Naples - Funicular and City Views

Vesuvius looms over metropolitan Naples. 

To get to the Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa de San Martino we took the funicular railway from the station just west of the Via Toledo.

It was quite an experience. The dog was strange; there was a dog that no one seemed to be paying attention to sitting in the middle of one of the cars. It was still there when we came back down.

The station and the cars are delightful. Lots of 19th century detail (thankfully not in the cars).

Upon arriving on top of the Vomero I felt as if we were in a very different world than the Naples of the Centro Historico. The first thing we noticed was that it was so clean. It lacked the gritty graffiti of the lower city. Oh there was graffiti  it just seemed cleaner.  Even the supermarket we stopped at was cleaner. The clerk was from Newcastle, which made me laugh.

It also lacked that soiled mattress smell that gave so much character to the old city.

An even more amazing thing is the well placed signage that clearly pointed the way to the Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino.

Below, Dallas! No, actually the Centro Direzionale from the Certosa San Martino.  A number of landmarks can be seen in this picture.  It gives you an impression of how dense the historical center really is.  These were taken from the forecourt of the San Martino Monastery (certosa di San Martino) where a number of people had gathered for the sunset to drink wine and be merry. Really awesome place.  

From mid left: Santa Maria Maggiore, just below that the Piazza Dante, the Duomo, San Lorenzo Maggiore (and Tower),  San Domenico Maggiore and the San Domenico Plague Column. 

Looking north towards the Palace of Capodimonte in the distance.

Naples - Fontana dell’Immacoletella

Fontana dell’Immacoletella and Vesuvius. It don't half loom do it?

A thirteen minute walk from San  Fransisco di Paolo is the Castel dell’Ovo (yes the Egg Castle, I’ll explain later). There are a number of interesting things along the way. Including magnificent views of Vesuvius and the Tyrrhenian Sea.  Heading southeast on Via Console Cesanio until you reach the bay you can walk along the bay (past cats feasting on discarded fish) in a southwesterly direction to a semi-circular piazza with a statue of Umberto I commemorating his visit to the city after an outbreak of cholera or plague or a plague of cholera, or was it typhoid? I know that supposedly the Corso Umberto I was built in the 1880’s as a wide street to separate the lower area with the docks (and therefore the disease) and the upper areas of the city. Any bloody excuse for a city improvement project eh? These days it would be a motor bypass right through Stonehenge. Well that was off topic.

About halfway between to the Castel dell'Ovo, at a sharp turn of the esplanade, is the Fontana dell’Immacoletella:  A striking fountain, delightfully whimsical and by Pietro Bernini, the father of the stone whittler that inflicted so much baroque-ness on Rome. Will we ever escape from the omnipresent Bernini’s?According to the guidebook I bought while I was there and a couple of websites, like many of Naples older fountains this one has been moved about a bit. 

It's current location is divine. 

Below is the unn-named piazza with the statue of Umberto I. My back is to the bay of Naples in this picture. Well to be precise my back is to a series of food vans on an excedra that juts out into the bay from teh esplanade, but that seemed like a lot of words just for accuracy. 

Naples - Mount Vesuvius

Not much of a post today, just a super picture of Vesuvius that looks like the mountain is steaming away.

Just the cloud effects though.

This picture was taken from right around the corner from the Palazzo Reale on the Via Console Cesario. Where there is a statue of Julius Caesar or Augustus I can't remember right now. Pretty sure it was Julius Caesar, and smothered in graffiti.

Something that we found odd, everything was smothered in graffiti.