How to Cross the Street in Naples

As my fingernails dug further into the vinyl seat on Paulo’s motorcycle, I wondered not for the last time why I had eagerly agreed to this “sightseeing trip” around Naples, Italy.  Not that I did not want to sightsee in the immediate neighborhood of Pompeii and the Italian mafia.  It was just that when I said “Yes, absolutely!” to Paulo’s invitation to drive around Naples with him, I thought he meant in a car.  On the upside, I was getting to see the depth of the scratches present on the side and back panels of the automobiles that surrounded us.  I had to wonder which scratches represented the last motorcyclist that had gotten too close.

Most impressively, however, was that while we came within inches of brushing our shoulders against the sides of the automobiles with which we zigged and zagged, we seemed in most danger of being decapitated by the side mirrors on the buses.  But, it was Naples for heavens sake, so throwing caution to the wind – and shoving aside the phrases “serious head injury” and “feeding tube” – I opened my eyes again and started surveying the buildings, the people, and yes, even the traffic.

It really wasn’t so bad, once I realized that Paulo had done this before, and that the other drivers were also well versed in the weird dance in which they were participating.  As we zoomed along the harbor side of the city, Vesuvius was clearly visible in the distance, like one of those zits that sometimes appear, as if by magic, overnight.  But this zit was thousands of feet tall.  It was troubling to think about the people who had woken up one morning so many years ago, not realizing that the rumbling to which they had likely become accustomed was signaling their last day on earth.

As we continued along our route I recognized the stall to which Paulo and I had strolled earlier in the morning, the one from which I sampled my first Italian espresso, and my first Italian breakfast pastry.  In fact, I did a particularly un-Italian thing by ordering a second espresso.  I know that Anthony Bourdain is known for slamming American fast-food fare, and in contrast rhapsodizing sweetly about the quality of “foreign” fast-food – some of which by the way looks and tastes like sewage – but I really have to agree with him that so much of the food eaten on the run in non-American settings is wonderful.  My Italian breakfast was just one example.  And it did not hurt that I was staring out at the sights afforded by the Neapolitan coastline.  How could food not taste great in such a setting?

As we zipped past the pedestrians I also thought more about my thesis that Italians regardless of age, weight or gender were incapable of not looking good in their clothing.  I have an Italian friend who lives with his American wife in a villa in the hills outside of Florence.  Piero is in his 70’s and when he put on a suit for a function that we both attended, he looked like a prince. I can’t determine how Italians universally pull this off.  Is it the way the clothes fit?  The way they walk?  Is it the way they value the good things in life?  Or is it just simply that most of them are olive-skinned rather than pasty white?  Whatever it is, if I could bottle and sell it to pasty white American males like me, I would be able to spend a lot more time in Italy.

Another fact of Italian life that I came to realize I had no psychic/emotional connection with, was the way in which Italy and her people are steeped in religion.  I come from the southern U.S., a region notorious for its Christianity, if not its Christian charity, but the Italians have us Americans beaten to a pulp in regard to their piety.

But like the American religious, and indeed the religious anywhere, Italian religiosity is best seen when they are caught off-guard in a moment of stress.  An experience later in the day in central Naples provided such a moment of inadvertent transparency.  Paulo and I were walking through a back section of the “Old Town”.  As we approached a street crossing, we drew up close behind a pair of young women walking arm-in-arm.  They were engrossed in conversation, talking animatedly to one another.  They were simultaneously stepping into the street when a loud, harsh horn blast caused them to jump back onto the curb.  One of the women began to shout and gesticulate in rapid fire Italian in the direction of the now stationary car.  Just then she looked into the car – as did I – and saw that both of the young occupants in the front seat were clearly wearing the white collar of Catholic priests.  The woman’s shrieks ceased as her hand first flew to her mouth and then rapidly made the sign of the Cross; presumably to indicate that she took back every descriptor she had just applied to the priests.  It was very gratifying (at least to me) to see that both of the young priests began laughing.  Maybe God too was laughing!

Another aspect of Italy, and for that matter all of Europe, that continually confronts an American is the wonderful antiquity of the place.  Apartments, local shops, walls, monuments and even toilets are generally older, often by thousands of years, than any of the analogous structures in North America.

And sometimes this antiquity is encountered in the most surprising places.  That evening, as Paulo and I strolled through the parking area toward the restaurant where we had reservations, I was surprised to see a hole some 10 feet in depth covering most of the area in front of the entrance.  We had to divert around this hole, and as we did I looked down expecting to see a severed sewage line, or maybe some electrical connections.  Instead, I saw what appeared to be an archeological dig.  Confused, I asked Paulo what they were trying to repair.  He said, “Well, originally the owners were planning to expand the parking area, but when they began the work they ran into ancient Neapolitan artifacts.  So now it has turned into an archeological excavation.”  I told him that I would guess that in the States we would turn this into another money making venture, selling tickets, constructing a parking garage and making up a nice tale about what was in the hole – while all the time trying to prevent some overweight, and physically unstable, person from foolishly tumbling into said hole, resulting in the favorite American pastime of suing people for allowing you the opportunity to be stupid.

How were the Italians dealing with this ‘dig’?  They were choosing to sit and sip their wine at tables positioned precariously close to the crumbling walls of the gaping fissure.  Maybe when you live next to a volcano as the residents of Naples have done for millennia you become a bit blasé about a trifling little hole.  And maybe that’s the attitude you also need to make a motorcycle foray into the bowels of Naples traffic…and come out alive again.