Gerry's Not So Excellent Adventure In Naples

Whoops! I'm finishing my trip blog back home, and managed to accidentally skip a section. This one ante-dates the "Shelley Time in Naples" post. It begins with our arrival in Naples. 

When we came out of Naples Capodichino airport and found the cab rank, we were immediately reminded of what we'd experienced here 35 years ago. That time we were merely passing through, taking a cab from train station to ferry dock for the trip to Ischia, sister island of Capri. We felt we were taking our lives in our hands on that cab journey. This one was not much better.

There was some kind of shouting match going on among the cab drivers when we came out. It might have just been friendly banter, but it was very loud and angry-sounding in the Neapolitan way. The cab ride was fast and furious, with much honking, muttering and shouting of imprecations by our driver. Traffic lane markings are considered a mere recommendation here. Cabbies typically drive straddling the line so they can keep their options open. At one point, he had to stop to pay a toll, which occasioned more muttering. When he pulled away, he said, “Mafia!” Karen said, “No!” He laughed and agreed, “No.” A Neapolitan joke on the jumpy tourists.

Caterina, our hostess, had arranged for her boy friend, Carlo, to meet us near the flat we’d rented and guide us to it. It’s on a pedestrian-only stepped street, the Salita Petraio (Map u), which climbs one of Naples’ three hills. 

The place we were to have the cab drop us was an address that had nothing to do with Caterina or Carlo. It was just close to the flat. (Map }) Carlo turned up five minutes after we got there, on his moto. It was raining again by this time. We had to hump the bags up some stairs to a station on one of the funicular lines (Map v), walk through the station and out the other side, up some more stairs, and then down Salita Petraio 50 meters to the house. Inside, there were more stairs up to the main level. Whew!

View through balcony window across neighbouring terraces to Bay of Naples

It’s a gorgeous apartment. It looks like the place was gutted inside and rebuilt, possibly within the last 10 years, certainly within the last 20. We’re not sure what the story is, why they’re renting it out. It was obviously renovated and decorated at great expense, with wood floors throughout, exposed stonework, designer fixtures. The name plaque on the front of the house says Ruggiero, which is Caterina’s surname. So is this a house she owned but can no longer afford to live in, or is it the house of her deceased parents? We didn't ask.

View from balcony up Salita Petraio

Beautiful as it is, it’s a wildly impractical place – at least organized the way it is now. The apartment is on three levels, counting the entrance way, all open concept. There's a Juliette balcony with a floor-to-ceiling doorway off the main level. The top floor is a loft, with a bedroom, with no door on it, and a large landing that could serve as an office. The bed in that bedroom, supposedly the master, is a clapped-out futon.

The second bedroom is on the main floor at the top of the stairs. There is no proper partition on the side by the stairs, just a sort of vertical blind made of mirrored pieces. Very strange. A huge picture window looks out on the Salita, covered by a thin orange curtain. There’s a street light right outside the window. There is no proper door on this room either, just a bi-fold that scrapes on the floor.

The bed, a quite nice queen size, practically fills the room. We had to move it to arrange things so we could both get out of it in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. (The joys of growing old.) We had chosen this second bedroom a) because the only bathroom was on the main level and we couldn’t see traipsing downstairs a couple of times a night, and b) Shelley was coming to stay the next night and there’s no way she could have tolerated the light outside the window.

Some of the furniture is quite decent, most not. It’s clearly, with a few exceptions, not the stuff that was in here when the Ruggieros lived in the place. The chairs are all either lucite or aluminum deck chairs with pads. The only sofa is a broken-down love seat-size futon couch bed.

Carlo seemed a nice young guy, spoke very good English. He gave us a tour of the apartment, showed us where things were on a map and then left us to it. By this time, it was after 8. The little grocery shop on the street where the cab had dropped us was by now closed. Carlo had shown us on a map where there was a big supermarket, open 24 hours. A little before 9, I made the fateful decision to take the funicular up to it and buy us some groceries. This gets a little complicated, so I'm providing a map. (Click to enlarge if you want to follow along.)

Getting on the funicular was the first adventure. The ticket machine at the station, the one we’d walked through with Carlo, didn’t work for some reason. In the end, the station master just opened the gate and let me through. (The station master couldn’t sell tickets or make change, so I’m not exactly sure what he does.) There were a couple of other guys waiting for the train. One of them I would see again.

It was only one stop up to the top, to Piazza Fuga (Map w) in the Vomero neighbourhood. (Map: pink solid line pointing up) I didn’t have precise directions to the supermarket, just the mediocre tourist map Carlo had given us with an 'x' he'd scrawled to mark the spot (Map x), but I did manage to find it fairly quickly, if by a somewhat circuitous route (Map: green dotted line). It’s a very posh Carrefour, the big French supermarket chain. Vomero, in general, seems a fairly well-to-do neighbourhood.

After I’d done my shopping, I came out and, as later became clear, made a wrong turn. (Map: red dotted line) Before long, though, I came to the funicular stop – or to a funicular stop. (Map y) What I had not realized, and failed to notice on the map, was that there are three funicular routes that come up to Vomero. All the stops are within a few blocks of each other. The lines fan out and go down to different parts of the city below. I had, without realizing, come to the station of one of the other lines, number 3 to be precise.

