A Game of Favorites

From Rome we had some time to kill before the next set of plans so decided to dash down to Naples for a long day.  America corners the market on crime, but in all other respects Napoli has every bad attribute a city can have.  It is rundown, crowded, noisy, dirty, covered in graffiti, and from the very moment I stepped foot in it, I have been absolutely in love. It captivated me with its excitement and vibrancy in a way I have never experienced before.  It seems young and alive, fast paced with everyone zooming around.  Every green light is a Formula One of scooters taking off.  Bars are filled with happy fun loving people at night.  Its thin streets, banners stretching across to simulate laundry hung from lines.  I enjoy all of it. 

The reason for all this exploration over these past three years is I have been looking for somewhere to live out my retirement.  I have had it with America.  Instead of investing in education, since the 80s, America has chosen the more expensive route of ignorance.  I watched in disbelief as it culminated in the election of the most ignorant we had.  I don’t see any hope for turning that around in my lifetime.  Getting out while the getting is good has served many people well in the past.

Part of this thinking about my future involves thinking about my current living situation.  (As crazy as that situation is!) I have a stealth camper van and I can drive and park it wherever I want.  My Starlink dish works anywhere I have a clear view of the sky.  Do you know how many national parks I have visited in the last two years?  Zero.  It never even occurs to me to pull off into the wilderness.  Not when there is a margarita with my name on it in New Orleans, or a coffee in Pasadena, or a deep dish pizza in Chicago.  I seem drawn to city life.  Walking around seeing not the stars but streetlights and neon.

I love all of Italy, I really do.  Every city and every region has beauty and cool stuff.  I have put three years worth of thought into it.  My life savings, and everything else I worked so hard for, took a powder a couple years back.  So living along water, or really owning anyplace of my own, in America now would be prohibitively expensive.  But in Italy, in one of the smaller towns, I could probably afford somewhere within sight if not walking distance of the Tyrrhenian or Adriatic seas.  Those coastal cities are so peaceful and so beautiful.  I could see myself putting out deck chairs and never leaving.  Going totally hermit.   But is that really a good thing?

I had a friend a few years back who described living in Miami as “Island fever in one less direction”  I think I would feel the same living too far down on the boot in Italy.  So no further south than Salerno.  On my budget, in one of the internal southern towns I could really get quite a place indeed.  Lots of homes have some ground attached and often an olive grove.  I could make my own olive oil and eat my own olives.  In these small towns the locals are desperate for new blood, and another thing on the plus side, I would be forced to become fluent in Italian.  Again, this would bump into the hermit problem.  Or, the opposite end of the spectrum, a boredom problem.  I lived my childhood in the outback and never had any desire to return to it in the US, why would I think I would enjoy it more just because the people talk different?

That is why I am currently leaning toward city life.  Firenze is too touristy. Rome is too big. I have heard Milano is too expensive.  I’ll check it out later in the trip.  These are all additional reasons why Napoli is winning the race. 

Since photography here is strictly forbidden, this 
must be someone else's photo!

If you visit, there is an attraction I cannot suggest enough.  The Veiled Christ located at Sansevero Chapel Museum, via Francesco De Sanctis, 19.  It is an amazing work.  Carved from an single slab of marble, it appears to have a liquid transparency.  The artist was initially jailed for performing some type of witchcraft, then later it was thought he cheated, using some chemical treatment to “marbleize” silk.  But it is neither of these.  Just a breathtaking work of art.

Napoli’s real claim to fame is invention of the pizza. It is still evident in the number of pizza restaurants in the city.  An astonishing 8200, a pizza restaurant for every 115 people.  I read that the day the Covid lockdown was lifted the city restaurants served 60,000 pizzas in one day.   One pizza for every fifteen residents.  I am a pizza lover so I totally understand this.  It is very good pizza indeed.  The city even has a pizza certification board where the best of the best get to have a sign on the front of their restaurant.

Pizza aside, in my opinion, the best meal in all of Napoli is served at the Lombardi restaurant just around the corner on via Foria at via Duomo, the edge of the historic district.  It is a certified Vera Pizza location so they will serve you an outstanding pizza.  My favorite however is Spaghetti Bella Donna, pasta in a very light tomato sauce with olives and olive oil.  For three years I have been served by the same gruff waiter who takes his job very seriously.  It is a big place, extending over at least two floors, maybe even three, so they can get quite busy.  Avoid them on Sundays because the church->lunch crowd cause them to switch into “pizza only” mode.