10/23/18: Naples day 2

Woke up and took a quick walk to or planned morning tour, the catacombs of San Gaudioso. Here, Christians in the 5th and 6th century performed burial rituals on the dead that would today seem quite macabre, to use the tour guide's words. Bodies (and keep in mind these were bodies respected enough to be buried in a catacomb) were decapitated, drained of their fluids in cubby holes by a special mortician class, who were poor and not squeamish about the disease and smells that came with the process. It was believed back then that the head and thus skull was the seat of the soul, so the skull was given special treatment. 

Nearly 1000 years later in the medieval age, the catacombs were rediscovered. Dominican monks updated some parts of the catacomb in conjunction with building the church above, using slightly less grim mummy wrapping to prepare bodies kept here.

There are frescos from both periods on the walls, with the 400-500 AD ones quite faint, but fascinating to see in person. Skulls were embedded into the wall (and later decayed into the cavities you can see in pictures) to form these bizarre skeleton figures. 

The skulls are in the shadow of the lighting at the top.

This is a composite skeleton forming a guardian figure to protect the other people buried in the catacomb. Yes, that is a scythe it's holding. The guide did not explain how that imagery migrated onto our popular depiction of Death. The words around the blade are lost to time. But these early Christians were pretty matter of fact about death. One inscription reads: "today me, tomorrow you." Another painting shows a skeleton leaving behind a crown and scepter, standing by an hourglass, its message that we are all the same in death. 

A couple of the lights in the crypt nurture shall patches of moss growing in the dirt and humidity:

There's one fresco of Jesus that was painted in the 400s and then again in the 500s. Thanks to deterioration, you can now make out both paintings.

There are plans to eventually restore the frescos, but the organization that runs the catacomb tours is privately funded and needs to prioritize their money. It seems to be growing healthily, at least. 

[from this afternoon, but inserting here for continuity]

We took a bus up the hill slope north of the old city to the Capomonte, head of the mountain. Here was the Catacomb of San Gennaro, the main patron saint of Naples. This was a much better catacomb, showing the evolution from pagan (so biased of modern history to label the Roman gods that way) to early Christian to Catholic. The builders discovered that tufo, a local igneous tuff rock, was easy to carve and shape. And thus they started digging into the hillside. The lower level of San Gennaro's catacomb from the 00-100s AD were much vaster and more organized than San Gaudioso's (mirroring the main layout of Naples at the time):

The grapes here are a fresco from the upper 400 AD level, and are a retooling of Roman art style and motifs to fit the new Christian ideology. They represent Jesus and his blood. No such Christian symbology exists in the lower level. 

San Gennaro's tomb was on display. The vault was built in the 400s, and then Gennaro's artifacts stolen back from a rival city claiming him and interred here in the 500s. Then in the next few hundred years, grave robbers made off with the stuff. Such is archaeology.

The catacomb is open to the outside -- apparently, contact with the outside air minimizes the spoilation of the frescos. Same as in the first catacomb, the organization has way more items to try to take care of than it has money for. The Vatican approved this project in 2001 to run till 2019, and so the org hopes to have shown enough success to get an extension. 

Their mission is a worthy one, and the historical and archaeological value of these sites are invaluable. 

Lunch was a long walk down the newer post of Naples to the coast. A small restaurant appropriately named Il Restaurantino dell'Avvocato. The lawyer's little restaurant. The tasting course had pork in a couple of dishes, so we opted to order a la carte. 

Fried cod in pumpkin puree as an amuse bouche. Fried cod was excellent texturally, but quite salty, which made me nervous, as a few negative reviews of the place had mentioned that. 


Caprese salad. 

Rigatoni and fish. Simple and good: let the fish flavor show up. 

Miscellaneous pasta and potato. Very rich and would have pleased most people looking for a hearty mac and cheese. 

Octopus in tomatoes and capers. Some real classic Italian, and it delivered. The octopus was cooked quite well, not tough at all. The sauce was sweet from the tomato and tangy from the capers. 

Seared fish of the day. The searing on the filets and skin was perfect. 

Overall, a fairly basic spread, with no tricks and executed very well. 

In the afternoon, we took a walk along the coast to get to the water bike tour. This area was far more resorty in feel, with upscale brand shops instead of food stalls. Might as well be Monaco compared to the old city. Our guide had said wind might prevent us from doing the tour, and he went back and forth on the weather in the afternoon. When we arrived, he had concluded no go. He did give us a lift partway back, though. Hence why we doubled up on catacombs -- our tickets were good for all catacomb sites. 

