Rome to Naples and Pompeii : Journey – the middle

Two hours south of Rome the bus enters Naples via back streets, and threads through ancient tightly packed slums.  The guide relapses into silence.  There is nothing she can say.  These are not the slums of Asia or the sub-continent with exhausted beaten masses eking out a living.  Hard faced people quivering with angry energy glare at the bus, watch for the raised camera, any opportunity to raise a fist.  This is the city of blood thick on the streets, of ancient internecine wars.

Naples is almost 3,000 years old with a story convoluted through three millennia of telling and the shadow of its slums overlaying all. 

It is a small city of one million people and famous for pizza, opera and Sophia Loren.  It could equally be famous for one of the worst traffic problems in the world.  Traffic lights are ignored, drivers invent their own direction of traffic flow against all odds and triple parking seems to be the norm.  A walking tour of the city, preferably with a Neoplitan speaking guide, is an attractive option for a visitor, in fact the only practical option.

Step out of the main part of the city and the Bay of Naples opens to another reality.

Along the waterfront it is as if the slums did not exist.  The bay is a perfect curve.  Arms linked, couples stroll along the promenade, children chase seagulls, old men sit on benches smoking and staring out to sea, women gather in excited gesticulating groups.  The walkers are not as fashionable as the technicolour movies of the 1960s promised and the rock wall protecting the promenade from the sea is the least attractive feature on the front.  But after the chaos of the city it is a welcome space to stand and gaze across the bay to the horizon where Capri floats between a cerulean sky and ultramarine sea and then to turn around and look back at the hills of the city and see in them an order that is non-existent in the city proper.

But now we are almost at our destination

Outside Pompeii is a cameo factory that has attracted a record number of warnings from tourists about its hard sell policy.  However on this day the hard sell is tucked away and visitors are treated to a demonstration of cameo carving.  An ancient art brought from Greece by the Romans its history reflects much of the history of Europe.  Royalty gave cameo images of themselves to favourites and admirers.  Cameos have been copied and cast in plastic, glass, and resin by such names as Wedgwood, but the art of carving by hand survives.  And the cost of buying a hand carved cameo reflects its labour intensiveness.

The gates of Pompeii beckon.

Observer

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