05-10-04 Colosseo a Notte (Colosseum by Night)
Taken at F11 with 160-speed “film” over a period of six seconds. I was having trouble getting a shot without cars, even at almost 1am, so I decided to incorporate them into the composition.
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05-03-04 Bus, Train, Train, Bus, Ferry, Incline, Bus, Taxi, Dinghy… and Lots and Lots of Walking: Getting to Capri and Other Observations
It was completely random. No planning, no map, no tickets, no hotel reservations. Nothing more than the desire to see the most beautiful place in the world (well, according to some).
Abby Jasper and I left the Villa Bassi around 8am. At the bus stop, we met some very kind people: a nun, passing by, smiled at Abby – an obvious sign of someone not from Rome. As we found out from the woman’s sister, who was visiting from San Antonio and spoke English and Korean well enough to translate between all parties, they were travelling from Termini (to which we were headed as well) to Assisi, where we had been the week before.
After a 40 minute bus ride to the Termini, we boarded a train for Caserta, from which would transfer to a train headed for Napoli (my least favorite location so far). This “train” was two cars long, spouted diesel exhaust, and blessed us with the entertainment of a screaming baby who was pacified only when playing ringtones as loud as possible on his parents’ phone… over, and over, and over. While the babe received quite an “education” of Handel, Mozart, and Kool & the Gang, everyone else was plugging ears and checking watches, as if the second hand’s ticking would end the Infinitely Long Half Hour Train Ride through Hell any more quickly.
Still, hopping off the train in Napoli was hardly a relief. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, you might say. Our guide book instructed us to take eigher the tram or the bus, neigher of which we could find. Locating someone who didn’t look too hostile to question was no easy task (In Rome, they don’t smile. In Napoli, they scowl). After being led in circles for nearly an hour (which was no isolated incident… perhaps it’s a past time to mislead tourists. I know I would), we found Bus R2. As we rode through town, we attempted to understand just why Napoli is so inferior to charming Rome.
For one, the greater part of the city is fairly modern. Instead of a centuries-old city center bent on preservation, downtown Napoli boasts towering skyscrapers in its financial district. Hotels built tall thanks to the invention of the elevator hardly have the intensity of the 3-4 story alleys of Rome, due to the six-lane roads cutting a path between them. Half-begun houses on the town fringes are living examples of Corbusier’s Domino: concrete slabs with concrete columns, and nothing else, except for rusted rebar jutting up, waiting for a concrete pour that never came. As opposed to Rome, which takes pride in its public spaces, Napoli crams its piazzas with buses and cars, gridlocked in what should be a pedestrian oriented city. Perhaps this is the reason there are so few people on the sidewalks and so many in cars – the city was built up too late, after the advent of elevators, automobiles, and steel trusses. Here the fumes of exhaust even overpower the persistent reek of urine. No one here is nearly as well dressed as in the New York City of Italy, but quite ironically, the beggars have much nicer clothes than any other place I’ve visited. Perhaps this is the origin of the phrase “Vai a Napoli” (Go to Napoli), said to bothersome panhandlers; instead of condemning them to hell, you’re hoping for a better future for them!
By the time we caught the 1-hour ferry to Capri, it was 2:40pm. Abby and I agreed that seven hours of travelling would have been much more tolerable if two hours hadn’t been spent in Napoli.
Yet all of our frustration (well, with Napoli anyways) fell away as wee woke up to a view of the Isle of Capri.
Two tiny mountains rise out of the blue Mediterranean with such ferocity that even the lush green vegetation of the island is unable to cling to the steep, white cliffs. From the first moment you spot the harsh grades of the slopes, one word reverberates in your skull: Paradise. Of course, such an idea is marketable, and profitable. It seems as though every job on the island centers around tourism. Bus drivers schlepp them around. Cooks and waiters feed them. Shop keepers cater to them. And everyone is willing to relieve them of their heavy Euro coins and notes. Oddly enough, there are no beggars or street vendors anywhere. Everyone is comfortably content. And on Capri, who wouldn’t be?