For dinner, we finally made it to the pizzeria I had wanted to go to the first night -- Attilio. Muslimah put it like this: the quality completely erased our low opinion of Neapolitan pizza from what we'd had at Dal Presidente. 


My DOP-grade margherita was light, excellent tomatoes, soft crust, not oily. I have not had a better margherita. The normal margherita was a steal at 4 Euros, which is the going price for one in Naples, while this was 7. Given the short length of our trip, I wanted to make sure to leave nothing to chance, quality-wise.


Muslimah's pizza was similar, but with eggplant. It was as good. 


Oh, and I got a puttanesca for the heck of it. Very piquant with the capers.

It made me confident that there are indeed many excellent pizza places out in Naples just waiting to be tried.

10/22/18: Naples

Last night, the restaurant we went to, Pizzeria Dal Presidente, was good but not amazing. Again, I think all the pieces I've tried could come together into an amazing pizza pie, but it didn't happen the first pizza we ate. A minor limitation, as you don't need meat on a pizza, is that a lot of pizzas are laced with one pork product or another. After all the eating we've already piled on, I think I wouldn't mind downgrading to a margherita myself. We're trying to get more vegetables, which isn't impossible, just tricky when did recommendations for Naples are dominated by pizza. 

The Presidente the restaurant is named for, by the way, is Bill Clinton. 

This morning, we took a slow regional train the 16mi out to Pompeii. I'd stayed up a while optimizing our big walk around the site on my walking tour app's map of the site: 

3km of zigzagging through the ancient streets.

As soon as we walked into the fenced-in site, I got worried about our timetable. It really is huge. Felt as big as the Imperial Palace and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Between the overcast and light rain, and of course the doomed end of the city, Pompeii had a somber cast over it. My route ran into issues early on, with multiple road closures ruining my carefully optimized plans. Our rented audio guide was generally informative, so we took our time at each narrated location. I think I'd recommend 4 hours in Pompeii of you're into history. Do research into the different travel options, but the regional rail worked fine for us. 

Sites that I thought were good:

- House of Geometric Mosaics (best view of surrounding landscape)

- Temple of Venus

- Stabian Baths

- House of the Faun

- The Forum

- Theater

- Amphitheater

That picture of Alexander the Great that you might have seen? Dug up from the House of the Faun:

That dog mosaic from any intro Latin textbook? House of the Tragic Poet:

I may have once known that these pieces of ancient at had come from Pompeii, but when I saw these today, they came as a complete surprise. 

Sites that were a letdown based on my app's must-see status:

- Temple of Apollo

- House of the Baker

- Macellum

- House of Venus in the Shell

- Brothel

Sites that were closed so we couldn't get the full experience:

- House of the Tragic Poet

- House of the Ship Europa

Sites that I wanted to see but we didn't have time for:

- House of the Ancient Hunt

- House of the Vettii

- The Street of Tombs

- House of the Mysteries

All of the houses are named after what's found in them. A few have evidence of the owners names and are thusly named. 

There's a pizzeria inside that I'm sure makes bank, but feels super out of place. Inside, you have flourescent lights. Outside, you have wagon ruts worn into stone from two millennia ago:

That last picture is a good segue into the human tragedy of Pompeii. A baker just going about his day ran for his life and left behind these loaves of bread. Everyone ran, but no one made it. Outside the main entrance is a collection of casts made of some human bodies found in the solidified ash. I don't think any sculptor could hope to match the terror and agony in these buried dead, their lives insignificant in the shadow of Vesuvius. One young person's last moments were sitting against a wall, knees propped up, elbows between thighs and hands over face. Whether in fear, prayer, or a desperate attempt to block out the ash, we can't say. But the resignation and utter humanity in these casts is like nothing else. The archaeological value of Pompeii is immeasurable, and we have to remember the victims whose lives were extinguished to preserve this moment in history. 

Back in Naples, we switched gears to food touring, again. The tour guide was one of the best we've had, and quantities were good.

1) Mozzarella di bufala. Mozzarella made with buffalo milk. A Campania (state Naples is in) DOP product. DOP is a certification for food that is made in is historical origin area using traditional preparation. It ought to be good if it's DOP. The mozzarella we had was fine but not amazing. Probably wasn't DOP. The prosciutto was great. 

