Naples - unraveling the layers of history

When ever i mentioned my plan to visit Naples to any italian, the first thing they said was 'be careful!'. it is not supposed to be a  safe place. 'its all an urban myth', said my host Ruokko, a math and physics teacher, tutor really, as he is without a permanent job, like most Italians i know by now. He then points out a bunch of people loittering around near the station, and says 'but you should be careful of them' He lives on the top floor of an exceedingly narrow building in an exceedingly narrow lane, luckily not far from the central station.  

Rome and Vatican are very tough acts to follow. The first half a day in Naples i walked around the historical center of the city, and realized that i had had bit of an overdose of Duomos and museos. Some of the Basilicas were probably a bit older but most were from 15-16 century, and i had already seen the best of those. I needed something different. That's where the Greeks came in.

The Greeks started building a complex web of water cisterns around 400bc, which was expanded by the Romans to 400 km long system right under the city's belly. It was used later as a garbage dump and bomb shelter, and now as a tourist attraction. Unlike the water cistern in Istanbul, this one is very deep and very narrow, at some places only 50 cm wide to increase the water pressure. It was followed by a visit to the Roman theater, still deeply buried under modern day buildings, and until recently was being used as a garage and a carpenter shop. Two millennia ago, emperor Nero himself used to perform here. The city was starting to redeem itself.  

Naples is also built in layers like Rome, but a lot more difficult to excavate, as an old law required every building to be with in the city wall for centuries, so the greeks, Romans and Christians built over each other, with eruptions from mount Vesuvius putting some layers in between. As a result, the city has an unmistakable characteristics, with narrow lanes, reminding one of Chandni chowk in delhi, only the chaat corners being replaced with sfogliatelle and pizza corners.


 In the evening, i joined some couch surfers from Naples and St Petersburg for dinner, and Ruokko and his friends for drinks afterwords. After walking through the narrow lanes of Naples till 1 am, i was ready to crash. Thankfully, Ruokko decides to move to his girlfriend's house and i got the bed! His couch would have been really difficult to sleep in. The only disappointing thing during the day was the famous 'Napolitana' pizza, which is regarded as the best pizza in the world, at least by the Italian. Now that, to my mind, is an urban myth..