Napoli....Crapoli!

Quite a harsh judgement here you may think, but today was just a day for a Saturday trundle into 'town' and a look about. If anywhere was going to put you off Italy, then this was the place. Clare and I were gobsmacked. We have never seen so much litter, literally a filthy, dirty place.

This was a fortunate area, as it actually had a bin, and most of the rubbish was in the bin and not just scattered everywhere else! 

We have never seen so much dereliction in buildings, including an eye opening journey from Pompei Scavi station into Napoli Garibaldi terminal. The endless crammed concrete flats all stacked up against each other gave a real vision of what life in parts of Italy is like.

 

The feeling of deprivation and sadness was experienced even more with parents and their children playing accordions, drums and tambourines to backing tracks on the trains and begging for what little cash they could get. A very terrible experience for us all to see. I asked Jasper if he was happy with his home. He said yes. I then said, "yes, we've got a nice little cottage haven't we" to which he responded, "no, its a van and a good van too".

We have never seen so many apparent illegal dealings, street vendors, men approaching us asking for money etc. One man even asked Jasper and Maya if they wanted a lighter to play with!!! The support for any type of pedestrian activity seems next to nil with us crossing on crossings that have no legal ruling.

The 'Broken Britain' headlines seem a long way away when you see the poverty and complete failings of the Italian infrastructure that we have witnessed today. If all of this wasn't bad enough, there is also an abundance of what can only be described as "shanty towns" as well along side the railway tracks. Literally sheds made of cardboard boxes and old pieces of boards, corrugated sheets, whatever was handy we guess. We've seen these on several occasions and at first glance assumed it was an illegal tip. Not a nice thought that some people have to live there. 

So whatever happens on our trip, we remind ourselves that we are fortunate and lucky to live where we do (well, when we get back to lovely Somerset!) and Napoli will also serve to remind us, that even in times of 'van' hardship, we are all ok.

On the up side, we did find a restaurant that did some lovely Napoli pizzas and they are supposed to be THE pizzas to eat in Italy!

They were really good! We also met a lovely couple from Doncaster in one of the many wild and vivid markets, which actually were quite a sight that we won't forget (the markets that is, not the couple from Doncaster.) In fact the markets were a good place to be in order to see a "normal" Saturday in Napoli.

We saw loads of live shell fish just wallowing about in pans of water and escaping over the edges of these dishes. We even saw one octopus making a 'run' for it down the pavement. He had got out of his dish and was off back to the sea! He only got 30cm though before he was picked up and placed back in the bowl.

So all in all, quite an experience for us today! We really do have some tales to tell! And we are truly grateful for small mercies.

Ed and Clare