Naples - Pizza, Pompeii & Prosecco

From the train station in Naples, we hopped in a cab to our hotel, and it was immediately apparent that we were about to experience a totally different side of Italy. We'd heard rumors (from mafia movies, etc.) about the crime in Naples, but we'd also heard a lot of good things about the food and the sights. To start our visit off on an appropriate note, our taxi driver wasn't exactly sure where our B&B was, so ended up speeding backwards through a one-way street, honking to get pedestrians out of our path, so Italian! The streets of central Naples are pretty much the opposite of those in Rome: dingy, narrow, and covered in graffiti. Don't get me wrong though, Naples has its charms, and by the end of our three days there we were all starting to fall in love with the place. 

Our B&B only had a few rooms, and the staff set up the terrace for breakfast (tea and croissant for me!) each morning. Here's the terrace with lots of plants: 

On our first afternoon in Naples, we started walking around to see some of the churches and other interesting buildings nearby. We were happy to discover that there were very few other tourists around, a welcome break from our experience in Rome. We heard that most visitors stay in Rome, and do a day trip from Rome to Pompeii, passing through the main train station in Naples, but don't bother with seeing the city itself. Here's WP and Ben in one of the very long and narrow thoroughfares in central Naples:  

One of the coolest churches we saw was San Paolo (photo below), with three big domes that make it look almost futuristic (Coruscant from "Star Wars," anyone?). We could tell that Naples doesn't pump a lot of money into tourism though, based on the condition of their major sites. This church was one of many we saw that was covered in graffiti, most of which was professions of love (maria+paolo per sempre!), but it was still a little sad to see it defaced. The inside of this church was completely empty except for one person praying, and we felt lucky to get to see such a beautiful place, with a central dome comparable in style and size to the Pantheon in Rome, in total peace and quiet.

From the main square we walked down towards the water, and got to see some pretty awesome castles built by some of Naples' many foreign rulers (Greek, Byzantine, Lombard, Spanish, Austrian, French, you name it). Here are the boys with the Tyrrhenian Sea (a branch of the Mediterranean) behind them: 

And me with a castle:

Dinner the first night in Naples we ordered three pizzas, the first of about twelve that we ate in total during the three days we were there. I rarely like to eat the same thing for so many meals in a row, but the pizza in Naples was the best pizza I've ever had. When something is that good you have to take advantage of it before it's gone! One of my favorite orders was the Pizza Margherita DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata, or Controlled Denomination of Origin, a regional food quality assurance label used throughout Europe.) The DOC is a basic pizza that is made up of the finest local mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, local basil and of course, the best local olive oil. This pizza is a showcase for all the region's greatest food treats (even the crust is perfectly cooked), and luckily, a version of this was available at most pizzerias we visited. 

On our second day in Naples, we visited a few museums, including the National Archaeological Museum, which had some amazing Roman statues, busts, and frescoes. They even had a "14-years and older" room with some of the more scandalous Roman statues and paintings. I gotta tell you, I'm not sure 14-year old kids are ready for some of what the Romans were into (in one of the funnier moments of the trip, one American teenage boy with his mom was looking through the collection and yelling "WHY??? WHY???"). But overall, the museum was pretty interesting. Afterwards we sat down for some afternoon coffee in this lovely arcade: 

On our second day, one of the best churches we visited was Sansevero Chapel. The chapel houses a famous statue, the "Veiled Christ". The veil over the figure looks so delicate and sheer, but is carved of stone, in a true masterpiece of sculpture. Downstairs in this same church, there are two figures built several hundred years ago, called "Anatomical Machines" whose skeletons have been encased with hardened veins and arteries to show how the body works. The veins and arteries are colored red and blue, and originally it was thought that a metallic substance was injected into the living subjects, but now they think that the veins could have been reconstructed using wire and beeswax. One of the figures is a man and the other a pregnant woman, though her baby who was also encased was stolen a long time ago. It is one of the creepier things I've ever seen, but definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Naples. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the chapel, but if you're interested in checking out the Veiled Christ, go here, or see the Anatomical Machines here.

