A Few Travel Tips

It's summer time and although I find it both dry and boring to write travel tips about Naples, it seems necessary.  It's a world unto itself and visitors will likely enjoy their time here much more if they know a few basics.  So in this post, I add a little pragmatism to the romance.

Why is it so dirty?  The complaints about Naples are that the city is gritty, polluted, and dirty.  The truth about Neapolitan 'grit' is that the city is more than 2,800 years old.  Already in the 6th century B.C. the region sprawled and bustled with a large population.  Later, the Roman writer Virgil even said that Naples was 'toxic', probably owing to the noxious sulfuric fumes that bubbled out of Solfatara and wafted across the city depending on the direction of the wind.  In addition, the people have preserved so much of their past that the buildings almost by necessity tend to blend into the natural look and feel of the antiquity around them.  

If you live in Naples and acculturate to the environment, when you travel to other cities, such as Barcelona or Berlin, they look so clean that they seem both inauthentic and superficially hygienic.  Certainly Naples has its share problems (some of which I'll touch upon in later posts).  But it's best to look at Naples as more than a travel or living experience -- it's a personality type.

Safety:  You wouldn't leave your wallet on a park bench in New York City.  You wouldn't walk down the street in East LA with your Louis Vuitton purse.  Naples is a big chaotic city.  Be smart and be safe.  And stay tranquil in the knowledge that violent crimes are very very unusual as are child kidnappings since they love children and consider both them and their mothers sacred.  The crime is near exclusively one of pickpocketing and home burglaries.

Driving:  The Neapolitans see nothing wrong with their driving.  And yet, when my Filipino father-in-law came to visit, he noted:  "The traffic here is worse than in Manila."  My advice:  Drive defensively.  Watch the flow of traffic.  If lots of cars are not stopping at a particular red light or stop sign -- slowly and carefully do the same.  Why?  Because if you don't follow along and insist on stopping -- yes, someone might get angry and honk at you -- but also likely you'll get rear ended.  The traffic accidents here are high, so don't take your safety complacently.  Also, motorcycles have the right of way -- even over pedestrians.  I'll repeat:  Crazy motorinos, often with a cigarette in their mouth and a cell phone pressed to their ear while driving, dart through every crevice of the city and have the right of way over pedestrians.  If you're driving -- always look in your right and left rear-view mirrors to watch for motorcycles darting on either side of you.

For some great tips on Italian driving, see the link for Italy: Beyond The Obvious.

How To Take Public Transportation:  You can always buy a ticket from the ticket office outside the metro, bus, or train stations.  Also, the outside newspaper/magazine stands sell tickets.  When you get on the bus or metro, make sure to put it through the machine that stamps a date and time on it.  Sometimes you can hop on the public transportation without a ticket and not get caught (I have), but if the conductor comes along, you're out 36 Euro or more (which has happened to me too).

Greeting Italians:  Neapolitans can seem brusque or grumpy at times.  I've heard this complaint often and indeed I felt this way when I first arrived.  But then I unlocked a little cultural key -- greet people (your bus driver, the barista, your waiter, the store person) with a Buongiorno if it's before 2pm and a Buena Sera if it's after 2pm.  Also use the word Grazie as often as possible.  It seems that Italians are always saying Grazie even if there's nothing to be thankful for.  When foreigners try to use those few words, I've noticed that Neapolitans turn from brusque to chocolate sweet within an instant.

Embrace the personality!

More On Campania Beaches

Port Call!

The Ministry of Public Health has a website with maps showing the polluted and unpolluted beaches within the Campania region: http://www.arpacampania.it/baln2009web/MappaBalneazioneLitoraleFlegreo.pdf

The blue dots are clean areas and red dots are polluted beaches.

Another word of caution. If the beaches are polluted, more than likely the fish and shellfish are also polluted. If you are currently pregnant, try to shy away from the fruits of the sea. For everyone else, ask your local market from which area the fish come.

Villa of Tiberius

Il pessimo vicini - e il parente piu stretto.

(The worst neighbor - is the closest relation.)

Nook of Naples:  Tiberius (42 B.C. to 37 A.D.), the Roman emperor who ruled after the death of Augustus, was a forlorn man who refused to step up to the difficult tasks of leading the Empire.  Instead, he left it to, among others, the hated Praetorian Prefects (or Emperor's aides).  

The life of Tiberius is a tragic tale of the 'rich and famous' who wished he wasn't.  As a young man, he distinguished himself in many campaigns as a general.  He also married Vipsania Agrippina.  But Emperor Augustus, priming Tiberius to succeed him as Emperor, forced him to divorce and marry Julia the Elder, Augustus' daughter.  Tiberius left Vipsania who at the time was pregnant and lost the baby out of shock. 

