© Jeff Matthews
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(Nov
12) There
is, as of quite recently, a Buddhist
center in Naples. It is on the slopes of the
Camaldollili area of the city, above and in back of
the Vomero section on the way up to the second
highest point on the Campanian plain (the first is
Vesuvius), the Camaldoli
convent. Their website says, "For the Preservation
of the Mahayana Tradition." Mahayana is the larger
of the two main branches of Buddhism existing today.
(The other one is called Theravada.) The center
offers courses and retreats and welcomes inquiries.
- (Nov 12) Another of the infamous cave-ins of Naples
has just occurred up near the airport, when part of
a restaurant disappeared into one the many caverns
dug beneath the city in centuries past. I have that
information from Larry Ray, the English-language
translator for Napoli Underground (NUg), who writes:
"...Fortunately no lives were lost as a restaurant
and pizzeria suddenly crashed into a huge, deep,
black chasm yesterday...Fire Department and
emergency workers responded and cordoned off a
gaping hole some 10 meters across into which most of
the pizzeria and large trees plunged. The remaining
sheared-off wall of the pizzeria dining room hung
over the edge of the cavity below with tables and
chairs just as they had been set for evening diners.
These dramatic and shocking sinkholes that swallow
entire buildings, automobiles and recently a loaded
garbage truck and its driver, who perished, are
quite common....". His complete comments are on the
NUg website at
this link. (as of 2019, inactive. sorry)
(Nov. 18) A year ago,
when I wrote about the archeological site of
the Fèscina (photo, right; full article here) in
Quarto, it was so overgrown with weeds that you
couldn't really get near it. It was a small
mausoleum of a type widespread in the Hellenic Age
in the eastern Mediterranean, but apparently unique
in Italy—truly an unusual and worthwhile feature of
the local archeology itinerary. And you couldn't get
near it! Now I hear from friends at Naples
Underground (NUg) that a local band of volunteers
from an archaeology club has cleaned it up! Besides
the material of mine at the above link, you may also
see some newer photos on the NUg site here, as well
as read an English translation by Larry Ray of the
NUg article by Fulvio Salvi.(update: 2019 - That NUg
website is "suspended" until further notice. Sorry.)
- (Nov. 21) There is an interesting cultural organization in town called No Comment. They have a website that deals with good and bad things in the city. Such an item appeared the other day when they sarcastically praised the official opening of the "Counterfeit Market Place" for Christmas 2012.
"In
spite of inclement weather, there was a splendid
turnout by illegal vendors and onlookers as the
Counterfeit Market Place occupied every available
bit of space on the pedestrian walkways and in front
of churches in the ancient, historic center of the
city. As is customary, this will go on until January
6."
Unfortunately, someone in the organization
thinks that one Berlitz lesson in English in 1981
qualifies him or her to crank out this
self-description on their page. No comment:
"Sublime
and infernal Naples. Urban survival to the pure
state, soaked of anger and of passion. City from the
perpetual chaos and to do foolish. Naples I
apostrophize social, creative and suffering City
female impudent, angry and impassioned rebellious
Creature for irresponsibility, That doesn't meditate
and it doesn't mediate. Imprisoned of immovable once
and without memory that possesses her/it and it
consumes her/it."
(Nov. 24) I should have
taken advantage of the outdoor pools at the thermal baths of Agnano when
I had the chance this summer. Now they're closed, as
are the hotel and the restaurant. The only
functioning parts of the Agnano baths are now the
indoor facilities that provide treatments as part of
the National Health Service. It's the usual story:
of the 83 personnel that work in the entire
facility, management claims that 40 of them are
redundant. The Baths are 1.5 million euros in the
hole, and management has started laying off
personnel. That, in turn, has made the labor unions
unhappy, and now everyone is on strike (including
those who run the indoor treatment facilities), at
least for a few days. The other problem is that the
outdoor pools and physical structure of the main
building, itself, which houses hotel and restaurant,
really do need work and shall have to
undergo an extensive process of recertification.
That will take some time even if the problem of
lay-offs is solved. Too bad. I remember when it was
a dump. Then they turned it into a nice place. I
hope it will be a nice place again.
(See update here.)
