On one of my first trips to Naples, a few years ago with my husband and our son (then just a year old) we went in search of one of the city's famous pizza parlours. We wandered down the back alleys of town, past a man in a hot pink three-piece suit, his little finger accessoriesed with a heavy gold signet ring. He was sitting in the front of a funeral parlour shouting into his mobile phone. Teenagers, sometimes three to a moped, hair gelled against the wind, overtook us at high speeds. In front of buildings decked with washing lines, grannies in housedresses and worn slippers stopped their gossiping for a quick pinch of my son's fat cheeks. We navigated past dark storefronts, dilapidated but still gorgeous grand palazzos, and more than a couple of overflowing rubbish bins.
The gritty, cinematic scenes seemed plucked out of Rio or Mexico City, rather than Italy, especially when contrasted with well-ordered Tuscany, where we live, and where pretty, ordered tableaux seem arranged purely for photo shoots, and rubbish disappears as seamlessly as the day. But for me, as for many who fall in love with the city, it is the contrasts of Naples that appeal it's a rebellious but beautiful place with layers of ancient art, a chaos that is almost soap operatic, and a determination to thrive even when things seem to be falling apart.
Continue reading...