Luckily, and in stark contrast to Napoli, everyone is smiling and eager to help. Perhaps even a little too eager; I was almost annoyed by the persistent use of English… Italian was merely a secondary code language used between natives. We boarded the incline – the easiest way to get up the mountain. From downtown Capri, we hopped the tiny orange bus, which zig-zagged up the narrow street.
Many passengers crossed themselves when they say six inches of pavement and a low, rusty railing were all that stood between them and a 400 foot drop. Still, the driver, undaunted, weaved around the streets without so much as a blink of an eye. The streets must have been carved into the hillside before the advent of automobiles, as vehicles had to wait or even go in reverse in order to squeeze by each other at widened nodes, engineered for this purpose. Drivers all honked as they passed each other, as if to say “Yup! Still Alive!”
After about 20 minutes of back-and-forth maneurvering, we had succeeded in traveling from Capri on one peak to Anacapri on the other. Looking at the map, the distance was only a few hundred yards as the crow flies. I only hope they send a helicopter instead of an ambulance in emergencies (and to all those would-be inventors out there: the first one to create a feasible jet pack will make a fortune on Capri).
From Piazza Vittorio in Anacapri (what idiot put two Piazza Vittorios on such a tiny tract of land?) the inkeeper’s daughter came to pick us up and drive us to the Villa Eva. At this point, I must thank Ryan Grass at City Architecture for recommending such a quirky locale.
Villa Eva is owned, built, maintained, and operated by a family of island dwellers – about three or four generations, if my count was right. The father must have stumbled across a book on GaudÃ, as this complex of buildings amidst a jungle sport ornate chimneys, unorthodox door and window openings, and colored tile everywhere. The room in which Abby and I stayed was a suite of five single beds, a riif terrace, and a roof mounted array of solar water heaters. Natural sunlight streamed in through the stained glass windows and danced in green and yellow on the white stucco walls. A bed with layers of brightly colored sheets, blankets, and comforters was tucked under a staircase of dark-stained wood, and a hand-laid stone fireplace, shaped like a bee hive, squatted in the corner, adorned with decorative bottles. From the roof, we could look down on water on three sides, and look up through Eva’s strange roof lines to the peak of the mountain.
Dropping off our bags, we took a bus to the coast, where the famous Grotta Azzura lay. Several friendly fishermen chatted with us in slow, relaxed Italian and English as they threw chum into the blue waves. While reeling in a small fish, a man with a hat from New York told us that boats had stopped going into the grotto for the day, but said we should swim in. Abby and I looked at our nice-ish clothes, at the frigid water, at the high tide spitting foam through the tiny opening as it lapped at its sides, at the sharp rocks below, at the fading daylight, and more than once at the siggn that said in many languages: “Swimming in the Blue Grotto is Strictly Forbidden.”
Luckily, a man in a rowboat was paddling out, and I flagged him down, pointing at the grotto. We boarded, and he had us lie flat on our backs in the wet bottom of the dinghy. Timing himself against the waves for a good five minutes, he leaned back and heaved on the chain at the side of the cave, and we were in.
As our eyes adjusted, we saw that we had passed into a round cavern about 60-80 feet in diameter. Our navigator explained that the water was over 20 meters deep. The real treat was looking back to see the reason the grotto is famous. Even with a setting sun, the light dove down into the depths and reflected up in an eery, bright blue light. Plunging a hand in the water, I ignorred the chilling cold as my hand lit up in the light.
After witnessing such a wonder, we had to share the experience. We found a phone, and Abby called her boyfriend, one of the few people who insisted we brave the threats of rain (there was none all weekend), and I called Ryan, for suggesting such a fantastic trip and such incredible accomodations.
All that walking left us famished. We headed for Il Cuccilo, recommended to us by Eva’s daughter. The restaurant, like everything, took forever to get to, but as usual the hike was worth it. Perched on a cliff looking across the water to the lights of Napoli (from here, even it looked pretty). The primi piatti (first course) were incredible: spaghetti in lemon sauce, and spinach ravioli in butter sauce.
Since we were on an island, we figured we’d spring for seafood for the secondi. Despite the fact that neither of us were big on fish, I ordered the grilled fish and Abby the fried shrimp. I should have learned from my Zuppa di Pesce experience that guessing with seafood yields bad results.
