These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem.

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. – Ecclesiastes 1:1-9 

“[The city of] Naples,” according to travel writer Rick Steves, “a living medieval city, is its own best sight.”

What Steves means, and what Rebekah and I discovered in our day-long exploration – on foot – is that Naples wears its heart on its sleeve… and its history; its garbage; its graffiti; its rich southern Italian patina; its struggle; its poverty; its unadorned, gritty, persona; its social problems; its crime; its flavor.

The place is a mess. It’s a mess you can not only see but also smell, taste, touch, and hear. I’ve never witnessed garbage so nonchalant, traffic so aggressive and noisy, historic buildings so neglected, or angst so close to the surface.

We didn’t feel unsafe in Naples so much as unsure. To be honest, in many ways it reminded me of Cairo; if not Third World maybe Two-and-a-half. I’m glad we went, and I’ll share a few highlights in this post, but I don’t think it’s one of those places where we’ll be going back.

I’ll post some representative photographs at the bottom of this page.

GRAFFITI: Walking to the museum was an eye-opener in so many ways. We started from our hotel on Piazza Garibaldi, across from the Central Train Station, and ran a two kilometer gauntlet of graffiti, loose trash, unkept buildings, sour countenances, rotting garbage; a deeply settled sense of resignation and neglect.

The sad thing about the graffiti is that not only were the churches targeted too, there was obviously no attempt to remove it once it was there.

MUSEUM OF ARCHEOLOGY: This was our first stop, and the first significant building not covered in spray paint.

This place is a treasure, and worth a good, long look. Most of the significant finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum are here, and the mosaics alone make the collection beyond priceless.

WALKING TOUR: After the museum we simply walked around the densely populated narrow streets of the old city. Lunch on a busy piazza; cappuccino at the espresso bar; the sights and sounds and smells of Naples.

One amazing highlight was Giuseppe Sanmartino’s “Veiled Christ,” a phenomenally sensitive marble sculpture of Jesus, after death. The work, housed in the Sansevero Chapel, rivals any in terms of capturing, and communicating, the raw emotion of the passion.

UNDERGROUND NAPLES: Later, we took an interesting tour of the old underground aquaduct system, carved from the volcanic rock 2,500 years ago, that supplied Naples with fresh drinking water uninterrupted for 2,300 years.

Abandoned after a cholera epidemic in the 19th Century, the labyrinthian system was rediscovered, and mapped, during World War Two, when the caves were used as air-raid shelters. Underground Naples comprises 170 kilometers of tunnels and more than 2,000 caverns. Our guide was knowledgable, funny, and thorough. Certainly a recommended excursion.

FOOD: We’re not sure how many miles we covered on foot, but by the time we made it back to the hotel, showered, and changed, it was already the “European Hour” for dinner, meaning after 8:00 in the evening.

Other than our first official “Napoli” pizza (the city is credited with inventing the dish), the food in Naples was a mixture of over-priced and disappointing. Great table wine, always, but without the local knowledge of our son (waiting for us in Northern Italy), or anything more than rudimentary restaurant Italian, we ended up as food victims in touristy venues.

That said, we were always served excellent wine and amazing cappuccino.

NAPLES: We’re glad we came to Naples, and we enjoyed our walking tour immensely; but we went back to our hotel more than ready for Pompeii and Vesuvius the next day. Join me if you will – I promise you won’t be disappointed – DEREK