Photos and the City

Tag: Napoli

Palazzo Reale di Napoli

It was my last day in Naples, my luggage was already at the train station in storage and it was about time to visit the Palazzo royale di Napoli. Palazzo royale was built during the time of the Spanish occupation, who wanted to build a modern palace, large and well decorated.

Envisaged as a 16th-century monument to Spanish glory (Naples was under Spanish rule at the time), the magnificent Palazzo Reale is home to the Museo del Palazzo Reale, a rich and eclectic collection of baroque and neoclassical furnishings, porcelain, tapestries, sculpture and paintings, spread across the palace’s royal apartments. (Lonely Planet)

The King never came but the palace remained becoming the Royal Residence of the Austrians first and the Bourbons who followed. During the Bourbon reign, damage from a fire in 1837 led to a major restoration and enlargement (1838 – 1858) by Gaetano Genovese. It was during this time that Francesco Antonio Picchiatti’s (1651) Scalone d’onore was refaced in pink and white marble. Considered one of the finest monumental staircases in Europe, it now leads to the Museum of Palazzo Reale on the piano nobile. (Napoli Unplugged)

The Appartamento Storico, the historic apartment, was opened to the public in 1919 and then severely damaged during World War II. Carefully restored and today it houses a rich collection of Neoclassical and Baroque furnishings, paintings, tapestries, and decorative arts objects and porcelain.

The famous roof gardens were unfortunately closed and under renovation, so I have to come back to adore them!

It was about time to leave this stunning palace and catch my train to Rome. Little did I know that there would be huge delays of the travels and I was lucky to catch my night train to Vienna by mere minutes.

23/05/2019
Quartieri Spagnoli

Taking a deep dive into narrow alleys and colourful life of the Quartieri Spagnoli, the “Spanish” neighbourhood of Naples.

“Napule è mille culure, Napule è mille paure, Napule è a voce d’ ‘e creature che saglie chiano chianu e tu saje ca nun si sulo:” (Pino Daniele)

Naples is a thousand colors, Naples is a thousand fears, Naples is the voice of children gently coming through

From one window you hear the voice of the beloved Neapolitan singer Pino Daniele, some football match from the next and then an opera piece – the Quartieri Spagnoli are a cacophony of sounds. Mums calling their children, men talking to each other from one balcony to the next and then there are the scooters finding their way through the alleys.

they did start as a place for the rich and noble: it was the Spanish viceroy Pedro de Toledo who chose the area in the 16th century as the perfect location for Spanish politicians and ministers to live. Apparently, he liked it because of its beauty and pleasantness, full as it was with mulberry trees and green. After the ministers and their families came Spanish soldiers, who lived in the bassi and attracted large numbers of prostitutes, ready to keep them company while they were far from home; but the military didn’t only bring around easy women, but also helped the flourishing of commerce: soon the many alleys around Via Toledo, the Quartieri Spagnoli’s main artery, filled up with workshops and stores, bringing a multi cultural and varied population to move into them. (L´Italo Americano)

In the 18th century the Quartieri Spagnolia was loved by artists who choose them as their residence. Poet Eleonora Pimentel Fonseca was one of the first and followed by many, like Goethe.

And how can we forget, to say it all, that it’s in Via Sant’Anna di Palazzo, at the heart of the Quartieri, that the most famous pizza in the world, the Margherita, was born? Indeed, it was there in 1889 that the tricolored delicacy was created in honor of Queen of Italy. (L´Italo Americano)

21/05/2019
Pozzuoli

Early morning I made my way to the train station, to catch a train to Baia to visit the underwater archaeological park with a glass bottom boat. But as I´ve already told you I got the wrong train and had to go all the way etc and when I called them to change my booking for the afternoon boat, I was told that all boat tours had to be cancelled because of the rough sea. So I just decided to leave the train at Pozzuoli, take a walk around the city and then take the bus to the Campi Flegreri and the Solfatara volcano.

Macellum di Pozzuoli

The market building of the Roman city of Puteoli was excavated in the 18th century and first misidentified as the city’s “serapeum” or Temple of Serapis.

Pozzuoli started as Greek settlement until it became a Roman one in 194 BC and the food market was built between the late first and early second century AD.

The building was in the form of an arcaded square courtyard, surrounded by two-storey buildings. Shops lined the marble floored colonnade forming an arcade with 34 grey granite columns. The main entrance and vestibule were positioned on a main axis, which lined up across a tholos in the centre of the square to the exedra for worship which had a porticoformed by four large cipollino marble columns. (Wikipedia)

Pozzuoli Harbour

During Greek times Pozzuoli (back then called Dicaearchia) and also Roman times was the main port for Campania, the grain ships from Alexandria and all over the Roman world. Also for goods exported from Campania, including blown glass, mosaics, wrought iron, and marble. Nearby Miseum was the largest Roman naval base and it was also the site of the Roman Dictator Sulla’s country villa, where he died in 78BC.

Pozzuoli was the major trading harbour under the Romans.

It was the harbour where the apostle Paul landed on his way to Rome, He stayed for seven days and his journey by the Appian Way to Rome.

l`Anfiteatro Flavio

The Anfiteatro Flavio Puteolano is the third largest Roman amphitheatre located in Italy, it was probably built by the same architect who had designed the Roman Colosseum. There was enough space for 50.000 spectators.

The site of the structure was chosen at the nearby crossing of roads from Naples, Capua and Cumae. It was abandoned when it was partially buried by eruptions from the Solfatara volcano. During the Middle Ages, the marble used on the exterior was stripped, but the interior was left alone and is perfectly preserved. (Wikipedia)

When you´ve been to the Colosseum in Rome you probably remember the huge crowds of tourists, in Pozzuoli, I was almost alone all the time, the few people visiting got really lost in the huge complex.

After some lunch and caffé, I was ready to go on to the Campi Flegreri and the Solfatara. I found a bus stop, asked someone and started waiting. After about one hour I was still waiting, others waited too but for different buses and absolutely none were coming and nobody knew why… So the Campi Flegreri and the volcano have to wait for another time! I went back to the train station and took the next train to Baia to visit the old Roman Terme di Baia.

14/05/2019