The waiter came up to Abby with a steaming basket full of red, and when he set the plate down Abby’s face contorted into an expression for which words escape me. An entire pile of entire shrimp was staring up at her, eyes, legs, whiskers, and all. And just what I was afraid of: she looks to me pleadingly and says, “I can’t eat this.” Fine. Instead of splitting our orders, we’d just switch plates. While not exactly looking forward to downing 30-plus greasy crustaceans, I had to maintain a reputation as a human garbage disposal.
Of course, few memories will be more priceless than the moment the maitre’d brought my dish on a silver platter – a whole fish, scales, eyes, and fins – for our approval. I thought Abby was going to leap through the window and plunge into the sea. Luckily after a nod from me, they took it aside to slice out the good parts.
After I pried a lesson out of our server on how to eat a whole shrimp, we both rather enjoyed our meals. She never imagined fish could taste so wonderful (or look so awful, either), and I sadistically taunted her, speaking to “my pretties” while tearing them limb from limb: “Down the Hatch!” We resorted to calling the whiskers “Decorative Covering…” if not for the quality of her food and the euphamisms of mine, she probably would’ve left the table.
If the main course was at all uncomfortable, dessert made up for it. Tiramisu, strong with booze and cocoa, smelled even better than it tasted (It took all her willpower to keep Abby from licking the plate clean). Pineapple – an entire quarter of one, sliced artistically from the rind – melted in the mouth. Limoncello, bitter, thick, and sweet, made our heads spin as we clambered back up the hill to crash at the Eva.
At about 5:30am, I awoke to the shrimp arguing over which would have revenge on my intestines first. I will spare my audience any graphic detail and reduce the single negative experience at Capri to two words: FOOD POISONING. This accursed foe robbed me of more than any Napoli gypsy ever could – Time in Paradise. Our sightseeing was reduced to little more than finding the right bus, the right Farmacia (thank goodness for drugs), and the right postcards, knicknacks, and gelato.
We boarded the Vesuvio Jet at 12:40pm, and cranked our iPods to drown out the ferry’s safety videos, which we had seen the day before. Still, I find them amusing. A really high-quality production, as would be expected from a fleet of such luxurious vessels, complete with transition effects, glamourous models, graphic design, and grandiosely inappropriate “Last of the Mohicans” theme music. Yet inspite of all this, even the Plasma flat screens on which they were displayed could not hide the fact the cinematics were recoreded on inferior VHS… fine, call me a techno-snob.
Still, in spite of my lingering illness, I almost would rather have rolled over the waves on the ferry than set foot in Napoli again. The heat soared up from the asphalt and mixed with the fumes of cars, buses, and motorini. We approached a Tobbacheria to buy bus tickets. After being directed to each of the three people and then back to the first, we decided to risk being thrown into a prison in Napoli and boarded the tram #1 (ooh, that’s another form of transportation) back to Piazza Garibaldi. Luckily, by this time, we were expert travelers, and found our way without incident.
On the train back to Rome, Abby was getting a little nervous about the glazed eyed men sitting with us, their dirty, greasy denim jackets reeking of old sweat and cigarettes. You can imagine her relief when they got up and were replaced by a kind-looking woman in her late 50′s, reading a book. After a while, she leaned over and asked “Turisti?” We nodded, and she began explaining how mozzarella cheese was made (we had just passed the domestic ” buffalo” who are milked for the cheese). A number of subjects poured out of her after that: a castle marking the northern stronghold of the former Kingdom of Napoli, the bridge over the river separating Campania from Lazio, a brief history of the Unification of Italy in 1861. Agreeing it was easier to speak a foreign language than hear it, we spoke in each others’ native tongue.
When she found out we were architecture students, she started talking all about Wright, Mies, Scarpa, Vitruvius, Palladio… we were blown away by all she knew. As it turns out, besides living in Chicago for three years (hence such good English) she was also an archaeologist very interested in architecture. At the end of the train ride, I asked for her name. As it was Spanish, she asked to write itt down. As it finished my adventures, it also finishes my narrative: Bianca Maria Lopez y Royo.