Backing up a bit, though: in April, additional things happened.
We went to our third and final "Raw" by Michael Adams dinner, featuring these amazing tuna tostadas...
...and this "paper-thin salad" with beets, tomatoes, broccoli, fried sweet shreds, physalis, quinoa, and spicy Peruvian anticucho sauce (yummmm). (Not pictured: the seafood ceviche; gyoza; sushi/nigiri plate; beef filet; octopus; halibut; asparagus; and quinoa salad also on that tasting menu! Cripes, so good.)
Our friends Dane-from-Denver and Jen-from-California happened to be in town at the same time, so we did a little walking tour of the old town, and Mike cooked up some Bolognese for us all (plus a few other friends, 'cause the more the merrier). (And thanks to Dane for this great photo!)
And we had a cheese evening--as in, a multiple-course tasting menu of nothing but cheese, along with the requisite accompaniment of fruit breads, jams, and honeys--with the gourmet group from Mike's rugby team. This cart contains 76 different kinds of cheeses.
We figure, everyone tried somewhere between 30 and 40 different cheeses; some people had more, and some fewer, depending on what one liked and was willing to eat. (So good, but so...much...cheese...!! However, would be willing to try again this same time next year.)
And then, in May, it was finally time for Mike's big surprise trip, the planning and keeping secret of which usually stresses me out beyond description. This year was no exception, but it all turned out to be worth it. I'd kinda shot myself in the foot last year, with the jet flight for his 39th birthday, which, if I'd had half a brain, I would have kept in my pocket for the big 4-0. (What kind of idiot does that? My kind.) In lieu of attempting to top that, I tried to figure out something else that Mike would really enjoy, and I think I nailed (at least parts) of it. Naples, to an extent, lives up to its reputation as sorta dirty, graffitied, chaotic, and a little crumbling...but it is also bustling and gorgeous and fascinating and full of history and incredible food and all of that is everything I love in a city.
Since we got into town relatively early-ish on a Saturday afternoon, we struck off immediately for some fried pizza (a Neapolitan specialty, and be still my heart) at Antica Pizzeria Zia Esterina Sorbillo, where, I must say, we learned that fried pizza (ours contained some tiny meatballs, cheese, and a bit of tomato) is every bit as delicious as one might imagine.
It's a tiny little take-away place that has, next to the door, a big screen with a live feed of the guys making and frying the pizzas, but it also proudly displays Zia Esterina, San Gennaro, and Sophia Loren in close proximity to one another. Hee.
Post-pizza, we headed to Castel Nuovo, which was literally around the corner from our hotel and the fried pizza. The original castle here was built between 1279 and 1284 by Charles of Anjou, but the current form dates to the mid-15th century and the reign of Alfonso I of Aragon ("The Magnanimous," I kid you not)...
...who built this triumphal marble arch in 1443, celebrating the his entry into the city.
Today, this place contains a smallish civic art museum (with works by Neapolitans and/or about Naples itself); the rather grand-of-scale, but austere, Barons' Hall; and the Palatine Chapel (with remnants of frescoes by Giotto), the only part of the castle remaining from the original Angevin construction. The last of which, naturally, was closed the day we were there. But at least we got to see these ornate bronze castle doors from about 1475, in one of which is embedded a cannonball that appears to have been fired from the inside. The most credible hypothesis as to how this might have happened is that these doors were seized as part of the spoils of victory by the French king Charles VIII when he successfully captured the city in 1495. They were loaded onto a ship to be transported to France, and then the French fleet was attacked (and fired upon by cannon) by the Genovese, who, victorious, sent the French spoils, including the now-damaged doors), back to Napoli. Or something along those lines.
Nice view from the ramparts of Castel Nuovo. Here, Naples' port, and the base of Vesuvius way down there. (Despite some mostly-sunny days, this was the most we saw of the volcano at any given time. Somehow, it always had clouds around the peak!)
About 2 minutes from Castel Nuovo is the grand Galleria Umberto I, which reminded me very much of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milano, only in a still-being-cleaned-and-restored state. (You can see the contrast on the right wall here.)
At one end of the Galleria is Sfogliatella Mary, a little kiosk rumored to sell the best version of Naples' no. 1 pastry, sfogliatella. We shared one of the riccia (curly) variety and a huge baba (a sort of spongy yellow yeast cake usually soaked, to some extent, in rum, and this one was almost as long as my forearm) certainly the best one of each we tried on our trip: the former almost impossibly heavy from its ricotta filling, but very crisp in the pastry shells, and the latter almost impossibly light and fluffy and not too rummy.
