Getting ready to Rome

It was slightly pleasing to wake up this morning knowing we would be in Rome by days end, Naples is a lovely place to visit and has many great attractions but it has its issues. I would recommend you visit Naples however only for a few days, any more than that and it would get very hard to tolerate. Some of the poverty in the region combined with the many years of poor governance have left a toll on the community.


For example it was quite surprising and concerning for us to be walking along the waterfront region around sunset and seeing around 5 (suspected) homeless people standing around a fire in the middle of the park. It is hard to believe these people needed the fire for anything else than to warm and cook food as the evening was warm enough to not require heating. This incident was then less than 300 meters from one of the main shopping strips of the city containing world renowned coffee shops, restaurants and clothing stores.

A bride only 300 mt from where the 'homeless' fire was

It is like the Neapolitans are ignorant and walk the streets oblivious to these scenes of poverty, could it be they are desensitised as they have lived their whole lives with it?  Alternatively, they know there is nothing they as a person can singularly do and have been burned in the past by corrupt governments and illegal activities.

Today we had a number of hours before we were to get the train to Rome and decided to check out the two castles that are on the Bay of Naples. This is the same area where we saw the men with the fire, but with the sun high in the sky it did feel slightly better.

The castles are very important tourist sights with the first one we visited being the Castel Nuovo.  This castle appears to contain a number of office staff in the halls and confines but what we were permitted to look at was a couple of small chapels and a very impressive collection of artworks from the 15 and 16th centuries.

I would like to note that this castle does not look like it has had any form of maintenance for the past 20 to 30 years, with any external painted surface completely raw and paint peeled off long ago.  We walked into one of the small chapels to see a lovely view of the harbour (below) and were refreshed by the breeze coming through the window. It wasn't until we got closer that I saw the glass was missing, and had not been replaced. I was shocked to see the artwork and frescoes in this small chapel exposed to the elements of the Mediterranean.

The next castle we visited, Castel dell'Ovo, was touristically a disappointment. The view from the top allowed us to look over the Bay of Naples and onward to Mount Vesuvius. However there was no information available for us to read or even pay for, to learn more about the castle.

The afternoon was spent on the very fast train from Naples to Rome. It is such a great way to get between large cities in Italy travelling at speeds up to 300km/h

Todays video.

Tomorrow, time to Rome.