After our museum and church visits down in the city, we continued our walk toward one of the hills in Naples, and took a funicular (cable car) up to the top. Just to give you an idea of what Naples looks like, here are a few pictures I snapped as we approached the funicular station. The photo on the right is a side-street from which you can expect to see zooming motorcycles and  lots of laundry hanging out to dry. There were a ton of streets like this little one, some ending in dead-ends and some connecting to other little alleys. Whenever we passed streets like these me and Will were reminded of being in crowded Morocco, with countless motorcycles and people everywhere living in close quarters. Part of the reason for the different feel to the historic center is that it was laid out originally by the ancient Greeks, on a tight grid system (very rare in Europe until the 19th/20th centuries otherwise). The Greeks called this colony Neapolis, or "new city," which is the source of its name today, although now it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Europe.

       

From the top of the hill there was a spectacular view of the city and of Mount Vesuvius!

We visited a combination monastery and maritime museum on top of the hill (don't ask me why they decided to bring boats all the way up a giant hill); inside the museum there were some terraces with awesome views of the water, Mount Vesuvius, and the nearby island of Capri. 

The interior of the monastery is no longer lived in by monks, but has been preserved as an art gallery with all of the original religious paraphernalia intact in between exhibits.  Here's WP in the courtyard, making a new friend:

On our last day in Southern Italy, we made the trek out to Pompeii. The 45-minute train ride from Naples was very crowded with tourists, and I managed to strike up a conversation with some Spanish girls from Valencia. It was nice to be able to speak Spanish again, and they even took me for a Latin American because of my "weird" (i.e. not Spain Spanish) accent, haha. In a way, I'm happy to know that when we get back to California (or are traveling in Mexico), I won't sound weird to Spanish-speakers at home! 

Pompeii was really cool to see. We had a good time wandering the streets and were impressed by all the detailed tile work and mosaics that survived the volcano eruption. 

Some of the more interesting buildings we saw were the bathhouses, with lots of open tub areas and intricate carvings in the walls.

I can't remember whether or not this little fresco was in a bathhouse, but it is just beautiful! I can't believe so much detail and color has survived the last 2000 years. 

In many of the normal houses around Pompeii, the ovens have survived. Here's WP making the pizza, mamma mía!

This photo really has nothing to do with the ruins, but who can resist a little pile of puppies?! There were six altogether; they were so adorable:

These columns are the remains of a temple: 

This photo is a good example of a lot of the courtyards we saw throughout the town. The groundskeepers have them landscaped and it really makes it easier to imagine what this might have looked like when it was being used by the Romans:

The amphitheater was really impressive, though this photo will never do it justice. The walls are intact all the way around and grass and red poppies have started growing where there used to be seats.  

Later on in the day we saw the theater, which doesn't go all the way around like the amphitheater (as Will pointed out when we were there, amphi means two, or on both sides in this case, don't know why I never put that together), but is half open and faces a stage. 

After some more walking around to see the houses and courtyards, we learned a little more about the devastation that occurred all those years ago. Apparently within a matter of minutes, a thick cloud of ash descended on the city, and combined with some toxic and extremely hot gases, it killed a lot of people immediately. 

We even got to see some bodies of people who were encased by the ash. It was so weird to see the expressions on their faces (and mine)!

That evening, after washing off the Pompeii dust, we put on our fancy clothes (and attitudes) for a night at the symphony. Ben's parents, Mathea and Peter, surprised us with tickets to see Berlioz's Simfonie Fantastique at Naples' most renowned venue, the Teatro San Carlo! Before heading to the theater, we went to a famous cafe and bar across the street called Gambrinus. 

The bar is right next to that awesome church we saw on the first day, so Ben took some pictures of me and WP toasting our prosecco in front of the piazza: 

The inside of Teatro San Carlo was incredible! Private boxes lined the circumference of the room, and each one was outfitted with dark red velvet curtains and cushioned seats.

The boxes had nothing on our seats though! We were right up front next to the violins, with an incredible view of the conductor and musicians. At times during the show we could even hear the conductor exhaling sharply and see his extremely expressive face as he led the group in a fabulous performance. 

Here's the painted ceiling and some of the seats. So incredible!

This photo shows the curtain and ceiling above the stage. Everything was very beautiful in gold and red velvet. That small screen hanging in the middle was used during the second act, which was not the Berlioz piece, but a different performance that included the orchestra, a choir, and spoken word. The screen was used during the choir's songs (which were in French), to translate the words to Italian. The whole group together was pretty amazing, though parts of the spoken word went over my head, since the actor was speaking Italian.

