It was supposed to be a nothing day, tired as we were. But we decided since we were so tired we might as well get a massage. And if we were walking to the massage place we might as well eat too.
And I finally learned what’s with all the Diego Maradona and the streets draped in flags of the Naples football team. In the 2022-2023 season they, the Napoli team, won the Italian League championship for the first time in 33 years, since way back when Maradona led the team to victory in 1989-1990. Talk about over the moon! This city is Devoted to its football team.
The last time I showed the inset from the picture below I remarked how I thought it was Maradona, God of Naples, but it was actually San Gennaro, Patron Saint of Naples. But from that first angle it didn’t show Maradona was there too, under the umbrella looking an awful lot like San Gennaro after all.
Lunch was good!
Massage was good!
A scene from the street.
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Clipped from google maps, the inset shows the square of the Duomo Metro stop. You can tell the four big buildings that surround the square – we are staying in the one closest to the top. Some photos of the buildings follow. We didn’t make as much use of the Metro as we could have but were we to stay longer we would surely feel the benefit.
Speaking of the Metro, the traffic in Naples is overwhelming and they don’t have uber or lyft or any online service that works well, and anyway if you take a taxi you still have to brave the traffic – determined cars and the phalanx of motorbikes that careen around every corner three abreast or race down the narrow old town streets in a line. I think the pedestrians are remarkably tolerant under the circumstances. So we’ve been mostly walking and getting everywhere we want to go watching out for motorbikes and walking carefully on all the uneven stone streets.
The entire square is blocked up with construction to expand the Metro. Our flat is on the 4th floor and magically well insulated. It’s crazy, crack a window on the balcony and the noise is deafening, close the window and it’s silent. Too bad the pictures aren’t better…
Just walking down the street singing ooo-wa diddy diddy dum diddy-do.
