A belated "April FISH" greeting!

Happy "April Fish Day"! 

Yes, dear friends, family and readers, it is the annual feast of all fools here in Rome, which the Italians call "Pesce di aprile". So here are some silly shots. We hope you all are well and that things are at least reasonably fine.

(This depends on what device you are using to view my blog entries. Sometimes my longer-winded ones are not fully displayed and there can be a TINY link saying "READ MORE" at the bottom of your screen. You have not reached the end of a blog's posting until either A. you can't stand it anymore or B. you see my text:
***** END OF POSTING ***** .)

I'm starting with some photos from Naples (there are a couple thousand more you are not being shown -- yet!).

These young athletes have running a very long time. Unburied from the ancient Villa of the Papyri two centuries ago, they have not lost their stride while buried under Vesuvius’ ash and lava for over two millennia. 

On one of the days we were in Naples, we went to Oplontis, an uncovered Imperial era villa surrounded by the small town of Torre Annuziata on the Gulf of Naples, not far from Pompeii. The Villa is astonishing, for many of its frescoes remained intact. 

Because these were dug out in 1839, they stood a better chance of escaping the plundering of Pompeii and Herculaneum. This Villa is of course far smaller than the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, but the quality of the frescoes is a delight, and the utter lack of quantity of fellow tourists is a treat from heaven compared to the madding crowds of the more famous ruins. 

Torre Annunziata is one stop before Pompeii (when coming from Naples) on the Circumvesuviana local rail line. Pompeii has thousands of visitors every day, while in the albeit much smaller remains of the Villa of Oplontis, there were barely a half dozen visitors that afternoon.

I’m showing you only a few bits from Oplontis. A clever architectural surprise is a “vividarium”, or an open to the sky room with plants and flowers growing that can be seen from the inside. These two have fine frescoes of flowering trees, shrubs and small animals and are a visual surprise. There had been wooden shutters to keep out drafts and rain when necessary. 

This hunk of lava remains one of Emil’s favorite visual jokes. Folding wooden doors, to partition off rooms or large opening were not incinerated and so left an impression of their detailed form in the cooling ash and lava. These are a “cookie-cutter” impression of the doors, the original wood having long ago disintegrated. What impressed Emil the most was these are exactly how doors are still made in the modern era, with panels, ridges and cross-members.

The ancient Romans very often frescoed their interiors, and the wealthier households often added elaborate trompe l’oeil scenes, often of very fanciful architecture in perfect perspective. This one has a theatre mask and a peacock as added treats. 

Here's another of the fanciest rooms, 
this was most likely a dining room, 
with a central floor mosaic insert that would show between the dining couches. 

Another of the larger rooms. During the two hours we were there, only a half dozen other tourists had come, quite the opposite of the hordes at Pompeii that were the equal of big-city rush hour subway car crushs. 

There is a very large basilica in the center of old Naples dedicated to the Franciscan saint, Clare, or Chiara. This lovely harpist was a delightful surprise and her "heavenly" sounds were a relief from the usually out-of-tune street “musicians”. 

On another day in Naples, we wanted to visit the Certosa of San Martino, or monastery (and Charterhouse—a larger type of monastery) on one of the hills around Naples’ center.  This shot shows the beginning of the funicular tram that ascends the steep hill. 

(You’ve probably heard the famous Neapolitan tune about this modern improvement to the city. This link will take you to a very nice YouTube three minute piece, with Pavarotti singing, along with subtitles in case you feel like singing along!)

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTSAZAHiOa8

The April Fool part of this occurred when we got off the funicular at a stop not shown on my simpler map. Maybe I was daydreaming a bit about that irrepressible tune? That stop was BELOW where we wanted to go. I decided to walk a few blocks to see where we were. 

This is the very nice view we were treated with. We went back to the station, where the ticket agent kindly let us back in and we then proceeded up the hill. 
It would have been at least the 
equivalent of a 17 story climb, 
a wee bit beyond our capacity!

