contact: Jeff Matthews

• Word comes that Naples will host the 63rd International Astronautical Congress in 2012. (Indeed, people have been thinking about space travel for quite a while; the first congress was in Paris in 1950. That single-stage rocket ship in the logo on the right looks suspiciously like a V-2!) That might help to make up for the loss to Barcelona in the bid for the 2007 America's Cup regatta. It has even encouraged the Naples City Parenting Persons to reach for the stars in another way: they have announced a plan to be one of the Italian cities that will bid for the 2020 summer Olympic Games. Stay tuned.

• An infamous scene from Francesco Rosi's 1963 film Le mani sulla città [Hands on the City] shows a bunch of corrupt politicians and land speculators feasting on a cake model of the Bay of Naples, devouring everything in sight. It happens in real life, too! In Giugliano, near Naples, 38 people are under investigation --judges, contractors and possibly some real bona fide criminals-- for having thrown up 98 housing units and a hotel along an historic section of the famed Appian Way. It was all to be part of Parco l'Obelisco, a planned tourist village. Investigation continues, bank accounts have been seized and all of the housing has been sequestered. Round up the usual suspects.

• By law, throughout Europe all public buildings and most private buildings where the public might gather (cinemas, for example) now have to provide access for the handicapped. I haven't counted the number of wheelchair ramps in European major cities, but I take note of them in Naples. The local papers report that a young man, Emmanuel, can now go to high school like any other kid after only one year and nine months of hassle to get one elevator that works and to build one wheelchair ramp, items that are legally required in the first place. This is not some outback one-room school house; it's a major high school (S. Maria di Costantinopoli) near Piazza Dante in the heart of the city.   (Also see this link form May 2015)

• Via San Gregorio Armeno. That was quick. The city hall has caved in (not literally, although that, too, is devoutly to be wished). In the dispute over the presence of outdoor stalls and stands to display Christmas wares (above) the shop owners have won.

• Heavy traffic on the Rome-Naples autostrada the other night caused film star Sophia Loren to miss her son Carlo Ponti's debut as conductor of the San Carlo orchestra, in concert at the RAI auditorium in Fuori Grotta near Naples. The show must go on and it did: a little-known work by the young Puccini,Capriccio sinfonico; Brahms' Symphony #2; and the Schumann A minor cello concerto, featuring American cellist, Alisa Weilerstein.

• The southernmost of the three major tunnels (i.e., the one nearest Sorrento) on the road along the Sorrentine peninsula has just closed (late October) and will remain closed until March 31, 2010. Work is underway to link the Vico Equense-Seiano tunnel to the new Scrajo-Pozzano tunnel. All of this will eventually create a five-kilometer by-pass around the crowded bathing establishments along the coast and facilitate traffic on the Sorrentine coast road. In the meantime, however, the first weekend of closure was a disaster for anyone in any semblance of a hurry; traffic has to be rerouted through the local coastal town of Vico Equense (which the now closed tunnel by-passed), leaving drivers inching along for hours through the narrow streets of the town and leaving residents of that town awash in a sea of traffic. It gets better; this year won't do it. Look forward to another closure next October sometime. (See update from March 2013.) (See grand opening update, July 2014 and here.)

• The Naples football (soccer) team is currently mired in the middle of the A-League (still better than the B-League!) With nine games under their belt, they have won 4, lost 4 and tied one, an identical record as Genoa; thus, the two teams are tied for 10th place (out of 20 teams). (Glass-half-full optimists note that the two teams are also tied for 9th place.)

• Yesterday, Sunday, November 1, was All-Saints Day. People generally go to the various cemeteries in town to visit their dearly departed. You drive there and try to find a place to park and try to find some flowers along the way. The throng is incredible. It got so bad yesterday that the police had to step in. They ticketed 79 illegal car park attendants and actually arrested one of them who was charging people five euros to "watch their car." The cops also confiscated 3500 bouquets of flowers from itinerant vendors in the area. (This is vaguely related to the general entry on the "flower people" of Naples.) What do the cops do with 3500 bouquets of flowers? Distribute them to churches, according to this morning's paper.

• You don't need Bernoulli's Principle to know which way the wind is blowin'. Recent letters to the editor in the papers have complained about Capodichino airport and planes landing from the south-west, over the heavily-populated Vomero section of Naples. It's dangerous and it's noisy, they say, and flights come in until one in the morning. True, true and true. They didn't use to do that and the airport authorities don't care about real people, they say. Wrong and wrong. The physics of flight require planes to take off and land into the wind; it increases relative air-speed over the wings, providing more lift, which is just what you want when you are trying to maneuver a giant tin can through the two most dangerous stages of flight--take-offs and landings. The run-way at the Naples airport runs exactly NE to SW. Most of the time, the prevailing wind blows in from the sea--that is, from the SW; thus, planes usually take off into that wind and climb out steep over the city to avoid disturbing the folks below as much as possible. They then land from the NW over the less populated areas of Naples to the north-west of the airport. But recent winds have been from the north and north-west, requiring take-offs in the other direction, which bother no one, but landings in from the sea over the city can indeed be disturbing. The angle of descent on final approach has to be a gentle as possible for the good folks in the cabin; thus, you have flights coming in low over the city. Some day the winds will change and things will be back to normal.

• The Royal Apartments in the Royal Palace in Naples are always a pleasure to wander through. I was pleased to see some big-time restoration going on: there is a workshop on the history and restoration of tapestry set up. Also, there is somewhat of a permanent workshop on the art restoration and furnishings as part of a degree program for students of Suor Orsola university. I was fortunate to catch a few of them at work. They were in the midst of a one-year hands-on practicum as part of a degree in Conservazione dei beni mobili e artistici. When I was there, they were working on the restoration of a number of large, ornate doors. Most of the students are young women intent on pursuing a career in art restoration.