His new wife, Julia, had one baby who died in infancy.  She also openly flaunted her affairs, in particular her nightly escapades at the Forum, thus humiliating Tiberius.

The villa in Sperlonga, like Tiberius' life, lies in ruins along the shore of a public beach.  The grotto used to showcase mammoth marble statues, including a naked Polyphemus being speared.  That impressive marble structure still exists in the accompanying Archeological Museum at the entrance to the complex.

The drive to the villa winds through highways overlooking cliffs.  The view, the beach, and the museum are magnificent.  The grotto has a cool hollow feel that perhaps mirrors the lonely and sad life of Tiberius. 

(I'll write more about Tiberius's life in a later post about the Blue Grotto.)

Getting There:  Drive north of Naples toward Formia and then follow the signs to Sperlonga.  After that, signs are everywhere to the Tiberius Villa.  It's quite easy to find.  While there, you can also visit the city of Formia that boasts, among other things, Cicero's tomb.  Nearby, the city of Gaeta has Split Rock where the rock split three-ways on the day that Jesus was crucified.

La Cucina Napoletana:  Legumes are a staple here.  I've eaten saffron rice with lentils as well as tomato sauce with lentils.  What's more, Neapolitans make legumes without much seasoning.  Astoundingly, this seems to be in keeping with the ancient Roman tradition.

Take a look at this ancient dish called Tisana  attributed to the Roman writer Apicio:

1,500 liters water

100 g chickpeas

100g lentils

100 g dry peas

100 g orzo

6 spoonfuls nuoc-nam

1 handful of parsley

1 pinch vinegar

200 g. tops of broccoli

1 good pinch oregano

2 cloves of garlic

1 handful of levistico

2 spoonfuls of oil

Soak for one night and then boil in the water full of 20 g of salt, the chickpeas, lentils, dry peas and orzo.  Put thin strips of leek, the fennel, aneto, oregano, garlic, levistico coarsely cut into the pot.  Add the nuoc-nam (or, if you don't have it, two anchovies fried with a spoonful of oil).  At the end, throw the tops of pre-boiled broccoli into the soup.  Add salt and nuoc-nam to taste.

Definitions of the ancient foods:

aneto --  Is a plant with threadlike leaves.  It's about 60-90 cm in height and has small yellow flowers.  Today in Rome, where the ancient ingredients were often used, it's impossible to find fresh aneto.  You can find it dry in specialized stores or at an herbalist, but it's not the same thing.

levistico -- Today this herb is no longer cultivated.  It has a pleasant flvor that is a mix between celery and parsley.  Using the two can be a substitute.

nuoc-nam --  A brine used often in Indochinese cooking, it's like garum or the liquid of fish of various genera.  Optimally, it's used for hot plates rather than raw.  Pliny the Elder said "It has the warmth of honey and is so good that it can be drunk from a glass."

(Pictures:  View of the beach from the Tiberius Villa, the grotto, the small remaining preserved wall fresco, a view of the complex, the sign announcing the villa.)

Campania Beaches

Looks like even Campania Beaches have their share of pollution.  

After my post "Lido Life," I've now read that the beaches in Campania are off-limits. The Agenzia Regionale per la Portezione Ambientale della Campania has done biweekly tests of the regional waters that have turned up higher-than-acceptable levels of total coliform, fecal coliform and fecal streptococci bacteria, the last of which can cause strep throat, flesh-eating disease and other infections. The pollution is caused by illegal dumping of sewage and inefficient water purification plants.  

You can read more about it here: Italy's beaches are mostly vacant. To read more about news releases by the Campania version of the EPA, go to the 'Agenzia' link above.  

My hometown is San Diego where these pollution problems have been chronic for many years, so my family and I have written off beaches there as well (along with in LA where you can actually smell the sewage coming off the Santa Monica pier as well as beaches near Pacific Palisades). I suggest that my 'Lido' post become our 'virtual tour' of the Campania beach -- and we head off to more ancient ruins or parks. My recommendation for a wonderful park located in the heart of the city is Parco Virgiliano. Click on the park for a virtual tour.

For today, I write my feelings in on-line parlance: :(

Lido Life

PORT CALL!

Summer in southern Italy means beaches.  

But in this sprawling metropolis, it's hard to find a beach that's free and open to the public.  Instead, a private company owns a strip of beach.  Although the Lidos can be somewhat expensive and burgeon with people on the weekends, they can also feel luxurious.

