Dear Steemians,
We spent two amazing weeks in Italy! For those of you who have been reading since the beginning: we've finally reached the last day of the trip! We started in Naples two weeks ago, which we didn't visit on arrival. We saved it for last.
There are three castles in Naples. This is Castle Nuovo. I have to admit not that spectacular after Caserta the day before O:)
Before coming to this part of Italy I read a bit about the mafia in Italy, especially in Naples. It's supposed to be really bad and you should watch your belongings yada, yada, yada. In Amsterdam I don't live in a very nice neighbourhood so I always like to think I'm used to some bad crowds. Nevertheless, I'm not stupid. I would like to live another day. So when our very friendly clerk at the hotel advised us to avoid certain areas at night we obeyed. Overkill or not. There's a long narrow street in Naples called Spaccanapoli that divides the city in two. Surrounding it are a lot of nice old sights. Apparently nice to see during the day, but better to avoid at night.
Here you see a part of Spaccanapoli:
On the map or an air shot you can see the division very clearly:
http://foodloversodyssey.com/2011/05/spaccanapoli-and-napoli-historic-center-italy/
We walked a great distance today because Naples is quite big and we always try to see eeeeeeeverything :D
We took a really cool underground tour to see the remains of an old theater. The space underground was largely created because people needed material to built with at the surface. As you can see on this blurry picture:
We took 136 steps down, about 40 meters (43.7yd) below the surface. In Naples it was forbidden to build beyond the city walls for a very very long time. Therefore space in the city was sparse and buildings would be built on top of the ruins of older buildings.
During WW2 people took shelter underground and a lot of personal belongings are stil on display today.
A different part of the tour addressed the water supply of the city. There used to be general wells for people to share while wealthy people had their own private well.
There were people working down in the wells to keep them clean. They had to walk along ledges in the dark above the water. That would have been a nice job for me :) During the tour we could see these ledges and imagine what it must have been like. Bizarre! Of course lights were added for the tours, but hundreds of years ago it would have been completely dark. To get a feel of this we all got a candle for a part of the tour where there were no artificial lights. Very cool.
The university uses a part of the underground space now to perform experiments with plants to see which plants survive without natural light.
And finally, what we initially came for: the remains of the Roman Theatre. As I said before buildings were stacked on top of each other within the city walls. In this process an old theatre disappeared over the years. Through the years parts of it came to light in multiple renovations. A few people started to put the pieces together, pulled out a map and began to search for parts of the old theater still hidden under other buildings. Nowadays a few of the uncovered parts can be seen during the trip. Due to the different layers of buildings on top of each other created over the years it's kind of a weird sightseeing. There is a family living on top of a part of the old theater for example. And their kitchen is right above one of the stops during the tour. You can hear them walking around and talking to each other while the tour guide is trying to explain things about the old theatre. Interesting experience.
During the trip they try to get you oriented using a map that shows where the theatre used to be. You can actually still see the semi circle of the theatre on the map.
Unfortunately I don't have good pictures of this part of the tour. I couldn't get clear shots due to the other visitors. I tried to find some pictures online.
https://www.napolisotterranea.org/en/naples-underground/
http://www.nationalgeographic.it/wallpaper/2016/11/22/foto/napoli_sotterranea-3321322/13/
When you take the tour yourself you can sort of imagine what it used to be like. Even though the sights are scattered and you don't get the colossal theatre feel, because the colossal theatre isn't there anymore ;)
It's hard to recreate this with a few pictures. So I guess you're gonna have to visit Naples and take the tour yourself :) I highly recommend it. For those interested, I did find an Italian video that sort of reconstructs the theatre:
Thank you for reading! Especially those of you that have followed this road trip from the beginning. I was very happy to return our rental car with the same amount of damage as when we initially picked it up :D Proud moment.