I was feeling pretty cocky at this point, though, thinking I had this thing nailed. I’d made it in time for the last train at 10 p.m. Just barely. I got my ticket, got on the train, and off we went down the hill. (Map: pink solid line pointing down) The penny dropped when the first stop came much quicker than I’d remembered from the upward journey. And it wasn’t our stop, Petraio. 

There were two American women in the same car – not tourists but residents, it seemed from the way they were talking. I approached and asked for help, told them where I needed to go. They explained my idiotic mistake. At that point, we were at the next stop, Corso Vittorio Emmanuele (Map z). The one woman said that I could get off here and walk down the Corso to Salita Petraio and up. But as I moved towards the doors, they closed. Off we went again. So now I was going even further down, away from our house. I’d have to take a cab. No problem, the woman said, there was a cab rank at the bottom.

I got a taxi and asked him to take me to the address where we’d met Carlo (Map }). It took a long time. When we got there, I paid him and got out – €18. Yikes! (The flag-drop jumps from €3.50 to €6.50 after 8 o’clock in Naples.) I walked down to the stairs to the station, looked up them, and it hit me: the station was closed, the last train had gone, I couldn’t get through. Carlo had told us this, and also the alternative route we’d have to walk if we were coming back after 10. But I’d forgotten, or hadn’t taken it in.

I ran back to the cab, caught him before he took off, and explained the problem as best I could – he had only a few words of English, wasn’t very bright and clearly didn’t know his city that well. He muttered but let me back in. We drove around for another half hour. He tried to drop me at one place, the top of Gradini Petraio (Map {), which he thought might be right – it was, as it turned out; I could have got home that way – but I wouldn’t let him leave me there. In the end, he took me back to the supermarket (Map x). No charge: one of many kindnesses that night from Neapolitans.

I had seen on my map what looked like a street that went down and intersected our Salita Petraio. I wandered around looking for it for 15 minutes, but couldn’t find it. In the end, I went into a bar – the Fonoteca (Map |), a very cool-looking spot –  and asked. The waitress didn’t have enough English, but called over a customer. It was my buddy from the Petraio funicular stop, who immediately recognized me, and I him. With great effort, he very kindly dredged up what little English he had and gave me directions that at least started me on the right path, along Via Luigia Sanfelice. (Map: long orange dotted line) Part way along it, I thought to call Carlo. He said yes, I was going the right way, but I’d have to make a turn ahead, on Via Palizzi, and walk a long way down – "around all the curves," he said – past the Petraio funicular station, through a passageway and then up Salita Petraio to the house.

When I got to the bottom of the street – exactly where the cab had dropped me, or tried to, 45 minutes earlier (Map }) – I was basically a zombie, exhausted and drenched in sweat. Without thinking, I started up the stairs to the funicular station again. There was a gate across it. Of course. I'd already established that the station was closed. A woman just about to go into her house on Via Palizzi had seen me and wondered what this stranger was doing going up the stairs to a closed station. She waited for me to come down and spoke. I said I didn’t understand Italian. She said, “French, English?” She spoke very good English. She walked me to the start of the Salita Petraio, about a 100 meters away but around a turn in the road and through a narrow passage. “You’re an angel,” I told her. It was only a short walk up from there. But by this time it was almost 11:30. Karen had started to get a little worried, she admitted.

We had a drink and a snack and went to bed. It was not a good night. The bedroom was radiantly bright from the street light outside. Neither of us slept well.

The next day, Thursday, Shelley was arriving. She’d come in by train from Rome the night before, but had insisted on staying in a hotel in the Spanish District rather than landing on us right away. We arranged to meet at noon near her hotel and go for lunch. After which we’d get her bags from the hotel and take the funicular up to the house. Karen and I walked there, down the Salita Petraio, across Corso Vittoria Emmanuele, the street at the bottom of the stairs, and then down various streets and stairways to Via Chiaia.

Spanish District street scene

Shelley had a recommendation from the hotel people for a pizza joint on one of the nearby vicos or alleyways. It was supposed to be good and authentic, not a tourist place. Pizzeria Nennella was all that: a real workingmen’s lunch spot. We sat in a back room crammed with formica tables. The waiters were long suffering. The wine when it came was clearly not just the house wine but wine made in the house. A guitarist came and played one song, loudly and not well, then went around collecting Euros from customers, or trying to. Most of the locals ignored him.

The pizza was superb, or mine and Shelley’s were. We both chose fairly simple ones. Mine was a Margherita: tomato sauce, cheese, basil. Karen got some kind of stuffed pizza which she said wasn't cooked properly. Too bad. Naples is famous for pizza, and that was probably the only one she’ll have while we’re here as she’s trying to reduce her carb intake.

We collected Shelley’s bags and went back up on the funicular from the Augusteo station, a stop very close to the hotel. By this time it was late afternoon. We decided not to try to do any sightseeing, but only go back up to the Carrefour and do a proper shop, which we did. We chatted the evening away over wine and cheese and chorizo nibbles.