to a hotel clerk, he laughed,
and in perfect Italian said to me: "First, learn Italian
better; then work on your Neapolitan.'

A put-down, but a gentle, typically Neapolitan one.

Tourist attractions? Naples has a plethora. With Greek,
Roman, French, Spanish and assorted other rulers over more
than 2,000 years, these attractions are unbelievably
diverse.

Some must-see sites include the Museo Archeologico
Nazionale, widely regarded as the world's finest
archaeological museum; the Duomo (Cathedral) of San Genarro,
where the blood of the city's patron saint (martyred 1,700
years ago) mysteriously liquifies three times a year; the
Certosa of San Martino, whose elevated perch offers a
magnificent view of the city and whose chambers contain
exquisite examples of Neapolitan presepi (Christmas nativity
scenes with hundreds of meticulously detailed figurines);
and the magnificent Capodimonte, a former royal palace
turned into a hilltop art museum.

There is no need, however, to rehash information readily
available in guidebooks, even those by anti-Neapolitan
writers. Suffice it to say, if you visit Naples you won't
lack for interesting and beautiful places to tour.

The point is, simply, don't be afraid of Naples. Discount
the negative talk. It is, in our opinion, mainly the product
of envy.

See the city for yourself and do so with an open mind. If
you can do it with a friendly Neapolitan at your side, as we
did, you will appreciate it even more. But no matter how you
do it, don't miss this incredible city.

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