(Dec.7) The Frecciarossa
[Red Arrow) 1000, self-proclaimed the
most beautiful train in the world, is the Italian
State Railways entry in the TAV (High Speed Train)
market. A full-scale mock-up of a coach of the Frecciarossa
1000 is currently on a road-show that has
included Berlin, Milan, and now Naples; it will then
move to Rome, Bologna and Florence. The Frecciarossa
1000 is expected to go into operation in the
summer of 2014. The effective cruising speed of
360k/hr and top speed of 400k/hr (225/250 mph) will
get you from Rome to Milan in 2 hours and 20
minutes, which is totally competitive with air
travel, teleportation and other inferior modes of
transportation. (Consider that with a train, you
walk on with little or no muss, fuss or lead time in
the middle of the city and get off in the middle of
the other city; there is no hour trip to the airport
to be there one hour ahead of time so they can
rummage through your luggage and private parts!) The
train is sleek, built for comfort, and was projected
and designed by AnsaldoBreda, Bertone, and
Bombardier. The train is also built for
interoperability, which means that the tracks and
train will be compatible with the high-speed train
lines in other European nations. If you can't wait
until 2014, you can walk through the free exhibit
and the coach (photo, above), set up along the
sea-front of via Caracciolo. It is enjoying a good
flow of tourists, joggers who stop by, school kids
and, of course, train buffs.
- (Dec.7) Speaking of train buffs, they will be happy to know that the Pietrarsa National Train Museum is open once again. It is housed on the premises of the old Bourbon Royal Workshop for Mechanics, Munitions and Locomotive Production and now considered one of the premier sites in the relatively recent field of Italian Industrial Archaeology. Call first: 081-472003; open Mon-Sat 8:30-13:30.
(Dec.8) The Maya Bomb!
There is an earlier item on illegal fireworks in
Naples here. The
latest bit of explosive insanity to be confiscated
by the coppers is the so-called "Maya Bomb," named
by its artisans in honor of the Mayan
end-of-the-world "prediction" coming up in a few
days. O ye of little (or is it too much?) faith! If
the world does end, you won't have a chance
to set this thing off on New Year's eve. The device
was confiscated in Pozzuoli by the Finance Police
who say this was not your normal
finger-blower-offer, but actually contained enough
kick to destroy the entire shack in which it was
found and had potential to cause further damage even
50 meters away.
- (Dec 15) The local NATO HQ, Allied Joint Force Command Naples (JFC) celebrated the official opening of its new 21-acre (85,000 sq, meter) Naples headquarters the other day. Well, not exactly Naples. It's located in Giugliano at Lake Patria, about 10 miles (16 km) north of the old HQ in the Neapolitan suburb of Bagnoli. This will be the first time that NATO has had a headquarters in the area designed and built specifically for it. The Bagnoli HQ had served NATO since the 1950s in a large complex from the 1930s originally built to house a "Young People’s College" named Colleggio Ciano (named for Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law). For most of that time, the HQ was called AFSOUTH (Allied Forces Southern Europe); it changed names recently to JFC. [Also see later development.] [Latest update from Nov 2013 here.]
(Dec. 24) What?!
No chestnuts roasting on an open fire? And is
that the Oriental Chestnut Gall Wasp (OCGW) nipping
at your nose? (Apologies to Mel Tormé & Robert
Wells, 1946.) When I heard someone ask, "Hey, where
are the chestnuts this year?" I remembered that I
had not bought roasted chestnuts from a street
vendor in a while. According to most agricultural
sources, there is a major crisis in Italian
production of the European sweet chestnut (Castanea
sativa). Italy has traditionally been the
largest European producer of chestnuts, but there
has been a problem for over a decade. It started in
northern Italy and has worked its way south into the
local area. The problem is in the form of the OCGW (Dryocosmus
kuriphilus) (image, right) a parasite insect.
The infestation is now considered the most serious
threat to the European chestnut ever!
Production in various places in Italy (including
here) has dropped by over half and in some cases as
much as 80%. Even if you can find chestnuts, you can
expect to pay much more than in years past. It's not
just that people like chestnuts; areas in the
Campania region (and elsewhere) have built up
traditions over centuries. There is now an entire
chestnut tourist industry —festivals, dances and
songs; schoolkids go on field trips and study their
chestnut heritage— that sort of thing. The parasite
made its way into Europe from China thanks to the
marvels of globalization. There are agricultural
counter-measures, but most sources I have seen claim
it will take at least five years before castanea
sativa can be expected to make any sort of a
comeback. I walked around this morning and found one
vendor right where he has always been, at the corner
of via San Biagio dei Librai and via San
Gregorio Armeno in the heart of the old city
and the busiest place in town on Christmas Eve. He
denied there was a problem and sold me 15 chestnuts
for 5 euros. That's 30 euro-cents a chestnut (almost
US$0.50) That may be a problem. [UPDATE:
- DEC. 2014, HERE]
- (Dec. 26) The new via Caracciolo &
via Partentope
Looking west towards Mergellina.