Lidos line the shore from the seaside town of Castel Volturno all the way down to Lago Patria and beyond.  To name them all would take a decade.

Driving along the road, once you select a Lido (we do it randomly), a parking attendant directs you to a small lot.  The procedure for entering a Lido tends to be the same everywhere.  You pay an all-day fee at the front gate and then walk into an espresso bar replete with caffe, sodas, candy, and gelato.  They also have a cafeteria.  You forge ahead to the promenade and give a beach attendant your ticket.  He picks up an umbrella and chairs (which you pay for extra at the front gate) and you select a sandy plot.  He then sets you up.

To avoid the bumper to bumper Lido traffic, arrive close to 10am and leave at 2pm.  At those hours, you'll have your choice of parking and beach space.  If you head for the beach at noon and leave at 4pm, the traffic will be intense and the beach will be crowded.

Lidos often have playgrounds for kids and delicious cafeteria food with panini, spaghetti, mozzarella balls, and other hot primi, secondi, and contorni piatti.  It's delicious, though a bit pricey, but well worth the experience.

La Cucina Napoletana:  A panini is as simple as lying on the beach.  At the Lido cafeterias, I always order a Panini with Roasted Bell Peppers.  They simply stuff a french roll with bell peppers that have been roasted and then basted in olive oil.  You can try this at home by roasting some bell peppers of your choice in the oven, letting them cool and cutting them into slices.  Then add a generous amount of olive oil.  Next, stuff them into a sandwich and eat without condiments.

Happy Summer Fun!

Stabia

(Pictures:  Fresco at the Villa San Marco as well as the courtyard, kitchen, atrium, and a hole through a wall.  A pear fresco and room of the Villa Arianna as well as the view of Mt. Vesuvius on the opposite side.)

In un mondo di ciechi un orbo e re.

(In a world of blind people, a one-eyed man is king.)

Nook of Naples:  Driving through small streets, I go in circles for a while, passing town centers where vendors sell pizza and cafe.  I finally find a long narrow road with signs and stop at an empty parking lot with a trailer wedged to the left of a gravel road.  A guide takes me along this road and I expect to see a run down lot with a rubble of unrecognizable ruins.  Instead, he brings me to the edge of a stunning edifice perched over a dramatic view of Naples.

The Villa of Arianna, so named for a fresco of Dionysus and Adriadne inside, stretches along a walkway overlooking the city.  As I wander through room after room it becomes clear that this villa was once flush with deep colored frescoes on every wall, detailed mosaics on every floor, and a complicated maze of rooms.  

Once a popular resort area for wealthy Romans, Pliny the Elder wrote that several miles of luxury villas existed here.  Pliny died in Stabia after setting sail across the Bay to rescue people during the 79 AD eruption, but succumbed to the deadly ash himself.  Stabia was destroyed by more than ten feet of tephra ash.

Today, only two villas are open to the public.  Down the road from Villa of Arianna, the much better preserved Villa San Marco measures more than 11,0000 meters.  A stroll through this structure means seeing a well-preserved atrium, triclinium, and kitchen.  The villa also once had an extensive bath system, including a caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium.

Getting There:  Villa San Marco – Ufficio Scavi di Stabiae -- Via Passeggiata Archeologica -- Castellammare di Stabia (Napoli)

La Cucina Napoletana:  The ancient Roman Columella (AD 4 - ca. AD 70) had a career in the army  after which he took up farming. He wrote De Re Rustica in twelve volumes, a work that has been completely preserved.  Here he writes about a cheese appetizer:  "Delicious particularly when it is very soft.  With all the herbs that are in season, after having cleaned them well, skin and crush the larger walnuts all in the quantity you consider opportune,then  combine well (with the cheese).  Season with a little vinegar and pepper and cover with oil."

Here is Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti's version from Ricette Della Cucina Romana A Pompeii:

Walnut Cheese

150 g herb cheese (cream cheese, ricotta, mascarpone with herbs already inside)

50 g shelled walnuts

Add the shelled and crushed walnuts to the herb cheese and blend together.  Make sure the mixture doesn't become hard and dry.  Because the walnuts have the gift of absorbing oil, the desirable consistency of the cheese can be soft and creamy.  To get this consistency, little by little add small quantities of oil until you bring the mixture to the consistency of ricotta or mascarpone.  Finally, season with a little vinegar and pepper, tasting to repair the flavor with salt and vinegar as needed.  This dish conserves well for long periods of time as long as it's kept in the refrigerator and covered in oil.