Napoli – A City with without half-measures
Close your eyes. Imagine not hearing the sounds of the rushing motorcycles meandering in a chaotic web of synchronized mayhem. Open them. The breath-taking Belle Èpoque architecture, tinkering on the verges of dereliction, merges almost seamless, into the amazing ancient well-maintained baroque styled buildings. A true shopping paradise where fashion follows current trends. It is packed with shops and shoppers with serious commercial intentions, punctuated only by the obligatory gelato and a shot of double espresso. It would be wild to think you are in an African city. Oh yes, the unusually high numbers of beggars of African descent adds to the conviction that Naples could quite easily be a city trapped in a burgeoning West African enclave that has outgrown the Delphic ambitions of its city planners.
It is a city so unlike most Western European cities. Inconceivable yet, that it is Italy’s third largest city after Rome and Milan. Yet Naples defies reasoned thinking. Until its annexation to the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, it was the wealthiest and most industrialized of the various Italian states. Naples was the third most populous city of Europe (after London and Paris), and certainly one of the most opulent. Even today, a visit to Naples would not be complete without seeing the royal palaces in and near the city. It is the birth place of Pizza, one of many Italian contributions to the world’s cuisine next to pasta, cappuccino, risotto & limoncello.
Naples is a city characteristic of schizophrenic contradictions. For the Bella figura, it offers a myriad of impressive outspoken fashionable styles in clothing. Yet litter lingers, side by side, with the eye-catching style in garb. It has a high density of pickpockets adding to a sense of impending peril only further heightened by the carefree motorcyclists crisscrossing at shocking velocities. For assurances of the hereafter, there are countless churches of all sizes and splendour but little charity. Wide streets give way to narrow ones sloping downwards and upwards at acute angles but shared with cars, scooters, and pedestrians. Amazing friendliness, but countervailed by volatile Mediterranean temper. It is not ironic that it is a city built on the valleys clinging close to the slopes of the active and volatile Vesuvius.
In short, either you love it with passion or you hate it passionately. Either way, I adore passion. A city to fall in love with. Passion is what I see in the eyes of the Neapolitans. A city that makes you feel something, is a city alive!
“Vedi Napoli e poi muori!” It was a phrase coined during the reign of the Bourbons of Naples, considered by historians to have been the city’s Golden Age. Paraphrased, before you die, you must experience the beauty and magnificence of Naples.