The performance was very exciting and we were so impressed with the quality of the musicians and the theater. Mathea and Peter, thank you again for making our last night in Naples so memorable! 

After the show we headed through the city one last time and made our way back to the hotel. The next day we got on the train back to Rome and from there to Penne. Coming soon, another post about Penne, the lovely little hill town in the Abruzzo region where I've had plenty of time to blog! Here's a little taste of how beautiful things are around here. Ciao!   

Morocco - Marrakech, Kasbahs, Caves

Our first stop on the big adventure was Marrakech, Morocco. We stayed a couple nights in the old part of the city before getting picked up by our tour guide, Ali, for the next part of the trip. Our first impressions of Morocco were pretty good; we wandered around the marketplaces, ate delicious (vegetarian!) food, and just generally had a great time.

Pretty much everyone we met spoke Arabic, Berber, French, English and sometimes even some Spanis; we were impressed! When they heard we were living in Spain usually the first comment was "Aren't Spanish people so bad at speaking English? They really need to work on that." I got a kick out of that because (A) it's true, and (B) because it is true, I have a job. I think Moroccans who work in tourism have spent years watching movies and TV shows in English with subtitles, something the Spanish haven't started to do yet (everything is dubbed here).

Ok, but back to Marrakech! We stayed in an adorable little riad (a traditional Moroccan house with an interior garden or courtyard) that included an amazing breakfast of Moroccan breads, eggs, jams, butter, and Moroccan mint tea (which is mint tea mixed with green tea usually served with a lot of sugar, but you can ask for it unsweetened). The photo on the left is the courtyard and breakfast tables, so nice.  

The photo on the right is the entrance to the spa Les Bains de Marrakech, where we had the best massages ever! We also did the traditional Moroccan hammam, which is basically an hour in a steam room and then a hearty exfoliation administered by Moroccan ladies. That part was a little weird, but all in all, it was an awesome experience. The other perk is that since it's in Morocco, it was very reasonably priced - would definitely go back again some day just to hang out at Les Bains! 

 

The old city and the new city of Marrakech are divided by the city walls. Outside the walls, the streets are wider and more modern, and all the city's newer housing developments are built around fancy restaurants and international stores. We ventured out of the city walls for some delicious meals of Moroccan food and Thai food (something we don't see a lot of in Spain). Inside the walls the old city is very crowded and crazy, with tons of tiny streets, horse-drawn carriages, marketplaces and people. Here's me with the city walls:

We didn't do too much shopping, but of course, we had to stop by and see some of the Moroccan rugs that we'd heard so much about. As you can see they have a bunch of designs...the stores can be kind of overwhelming though! 

One of our favorite stops was the pharmacy. The picture below is outside the shop, with brightly colored potpourri, and lots of spices. One of the purchases we made was a bag of the Moroccan 40-spice blend ras el hanout, so tasty! 

It was fun going to Morocco right after visiting the Alhambra with WP's parents in Granada. So much of the tile work and wood carvings look like what we saw in Spain. Here's me chillin' at the ancient Islamic college called Ben Youssef Madrasa. 

The food in Marrakech - and Morocco in general - was amazing! The traditional Moroccan dishes like vegetable tagine (veggies and cous cous) were great, and the French influence meant some amazing salads with goat cheese and delicious pastries! Here's a lunch we had on a warm roof terrace - Moroccan mixed salads of beets, potatoes, and carrots in the foreground and little fried cheesy triangles on the right. 

A common dessert in Morocco is just "fresh fruit", which sounds awesome, right? You might expect a fruit salad type of dessert, which sometimes you'll get (including delicious orange slices with cinnamon and sugar on them), but one time this is what they brought me. Why hello fresh fruit, are you happy to see me too?  

                            

After an awesome couple of days sight seeing and relaxing in Marrakech, our tour guide Ali and SUV driver Omar picked us up at our hotel. It didn't take long to get outside the city, pretty soon we were going up some pretty steep snow-capped peaks in the Atlas Mountains. 

Along the way we stopped at a few really cool kasbahs (fortresses) from centuries ago. This is the first one we went to; notice also the giant stork's nest atop the tower! From the way it looks on the outside you expect the inside to be mostly mud/adobe walls, but for this one that was not the case. Inside there were rooms of beautiful tile work and even some painted silk panels. The picture of us in the last post sitting on the windowsill was inside this kasbah.