Exploring around our hotel a little, we found, quite literally across the street, the narrow, bunting-festooned streets of the Spanish quarter.
This place is right off a main shopping thoroughfare, but as soon as you headed into one of these streets, you are in real neighborhoods, full of tiny restaurants, bars/caffes, little markets on nearly every corner, and--the only place in the city where we found the "Naples' traffic is so bad you take your life in your hands crossing the street" stereotype to be nearly true--people zooming by in both directions on Vespas, without regard to the width (narrow!), condition (a little rough!), direction (theoretically, one-way!), or crowdedness (parked cars, pedestrians, and veggie stalls all over!) of the street. Not to mention how many people it's actually safe to transport at one time on a Vespa. (This neighborhood was kinda the way I imagined Naples before we got there: chaotic, a little dirty, full of insane people on scooters, laundry hanging from the buildings, and tiny markets everywhere.)
We kept wandering uphill, away from the shopping street, and found this little piazza with a massive painted reproduction of the sculpture "Modesty" from the Sansevero chapel (more about that later)...
...and, of course, a mural of Maradona, essentially considered to be the city's second patron saint after San Gennaro.
After our initial neighborhood exploration, it was time to head to dinner at Umberto, a traditional restaurant in the gorgeous, rather upscale, neighborhood of Chiaia. We shared starters of mozzarella (invented in Campania, Naples' geographic region, and--I am not exaggerating--everywhere we ate mozzarella, it was the best ever) topped with fried veggie strips, and a scoop of lemon-thyme ricotta topped with some grilled squid, and Mike's main--the evening's clear winner--was paccheri pasta with local tomatoes, octopus, black olives and capers. Mine was a nice seafood risotto topped with a giant prawn, and afterwards, we shared a cheese plate (asiago, pecorino, and caciocavallo with a wine jelly and this crazy bread with egg, ham, and cheese baked into it*). All in all, a lovely meal. Would go back. (And afterwards, we visited this tremendous little speakeasy-style, Art Nouveau-covered cocktail bar, L'Antiquario. Great drinks, gorgeous decor, would go back there as well.)
The next day, we decided to visit our second of Naples' three castles, Sant'Elmo, which is perched way up on a hill overlooking the city. This place was originally constructed in 1275 by the Angevins, but was (also) enlarged to its current massive form in the mid-16th century by the Spanish.
The view from the top is impressive, although again...no Vesuvius.
Looking southwest.
There's not much to see in the castle itself--basically, you climb long ramps inside until you get to various overlooks, and then you're at the top--but the real action is next door, in the Carthusian monastery of San Martino. This complex is surprisingly huge, and is full of various little unexpected museums and beautiful cloisters, all sorta situated around the main, 17th-century church of San Martino. (Due to the delicate nature of the marble inlay in the floor, you can't actually go in the front of the church. Fair enough.)
Oh, hey, there's a gigantic castle next door.
The small, but lovely, 16th-century Cloister of the Procurators.
In San Martino's maritime museum we found this looooong and impressively-carved barge, given to Charles of Bourbon by the city aldermen in the mid-18th century.
The entire length of this thing is carved along its top edge with floral and oceanic motifs, but the stern end was spectacular.
In the small museum of religious paintings and sculptures in the former priors' quarters, we found this: a Madonna and child with St. John by Pietro Bernini--about whose work, of course, we'd just learned in February in Rome!
Continuing on, we found the huge and silent 16th-century Large Cloister, basically devoid of other tourists, and lined with all sorts of interesting things. For example, those doors under the arcades were monks' cells, and the tiny windows next to them where they received their meals...
...and there was this small 17th-century cemetery for the monks, the railing around which was lined with marble skulls, all of which appear to be unique.
After passing through several museums on local history (there's a small theater collection, an exhibit on the ubiquitous Pulcinella, two very grandiose carriages, and more local art, among other things--this place is GIGANTIC, and part of it was closed that day!), we finally worked our way back around through several more very fancy rooms, like this one...
...to the rear of the church, which is just as gorgeous from the choir as it was from the front.