2) Pizza fritta at Sorbillo Esterina, one of the 3 main Sorbillo family pizza shops, specializing in fried pizza.

Much much better than what we had last night. The dough was thinner. There was way less provola, which made the dish much lighter, texturally and taste-wise. There are only a handful of ingredients: dough, ricotta, provola, tomato, salami, black pepper. I thought it could use more spice from the black pepper, even though I could see a lot of it. 

The big French family had the nerve to say it was too heavy, despite French croissants needing a kilo of butter to bake, those frauds. 

3) Frittura napoletane. Neapolitan fried stuff. This was 3 items: crocche, the equivalent to an arancini, and the frittatine di pasta.


Only the last thing was new. It's spaghetti in a cheese sauce breaded and fried. The spaghetti evokes mac and cheese, though the execution is light years beyond a fried hunk of mac and cheese at some American bar. And I think instead of a 4 cheese mac and cheese sauce, if it were instead mostly fontina, which really worked for me but not Muslimah. 

4) Limoncello. Some DOP liquor. Visiting the factory and seeing a big vat of lemon peels fermenting was cool: 

5) Gelato. It was good, and I got lemon in honor of the last visit. 

One of the sites on the tour was the original central square of old (Roman) Naples. The Spanish took the Roman temple, left a few columns, and converted it to a church. Then the Italians took the stairs descending the church and turned it into a scooter shed:

Our guide also explained the origin of street theater as a response to the infection risk of big enclosed theaters. Street comedy theater tradition gave rise to a common cast of typed characters that became known across Italy and indeed helped to culturally unify its kingdoms. Naples' home character, Pulcinella, is welcomed by the city, which takes this bit of heritage much more seriously, than, say, Milan. 

As you might guess from that depiction, Pulcinella evolved into the Punch of British Punch and Judy shows.

10/21/18: Palermo day 2

We're both a little sick, with me waiting to see if my runny nose will get any worse and Muslimah saddled with a cough. Harder to go to sleep at night, so we give ourselves more time in the mornings. 

We kicked off with trying to find a place to get onto the hop-on-hop-off bus. Eventually, we found a spot and got a bus that was running late. The circuit of the city was pretty scenic, when I wasn't marveling at how close the driver was cutting it in every encounter with cars, motos, bikes, and pedestrians. The canned audio guide was a little uneven but still informative. If we had had more time, we could have hopped off at a few stops and seen things up close. 

After a loop, we got off and snaked back to the start of the food tour to get some more frittola and sfincione. The frittolero recognized me, probably since I was the Asian guy wearing the same bright shirt as yesterday.

Then we walked back over to the archaeological museum, which was supposed to be an impressive collection of Greek and Egyptian artifacts. Or so I hastily read some weeks ago. The Greek stuff was indeed impressive, mostly artifacts from a Greek city founded in Sicily in 600s BC. There was really only one significant Egyptian artifact, though the Palermo stone on its own was pretty amazing. 

https://github.com/cotalabs/scala/blob/MLL_Proto/reduct/src/main/resources/db/migration/R__01_rwe.patient.sql#L150

We didn't stay long, as we wanted to do a different hop-on loop around the Eastern part of the city. Unfortunately, I went to go get a Coke and use the bathroom and missed the bus. So we settled for an afternoon snack on a rooftop restaurant by our AirBnB. Some good views of the city:

We rushed to the hotel to pick up our bags and then blazed it on foot to the train station for the first pickup point for the airport shuttle. Muslimah's concern about not getting decent (or any) seats was well founded -- after 3 stops, the bus was full up. 

I started looking into Naples restaurants on the shuttle wifi, and boy do these articles make Naples seem like heaven on Earth for pizza. We'll see. 

One short flight later, we landed in Naples. Took the shuttle into the train station and then walked to our current AirBnB, a modern affair in a cavernous hulk of a building, with the flimsiest elevator I've seen.

Update: first pizza place in Naples was disappointing. It was good, just not blowing my mind.

Neapolitan specialty -- fried pizza. Like a very thin calzone but fried instead of baked. Very cheesy.

Some unwieldily cheesy pizza with tomates, basil, and prosciutto. Just very heavy.

A very wet and cheesy margherita.

I think there's plenty of time to do better. Also the security guard for the back open area said they take card, but they didn't by the time we wanted to pay. I got one hell of a scooter ride from one of the waiters to bring me to the ATM. I'm pretty sure he was trying to mess with me by going really fast. But it wasn't enough to rattle me.