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A few days to catch up
Sep. 26th, 2009 04:01 amWe've come south to Napoli, but there have been in between bits. We arrived in Siena and spent a pleasant if hot afternoon wandering up hill and down dale before we booked into the hotel for the night. The room was tiny but otherwise fine and we awoke to the usually hotel breakfast before taking off to see Siena properly.
There was a civic museum notable for some fantastic secular paintings including a fantastic mural from the 14th (I think) century depicting good and bad governance. The local basilica has a astonishing floor which is only available to be viewed in September and is apparently covered for the remainder of the year to preserve it. Timing is all important in these thing. The basilica was due to be expanded at one point but the project was canned because of the plague. They had made a start and the resulting wall is still there. If they'd actually finished it it would have been incredible. The top of the wall is accessible and there are some great views of Siena from there. There was also the famous Campo which is a semi-circular area out the front of the civic museum known for the fact that they race horses around it each August. I'd been told that it had great paving. The paving is pretty ordinary but it does nicely accentuate the fact that the whole semi-circular area is dished like a shallow ampitheatre. This does make it an interesting place. It is also the place where the most insanely rich hot chocolate in the world is made. It's like someone extracted the filling from Lindt chocolate balls, heated it up and poured the resulting semi-liquid mess into a cup.
After Siena we went to Orvieto. I only booked a hotel there because I couldn't get one in Bagnoregio which has a spectacular hilltop town near it called Civita (which means simply "the town") that was apparently originally an Etruscan settlement some 2500 years ago. Civita is spectacular but it's also so unreconstructed and unpreserved that you see it within a couple of hours and Bagnoregio is a hick town at the arse end of nowhere. Orvieto, on the other hand is also a spectacular hilltop town and is delightful. Plenty to see there including a spectacular well constructed in the 16th century which has a double helix staircase leading all the way down to the water table to accommodate water carrying donkeys so you can view it from the bottom which is a pleasant place to be on a hot day.
The basilica in Orvieto is also marvellous. It's fabulous Italianate excess on the outside without degenerating into an exercise of seeing how many different coloured marbles can be used in one frieze, unlike the one in Venice. It also suffers far less from the apparent need to jam an altar into every available inch of wall like most basilicas. It's large, beautifully constructed and far more elegant than most. Orvieto also has a shop that sells bilberry gelato which really shouldn't be underestimated. (if you find yourself hunting for this, the flavour is referred to as "Mirtello")
I developed a runny nose and dry throat and so spent the following morning sleeping in and lazing in bed reading Terry Pratchett. After checking out at 11am we made out way to the train station and boarded the train for Napoli. This was the single longest train journey we'll have here; the train left at 12:09 and got in just after 4pm. The guide book apparently has one word to about driving in Naples and that word is "don't". I'm disinclined to disagree. You need to be without hesitation or fear to navigate in Napolese traffic...I saw motorscooters with two helmetless occupants cutting off busses in a way that suggested that it was the usual thing. Also, if you park in an actual parking bay here, don't expect to actually be able to leave for some time because someone will park behind you leaving you no way to get out. Local knowledge (the guy who runs the B&B) directed us to a pizza shop which has apparently been in operation since 1892. The choices of pizza are marinara (tomato, mozzarella, garlic) or margherita (tomato, mozzarella, garlic, basil). That's it. They don't need more. The pizza is excellent, huge, and €4.00. The beer is good Peroni, served properly cold and costs €1.50. I think we may well eat there tomorrow night as well. Naples is a pretty rough looking place compared with the other towns and cities we've seen. This isn't particularly surprising but there's a huge contrast. It'll be interesting to see what Rome is like but Naples isn't far short of the sort of vision William Gibson had of a 21st century city. By the time 2020 rolls around it might well be pretty much there.
There was a civic museum notable for some fantastic secular paintings including a fantastic mural from the 14th (I think) century depicting good and bad governance. The local basilica has a astonishing floor which is only available to be viewed in September and is apparently covered for the remainder of the year to preserve it. Timing is all important in these thing. The basilica was due to be expanded at one point but the project was canned because of the plague. They had made a start and the resulting wall is still there. If they'd actually finished it it would have been incredible. The top of the wall is accessible and there are some great views of Siena from there. There was also the famous Campo which is a semi-circular area out the front of the civic museum known for the fact that they race horses around it each August. I'd been told that it had great paving. The paving is pretty ordinary but it does nicely accentuate the fact that the whole semi-circular area is dished like a shallow ampitheatre. This does make it an interesting place. It is also the place where the most insanely rich hot chocolate in the world is made. It's like someone extracted the filling from Lindt chocolate balls, heated it up and poured the resulting semi-liquid mess into a cup.
After Siena we went to Orvieto. I only booked a hotel there because I couldn't get one in Bagnoregio which has a spectacular hilltop town near it called Civita (which means simply "the town") that was apparently originally an Etruscan settlement some 2500 years ago. Civita is spectacular but it's also so unreconstructed and unpreserved that you see it within a couple of hours and Bagnoregio is a hick town at the arse end of nowhere. Orvieto, on the other hand is also a spectacular hilltop town and is delightful. Plenty to see there including a spectacular well constructed in the 16th century which has a double helix staircase leading all the way down to the water table to accommodate water carrying donkeys so you can view it from the bottom which is a pleasant place to be on a hot day.
The basilica in Orvieto is also marvellous. It's fabulous Italianate excess on the outside without degenerating into an exercise of seeing how many different coloured marbles can be used in one frieze, unlike the one in Venice. It also suffers far less from the apparent need to jam an altar into every available inch of wall like most basilicas. It's large, beautifully constructed and far more elegant than most. Orvieto also has a shop that sells bilberry gelato which really shouldn't be underestimated. (if you find yourself hunting for this, the flavour is referred to as "Mirtello")
I developed a runny nose and dry throat and so spent the following morning sleeping in and lazing in bed reading Terry Pratchett. After checking out at 11am we made out way to the train station and boarded the train for Napoli. This was the single longest train journey we'll have here; the train left at 12:09 and got in just after 4pm. The guide book apparently has one word to about driving in Naples and that word is "don't". I'm disinclined to disagree. You need to be without hesitation or fear to navigate in Napolese traffic...I saw motorscooters with two helmetless occupants cutting off busses in a way that suggested that it was the usual thing. Also, if you park in an actual parking bay here, don't expect to actually be able to leave for some time because someone will park behind you leaving you no way to get out. Local knowledge (the guy who runs the B&B) directed us to a pizza shop which has apparently been in operation since 1892. The choices of pizza are marinara (tomato, mozzarella, garlic) or margherita (tomato, mozzarella, garlic, basil). That's it. They don't need more. The pizza is excellent, huge, and €4.00. The beer is good Peroni, served properly cold and costs €1.50. I think we may well eat there tomorrow night as well. Naples is a pretty rough looking place compared with the other towns and cities we've seen. This isn't particularly surprising but there's a huge contrast. It'll be interesting to see what Rome is like but Naples isn't far short of the sort of vision William Gibson had of a 21st century city. By the time 2020 rolls around it might well be pretty much there.