As with every church and museum we visited in Naples, San Martino has a presepe exhibit, which contained a fair amount of interesting info and lots of individual examples of the various types of figures that appear in Neapolitan Nativity scenes (pizzaiolos! washerwomen! veggie vendors! and lots of other modern folk--all of which I find fascinating, both for the anachronism and the fact that the hubbub surrounding the Holy family generally tends to overwhelm it in these scenes). Here, a portion of the huge 18th-century Cuciniello presepe, with the actual Nativity scene set at the base of that Roman ruin (!).
After seeing all that there was to see in San Martino, we decided to take the stairs back down into town, which not only gave us incredible views over and through the city, but led us onto the street known as Spaccanapoli, the southernmost of Naples' three large east-west streets (decumani) first laid out during the Roman era. It is very long, super narrow, and tremendously interesting. (A very good aerial view of its length and straightness here.)
After a quick and disappointing lunch at a place that looked like it should know better, we went to probably the most famous place in Naples, Cappella Sansevero. It's famed for Giuseppe Sanmartino's 1753 sculpture "The Veiled Christ," commonly referred to as one of the greatest marble sculptures ever created, and I was dubious, I'll admit. I've seen a lotta marble sculptures. However. Holy smokes. Not only did that thing mesmerize me--I could have stared at its unbelievable details for hours--but the chapel itself is full of other incredible marble pieces, as well (one of which, "Disillusion," involves a fishing net carved from marble, for crying out loud. That's impossible, is what that is, and "Modesty" is also rather gorgeously and impossibly detailed, too). Needless to say, no photos allowed inside, and they're pretty strict about it, so you'll just have to be satisfied with the photos here. Sighhh.
Next, after a quick traipse through the church at Santa Chiara, we headed to the highly-touted Meatin in the western suburbs for dinner, where, I'm sad to say, the standout of the meal was the amuse bouche of grilled bread topped with provola (basically, smoked mozzarella) and prosciutto. The rest of the meal was just fine, but nothing really to holler about, and not really worth the effort of getting out there. Sigh again.
The next day, however, was entirely worthy of hollering: that's right, I found a food tour.
Passed someone's soccer laundry across a narrow street in the center...**
...on our way to the first stop, the Capriccio pasticceria for cappuccinos, semolina cake with ricotta, and baba (the latter minus the rum, sorta, but filled with cream!), and then we headed to the amazing little Antica Baccaleria Porta Capuana (in business since 1940!) for some "sashimi" made out of stockfish, or cod that's been dried and then rehydrated, and, here, drenched in lemon juice. It may not sound so stellar, but it was unbelievably good!
Plus, the store itself is something of a wonder; it still contains some of the original wood-and-marble tables and shelving (and this little fountain) from its inception, and the place is packed with local and artisanal goodies (yes, please). (And, ok, some pressed-fish nuggets in the shapes of anchors, stars, and fish for the kiddies, but who am I to judge?? Whatever keeps them in business, I say!)
As its name implies, this shop is just around the corner from the actual Porta Capuana, which dates to about 1484 and the Aragonese reconstruction/relocation of the city walls. (Sadly, the piazza in front is all torn up and under construction, but as our guide Sonia told us, it's a hopeful sign, since the San Lorenzo neighborhood--one both unfamous and underfunded--has tremendous potential as both a tourist and culinary destination, and needs just a little revitalization and a little marketing to achieve this. However you feel about bringing tourism to places like this, the revenue from it could change lives for the better here.)
"Neapolitans are recyclers," Sonia says. As an example, she pointed out this little bit of Roman wall used as the base for this apartment building.
Next stop, the San Lorenzo market and the wee beverages booth a banca e ll'acqua for samples of the utterly weird, but weirdly popular, Telese mineral water (full of minerals! somewhat sparkling! crazy-sulfurous! smells of rotten eggs! maybe good for digestion!) and the "Vesuvius" drink made with it (basically, just add citrus and baking soda for fizz--much tastier than the plain version, I must say).
Also at the market, we stopped at our second dose of fried pizza. This one was made in front of our eyes, and was filled with fior di latte mozzarella (that is, cow's milk), tomatoes, and ciccioli (cooked fatty pork). Friends, this may have been one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. So simple, and yet the absolute highest imaginable form of this culinary treat. (This, too, was about as long as my forearm.)