Here is one tiny glimpse of one of the cloisters of the monastery. The entire complex is rather large, with its core dating back to the 700’s, with many additions even into the late Baroque of the 1700’s. It is now State property. San Martino has among its many other treasures, several Presepi, or Christmas scenes.  

These were done, to show Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus in the middle of everyday Neapolitan life, and are a wonderful record of the 1700’s when they were created. Yes, there are the traditional shepherds, visiting Wise Men with varying numbers of attendants and camel-drivers and of course clouds of angels, but the religious side of these scenes is almost overshadowed by the ebullient surrounding stories. There is usually a scene in a small inn, with card playing, dancing and drinking, merchants in stalls and also street peddlers, musicians, craftsmen plying their trades, laundry drying in the background, 

an endless panoply of life. 

The April Fool part comes in from a traditional character called Benino, who is asleep during all this ruckus, and missing out on the coming of Jesus as well as everyday life. 

He is usually shown as an adult, 

often as the poorest of the peasant shepherds, 

and asleep in a drunken stupor, 

missing out on life in general 

and the religious miracle of the Nativity. 

In one of the many frescoed rooms in the monastery, there is a figure of Moses, shown with what looks like two horns on his head. These are representative of the rays of light thought to emanate from the holy figure. But since Moses WAS Jewish, and the patrons of the paintings were not, Moses is sometimes shown in less than a flattering way. 

Here is a composite view of the Bay of Naples, taken from the extensive terraces of the monastery. Most of Naples itself is off camera to the left, as is Vesuvius.

Yes, there are indeed fruit and vegetable sellers in many of the older neighborhoods of Naples, as well as vendors of “country chickens” and sausages. 

In case you ever wondered what might have happened to Don Quixote after his long quests, perhaps his family opened this 

roasted-food shop and cafe, 

named after his author, Cervantes?

One tends to forget that Naples has a long tradition of being a major center for Universities, libraries and musicians. This juxtaposition of two seemingly disconnected books in a modern book store continues to amuse me — one volume by the former Pope Benedict and the other with the subtitle of “Three books the Pope does not want you to ever read”. I think it shows a nice sense of toleration.

(I know I used this photo in a previous posting, but I still am surprised by the juxtaposition.)

Here’s another bookstore window near one of the many (small) universities. With a wide range of titles. 

Yes, there are a large number of students in central Naples. Perhaps not all of them find it easy to pass their exams and graduate. 

Every day, this fellow was out in front of 

San Domenico, on a major square, 

pronouncing that one could obtain 

a diploma of the streets, 

and graduate at once. 

The placards seem to hold a mathematical formula of some sort, and there is reference to Christ’s not needing a diploma. Very few people would stop to converse with him, and he often scowled so much that I did not feel like trying, either. 

There is always pizza to solace the soul in Naples. This shot shows three varieties, still steaming from the oven. There are many, many kinds to choose from, each a slice of heaven.

On our last day in Naples, we decided to visit the (former) Royal Palace. It was much larger than I had thought, and full of very interesting art, architecture and furniture, even though the “BEST” stuff is in more-frequented-by-tourists places such as the Capodimonti former palace (now a museum complex on a hill overlooking Naples) and at the former Royal Palace in the countryside at Caserta. 

(Yes, that's Vesuvius in the background.)

Nothing like a good staircase to make an impression on visitors!

Too tired to bother standing in line for tickets to the theatre or opera? Well, if you are King, you can have your OWN theatre, complete with a Royal Box for you and also extra space for a couple hundred courtiers and guests to enjoy opera, music, dance, theatre, et cetera. This is not to say there were no other opera houses,  theatres or concert halls in Naples! The very famous San Carlo Opera house is in the previous photo, in the left background.

The visitable part of the palace was much larger than we had imagined. Yes, there were a number of what I call 1700’s horrors, but some were very good, and all were exquisitely crafted.

(In case it doesn't show, there may be a link to "see more" here. Yup, I ain't done yet and

 I hope you ain't either!)