i went to italy continued

• as i was saying, next we went to naples. we rode the bus, an amusing experience in crowd-management (according to francesca, it was amusing to me only because i couldn't understand everything people were saying). actually, my amusement started when i noticed, while waiting for the bus to leave from the garibaldi square next to the main station, that some of the garibaldini at the foot of the huge statue of garibaldi were wearing (real, not sculpted) purple and blue winter scarves - such a nice gesture on the part of the people who put them there! then we saw some assorted old-school buildings:

and grabbed lunch at the pizzeria brandi - home of the margherita pizza (which is super-vegetarian, basically the original "cheese pizza"). i had an awesome vegetable-topping pizza - and i also ordered a salad, which confused and exasperated our waiter, who was hilarious (he jokingly "fought" with francesca and called her bossy). at the pizzeria there was another singing guy - and again i was totally oblivious as to the meaning of the song lyrics. apparently, though, they were all quite bad (read sexist). naturally, i was intrigued. anyway, we continued our frantic walking around (there was much ground to cover), in the rain:

after lunch we stopped at "il caffe del professore", for a homonymous (delicious!) cup of vegan hazelnut-paste-and-espresso (francesca made sure for me that it was vegan... and it the process had another "uncomfortable" moment with the shop personnel, who when she asked if the hazelnut paste contained any milk or cream looked at us like we were insane). then we walked along the beach, saw vesuvius and visited another castle and galleria umberto i:

and then the church of santa chiara with its courtyard decorated with beautiful blue-and-yellow majolica tiles and lots of lemon and orange trees, and a nice xmas presepio (info below):

we strolled some more through various neighborhoods, of which one was mainly music stores, another bookstores! i bought two little booklets of medieval napolitan poetry/song lyrics, and thus finally had my hand on texts to such gems as "funiculi funicula" ("We go from the ground to the mountain, baby! Without walking!": i call it genius) and the better known (but less funny) "o sole mio"! then we went to via san gregorio armeno, famous for its shops selling handcrafted objects intended for nativity scenes ("presepi"), which are an important tradition in this region; around xmas time, presepi of all kinds and sizes are present everywhere: in people's homes, on the streets, inside churches and cathedrals; lots of effort and thought goes into these scenes, and the miniature objects mostly used for them are amazing - true works of art (ok, sometimes kitsch or even political satire); i really wanted to buy some for my doll house but didn't:

so to sum up naples, it was not frightening as various non-italians and italians had "warned" us it'd be - and in my opinion with the beach right there the hustle and bustle and craziness don't even matter. plus there's beautiful things to see and experience, and besides for me it seemed similar in many ways to bucharest (if bucharest were a city on the coast), and i just enjoyed it.
this last photo could just as well have been taken in bucharest.


speaking of presepi, here's the one at francesca's house (for the full effect, imagine it with a real water fountain and decorated with blinking red lights):

• one of our two visits to salerno was in the most miserable cold and wet weather ever:

but the old city and especially the cathedral - with its marble mosaics - and the too-good-to-be-true eraclea hot cocoa/tea shop (i had tea) were still memorable

• on new year's eve, i finally had the chance to see in daylight the three amazingly well preserved greek temples in paestum

and only slightly less picturesquely - and veganly - this fittingly named "mortadella" thing:

(a fellow customer happened to see me taking this photo and said something to the effect of "it tastes better than it looks", to which i could only say "NO, sir, you are mistaken!!!" - well to be honest i actually just shook my head no, but it was done in a totally firm and convincing manner)

• and then new year's we spent at home; francesca's boyfriend vittorio masterminded the meal, but we all helped to make it, and i came up with one of the dishes (admittedly just because there were some zucchinis left over, but still): we had assorted appetizers again, two pasta dishes (eggless fusilli which we made by hand - as seen in the photos - with roasted porcini and zucchini and baked pasta of another kind with an eggplant-tomato sauce and topped with fried eggplant strips) by the end of which we were already bursting, and then in addition baked zucchini skins stuffed with marinated cauliflower, and oven-roasted potatoes. then we decided we were incredibly, painfully full (our theory was that it was actually a cumulative effect from all of the food we'd had that week):

we ate, we groaned, we lounged, we pressed tummies, and we watched new year's concerts on tv (i was hugely disappointed, as throughout my stay in italy, to see no toto cutugno anywhere - though al bano did make up for it by being everywhere). and then the new year came around, and we had to dig into one more dish - a lentil stew - since lentils are traditionally eaten for good luck (more specifically: money) and that's an alternative to the custom of throwing old stuff out the window, also for good luck in the new year... which we didn't do for some reason. outside, everybody and their grandmother were lighting (really loud, really serious) fireworks. sca-RY! we took cover... and then we had some sweets. and that was the end of that.

ps: there's lots of things that i don't have photos of that i could mention, like going to the local market in paestum, getting used to drinking lots of espresso (kinda), the awesome walk around agropoli, to the beach and harbor, on new year's eve... but... then i'd never be done.

so THE END

(props to sara, and norio and ashina, for taking some of the photos, anna for lots of driving, francesca and vittorio for taking me along, and francesca's mom for the hospitality)