Right next to the pizza booth was the utterly shady-looking and nondescript entrance to P. Di Paolo o'Fresellaro nel Palazzo, a fresella factory with a surprisingly large production for such a hidden and small enterprise. Fresella is something like a twice-cooked bread that is very crunchy, and, as such, is either used as something over which to pour liquids (e.g., mussel soup) or as a base for a bruschetta-like snack, which is how we sampled it. (Again, with the most delicious of tomatoes and fior di latte. And a little bit of house wine on the side.) The staff here were absolutely lovely, welcoming, and informative, and even showed us their fancy-pants oven which spins the racks of fresella to produce even baking. Nice people, delicious product.
Next stop, something completely unique to Naples: a visit to Pasquale, the man who paints all the signs around the market (and for shops and markets all over the city!). (You can see an example of his handiwork in the veggie photo, three above.) Pasquale painted signs for us all to take home--I am, apparently, worth 25 Euros per kilo--but I will admit that I was tempted to steal one of these signs in lira.
Another Pasquale original. (Once you start noticing these, they're everywhere.)
Then, we traipsed back into the historic center and passed the rather imposing S. Paolo Maggiore, which was built on top of the ruins of a Roman temple to Castor and Pollux; two columns from that temple were placed on either side of the main entrance.
Our next destination was along the famous and bustling Via dei Tribunali, the primary Roman decumanus of the ancient city...
...and now a mecca for all things fried (and for some of the best pizza in the city, and for souvenir shops galore). We stopped at Donna Sofia for a fried ball of pasta with meat, peas, and bechamel; a potato croquette stuffed with mozzarella; and an arancino filled with meat and peas. Heavy, yes, but yummmmm.
And speaking of the best pizza! The next--and surprise--stop on our tour was the extremely famous Sorbillo pizzeria, where one usually has to wait at least a half-hour (or possibly much, much longer, depending on the hour/day) to get in. Sonia told us to wait outside, and then, when she gave us the signal, to make our way to the front of the crowd, avoiding eye contact and confrontation (and she wasn't really kidding).
We managed to get inside with zero problems, and then waited about 10 minutes while they pulled our table together! There were four of us on the tour, not including Sonia, so we ordered four pizzas (although Sonia encouraged us to order more!!): a classic margherita (tomato, basil, fior di latte); one with cherry tomatoes and provola; a diavola (spicy salame, tomatoes, fior di latte--this one was properly spicy, and really good!); and, pictured, a friarielli e salsiccia (greens and sausage, a very Neapolitan combination). I've heard it isn't always the case, but for us, Sorbillo absolutely lived up to its reputation, and the near-zero wait time was a delightful surprise.
Believe it or not, after that feast, we still had two stops to go: across the street for sfogliatella (this time we went for the frolla--a smooth, shortcrust bun filled with ricotta; totally different, but still delicious!), a baba, and an espresso at Mazz; and limoncello at Limone, the only producer in the historic center. We then bid a fond farewell to Sonia (the most charming, passionate, knowledgeable guide!) and headed across the piazza to the San Lorenzo complex for both a little above-ground and a little subterranean touristing.
Above-ground, we found, among other things, the stunning refectory, covered in 17th-century frescoes by Luigi Rodriguez.
A little detail.
There was also the impressive Chapter Hall, also with frescoes by Rodriguez, but the construction of which dates to the 13th century and Swabian rule.
We also found an amazing room lined, on one side, with a massive case full of walnut shells containing scenes from the Bible. Amazing.
In that same room was a large presepe with a handful of moving figurines--one of which, of course, was a pizzaiolo. Love it.
And underground, a whole Roman complex including part of a high street, lined with shops, bakeries, a laundry, etc.
A bit higher up, on the climb back out, are these medieval arches in the wall, obviously filled in with rubble at some point in time so as to allow another level of construction over the top.
Next, we decided to go check out the cathedral, across the street from which is the somewhat downtrodden, but still rather impressive, courtyard of the 16th-century Palazzo Miradois. (Currently in use as a small paid parking lot.)
The main cathedral facade was rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style in the 19th century, but the central portal is original, from the 14th.
Obligatory nave shot.
Fantastically Baroque, and quite mesmerizing, marble altar featuring "The Assumption of the Virgin Mary," by Pietro Bracci, finished in 1744. (Fun facts: Bracci patterned this piece after Bernini's "The Chair of St. Peter" in St. Paul's in Rome and sculpted Oceanus, the central figure in the Trevi fountain.)
Very fancy crypt downstairs.