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Looking east towards the Egg Castle.
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Both photos are taken from the same point, Piazza Vittoria, at the east end of the Villa Comunale. It is the point where the seaside road, via Caracciolo, coming from Mergellina (left) changes name to via Partenope (right) to form a single 2½-km road from the Mergellina port to the Egg Castle. That road has changed in the last few months. It has been transformed from a busy road into the city and is now a pedestrian zone with a bicycle path. It is well-frequented and is rapidly showing itself to be a fine adjunct to the large Villa Comunale (the tree-line in the left-hand photo), to which there is easy access through a number of gates. The via Partenope side has a number of street-side open-air cafes, now free from traffic congestion, and the patrons of the many hotels can simply walk out onto the street for a stroll. The whole thing is pleasantly anachronistic; after all, when that long stretch of road was built in the 1890s, it handled only pedestrian and horse-drawn coach traffic. Now, with the bike path, there has been an increase in bicycle use in Naples, something I thought I would never see (also see the first item on this page). Domenico Rea once wrote about via Caracciolo: ...this summer the decay of the road has passed all limits. The roadway itself is pounded day and night by cars, and the spacious sidewalks are disappearing under the weight of parked cars. There are hundreds, thousands of them stopped, immobile like flies on fly-paper...He would like the change. Unfortunate update: see the first item on the next miscellany page. |
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- (Dec 29) Below are two views
of the Neapolitan mask figure, Pulcinella, on the
streets of Naples during this holiday season. Both
are in the historic center (map);
the one on the left is on "Spaccanapoli," that is,
via S. Biagio dei librai. It is in front of
a shop as a holiday decoration and will be removed
in a few days. The one on the right is permanent and
is just off of via dei Tribunali one block
west of the large church of San Paolo Maggiore.
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left: Syncretism rules!* The typical masked figure is wearing a red Santa Claus cap instead of his usual white one. He has a red cowboy hat on one elbow and in his left hand holds a fèscina, a basket used in the grape harvest. (See Nov. 18, above.) They forgot the pumpkin, Christmas tree, 4-leaf clover, May Pole and the Confederate flag! |
 above: This head of Pulcinella is by Lello Esposito, the Neapolitan artist who is most recently known for his large sculpture of San Gennaro installed at the church of the Incoronata del Buon Consiglio. |
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(Jan 24) Zoo
emergency, again. The crisis mentioned here has
not been resolved, and the international press has
reported that animals in the Naples zoo are days
away from starvation. This means, of course, that a
local paper ran a timely feature on it yesterday!
I suspect that if past performance is any
indicator, the city will find a band-aid solution to
the problem. The last time this happened, 10 years
ago, animals were fed by supplies from private
citizens who carted food in (see this
link). Some favor releasing the large
carnivores into city hall while the city council is
in session. Yummie. A modest proposal.
(Feb 3) The
Monaldi Hospital is now ranked by the
Italian Ministry of Health as the second best
hospital in Italy. It is the highest ranking ever
for a local hospital in the national ratings.
Monaldi placed behind the Molinette hospital in
Torino and ahead of Maria Adelaide hospital, also in
Torino. The Campania region (of which Naples is the
capital) now holds 8 of the top 20 places on the
prestigious list. The Monaldi was finished in April
of 1939 and was part of the massive effort by the
Fascist government to create a new "hospital zone"
on the hills above the city of Naples. The first
hospital finished was the Cardarelli
in the 1920s; the Second Polyclinic Hospital complex
is from the 1970s. When the Monaldi opened, the
original name was “Principe di Piemonte”; it had
beds for 2000 patients and specialized in
respiratory and pulmonary ailments, still its
specialty. In WW II, after the Allies took Naples in
1943, the Monaldi served as premises for the 300th
US General Hospital. After the war, the eminent
physician Vincenzo Monaldi (1899-1969) became
director; the institution was later renamed for him.
In 2011 a new administrative organization was formed
(A.O.R.N. - Azienda Ospedaliera di Rilievo
Nazionale dei Colli MONALDI-COTUGNO-C.T.O)
[Corporation of Hospitals of National Importance.] Colli
(hills) refers to the area of the Colli Aminei,
the area of the high Vomero section of Naples where
the hospital zone is located. The Cotugno hospital
and the C.T.O orthopedic and rehabilitation center
are the other two in the corporation.
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