Here's another shot of us inside: 

Our second kasbah stop of the trip was this amazing one called Aït Benhaddou. Most of the buildings are abandoned, but some people still live here and some others have opened up shops to sell things to tourists. These buildings have been used to film all kinds of famous movies like Gladiator, Jesus of Nazareth, Lawrence of Arabia, Kundun, and The Mummy. 

One lady who lives in the kasbah and weaves rugs also makes some money by allowing tourists to come in to her home and see some props used in the movies. She has some photos up of famous people like Russell Crowe and also keeps some fake swords and spears around. Here's us acting out a brutal fight scene a la Gladiator: 

One of the other hilarious highlights of this part of the trip was our tour of Atlas Studios, located in Ouarzazate.  Atlas Studios houses leftover sets from Hollywood movies that are set in place like Tibet, Egypt, Jerusalem and Rome. We learned that Hollywood uses Morocco all the time since it is safer and easier to get to than places like Saudi Arabia and Algeria. In the movies these sets probably look pretty good, but in real life they are pretty much just pieces of styrofoam falling apart. They keep them around because they can reuse them for new movies - with a little paint and the right camera angle, right? 


Here's WP with a lion from the movie Kundun: 

And the great Temple of Luxor from Egypt (falling apart and much smaller than the original): 

One of the funny things about our guides Ali and Omar was how they seemed to know everyone. Ali has been in the tourism business for about 10 years, and Omar is a family friend of Ali's. It seemed like every roadside photo op and rest stop, Ali and Omar had old friends they'd greet with hugs and smiles. Once we stopped for lunched at this restaurant that is not even officially open yet. A friend of Ali's is working on opening it, so I guess in a way we were test clients. When we arrived they hurriedly set up this table and umbrella for us on the roof of the building:

They made us this very tasty curried vegetable pizza. Everywhere you go in Morocco people serve you mint tea and call it "Berber Whiskey" (Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa and are usually Muslim, so definitely don't drink whiskey, although beer and wine are surprisingly popular in Morocco, so go figure), and so as a joke Ali called this the "Berber Pizza". 

Another interesting stop we made was to visit some of Ali's friends who live in some caves in the mountains. We had to off-road for an hour or so to get to where they live, and passed many herds of sheep and goats on the way. This family has a few caves that are side by side and they mostly raise animals to sell at the nearby town. When we were visiting the father of the family was not home because he had walked into town to sell some stuff and was still on his way back. Here's a shot of the entrance to one of the caves with some of the lambs out front: 

This little guy was pretty adorable, and they let us hold him! He was more like a puppy than a lamb, he kept running after us and trying to see if our shoes, camera and clothes were edible.

                            


The family invited us into the cave for some mint tea. This picture came out a little dark, but you can see our guide Ali on the left, driver Omar near the entrance and one of the sons pouring tea on the right. The lamb got to come in too.

It was a little sad to see the conditions this family lives in, just from a sanitation and comfort perspective.  From what Ali told us though, this is just their way of life and they wouldn't want to change it by moving to one of the nearby villages; and who are we to say they should?  The mom of the family has had 12 children, most of whom are grown up and have moved to the nearby town, but she says she's just too old to move now and wants to stay where she is. This is one of her grandkids, apparently staying with Grandma and Grandpa for awhile. She was adorable, but a little suspicious of us until Omar gave her some cardboard packaging from our lunch to use as a toy.

All in all I think stopping by to visit was good, and I'm pretty sure some of the money we paid for the tour trickled down to her and her family. On the way out of the foothills we came across these girls out with their herd of camels. In this photo they were running towards our car to ask us for money. This happened to us a lot, but usually Ali would give the kids mandarin oranges instead. I thought that was an elegant solution to what can sometimes be an awkward situation. 

Back on the road again we stopped to see a mosque before heading off for our camel adventure in the desert. Naturally across the street from the mosque there is a store crowded with knick-knacks and Moroccan goods that we definitely did not need to buy. Of course, the shopkeep insisted on wrapping us up Berber style to show us how we might look if our names were actually Mohammed and Fatima (which is what Ali started calling us early on). 

After some more driving through desert (much of which looks like Arizona), we finally got to the SERIOUS desert - black rocks and sand dunes! More on the dunes and camel ride coming in the next post... stay tuned!