Amazing dome full of 17th-century frescoes over the chapel of San Gennaro...
...which is full of massive silver and bronze statues and reliquaries. I've never seen a collection like this outside of a museum, and even then, it'd have to be a large museum to have such a concentration of pieces like these. Criminy.
Attached to the cathedral is the ancient basilica of Santa Restituta, built in the 4th century and containing the contemporaneous baptistery of St. John, over which are preserved these remarkable mosaics.
Those tesserae are tiny, people. The craftsmanship on display here is stunning.
Santa Restituta itself was given a bit of a facelift in the 17th century, although those columns are Roman...
...and in the last chapel on the left there's another gorgeous mosaic, this one from 1322. (I suppose these are quite young, in comparison to those over the baptistery. Sheesh.)
Next, because we just refuse to stop moving, we headed towards Napoli Sotteranea for a tour of a handful the city's subterranean cisterns/aqueducts/quarries/WWII bomb shelters (created and expanded over time by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC, and then the Romans, the Angevins, the Bourbons, etc., etc.) It's fascinating, but there were a few tunnels in there that made me a little anxious about whether Mike would be able to get through, considering that they were both narrow and short. (Gulp.)
This huge chamber wasn't one of those, though. This room was originally excavated by the Greeks for use as a cistern, and that red line on the righthand wall is their original plastering. Before all of this was restored as a tourist attraction, the Neapolitans had been dumping trash and rubbish down here for centuries, and so, crazily enough, the original floor level of this chamber is still another 3 meters below where we were standing.
There was, at one point in time, a contest to try to figure out how to use this vast underground space for something other than tourism. This water-free gardening system won--the humidity down here is something like a constant 80%--but installing the system was prohibitively expensive, so now they just have this little exhibit garden, as well as a large stand of basil for the pizzeria on the ground level far above.
Stunning cistern with staircase seemingly to nowhere.
A little storage room at the juncture of two tunnels, one running to a monastery and one to a convent. Supposedly it was just for storage, but as our guide pointed out, who really can say what might have transpired down here over the centuries, wink, wink...?
Back above ground, we checked out this very traditional Neapolitan "basso" house (called "low" 'cause it's on the ground floor), the walls of which are actually built into the remains of a first-century Roman amphitheater. (That's what the red brick bits are.) The bed in this house was on rails so that it could slide away from its position over a door in the floor leading to the underground passages of the theater, which were used for storage. (Most of the theater no longer exists, but if you look at this part of town in the satellite view Google Maps, you can actually see the footprint of the theater in the round shape of the buildings constructed on top of its walls, as well as a few rows of seating visible in the courtyard of a private building!)
In another room built into the side of the theater are props from the Sofia Loren movie 'L'Oro di Napoli.' (Naples is very, very proud of Sofia Loren.)
Caffe sospeso is a very cool Neapolitan concept, and one Sonia had told us about on the food tour. Literally, it means "suspended coffee," and it's the tradition of paying for the coffee of the next person in line. (A holdover from more impoverished times, like the practice of feeding the poor in one's restaurant and giving them an 8-day grace period on paying for the meal. That one's not still around, but traditions like these give you a feeling for how much poverty this city has seen.)
In the centro storico near the church of San Pietro a Majella. This photo is everything Neapolitan to me: there's a pizzeria, a scooter (those things were everywhere), a narrow street, and a church. Love all of this.
And with that, friends, I will conclude this, the first part of our Naples adventure, 'cause this post is getting longer and longer and weighing me down and I just can't seem to get it done. Next up: our cooking adventures in Naples and environs.
*After some research, I believe this bread is called casatiello, and it's a traditional Easter bread native to Campania. We saw it in a bunch of bakery windows, too. So there you have it.
**That picture you have in your head of Naples, full of dark, narrow alleys with laundry lines strung across them? It's real. I heard a quote while were there, something to do with the idea that if God wanted to take all Neapolitans to heaven, all he'd have to do is pull on a single line of wash, and all of the houses would come up with it (...implying that they're all connected by those lines). Looking for that quote now, I can only find it in one place, and there it's attributed to the Neapolitan philosopher Luciano de Crescenzo. Regardless of whether that's the case, I love that quote; for me, it's evocative of the city center and its ambiance. (And it's a cozy turn of phrase, to boot.)
You and Mike pack so much into your trips! I still think you should write a book about your wanderings. You wouldn't have to do much....just edit your postings!
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