Naples - Castello dell'Ovo

Castello dell'Ovo bridge and gate

Castello dell’Ovo: Yes indeed, the Egg Castle. Why the egg castle? Because according to legend (and this one is a doozy); Virgil (the classical poet who for some reason ended up with a reputation as a sorcerer by the middle ages and so famously/fictionally accompanied Dante on his trip through the levels of Hell in the Divine Comedy) went off and found/stole/collected the very first egg ever laid by a chicken. Which came first the sorcerer or the egg? He performed some magic rites over the egg, possibly involving vinegar and food coloring. No mention of any chocolate rabbits though.


Virgil then placed the egg in a golden cage and hung it from a ceiling somewhere in the castle (oh, certainly it makes perfect sense).  He then proclaimed to the people of Naples that as long as the egg stayed intact no

Castello dell'Ovo

harm would come to the city. Okaaaaay…oh but it gets better and even more crazy (this in a city that believes the dried blood of a Saint who died 1700 years ago miraculously turns liquid, three time a year, every year like clockwork...). So according to yet another legend; during the 13th century (and the reign of Queen Joan I) there was an earthquake and the city was destroyed, well not completely but pretty close. She (or most likely her press agent) told the people the earthquake had occurred because the egg had been broken. She didn’t say who had broken the egg, or what punishment they had received (filling peoples navels with hot molten lead was a common treat for the masses in those halcyon days of yore, being pulled apart by horses was also a happy family outing). She then said that she had gone through all the same magical hocus pocus that Virgil had and that there was a new egg in the cage hanging from a ceiling in the castle, so never fear.

Staircase inside Castello
dell'Ovo

Vesuvius form Castello
dell'Ovo

For some reason I don’t think the egg is still there, Naples has been through some crazy trouble since the 13th century. For a while the castle was a monastery, and then it was fortified again. Finaly at some point it became a sort of castle-park where the city council dumps some rather horrid bronze sculptures.

The castle itself is rather well preserved and it is free to enter and wander about (free is a great price!). Many of the people we saw there were natives of Naples out for an evening stroll, watching the sunset over the bay of Naples or just having a good old fashioned snog behind the battlements.  The battlements themselves have loads of cannons (reproductions?). Funnily enough many of the cannons are pointed away from the bay and directly into the city proper. Yet another sign of the unease of the ever changing rulers of Naples.

View to the north from battlements of Castello dell'Ovo

The refectory still has it’s lovely rib vaults and arches still extant and the views of Naples, Vesuvius and the bay are magnificent. Very much like being in a Sophia Loren movie.

Arches from refectory in the Castello dell'Ovo

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. 

Naples - San Francesco di Paola

San Francesco di Paola with vendors of junk

Opposite the Palazzo Reale is the church of San Francesco di Paola.  I have heard that the inside of the church is dull; Neoclassical in a stark almost horrifyingly academic way. Though others have compared it to an underwhelming tribute to the Pantheon in Rome. The arcades are actually quite beautiful, and they frame the Piazza del Plebiscito in front of the Palazzo Reale quite nicely and are a (so I have been told) relatively safe place to walk at night.

I read somewhere that this was started as a sort of temple to the heroes of the nation (much like the Pantheon in Paris) by Joachim Murat while he was pretending to be king during the early part of the nineteenth century. Then he was deposed, the Bourbons came back and pom-tiddly-pom they decided to turn it into a church dedicated to San Francesco di Paola. But don’t quote me on that as I really don’t remember where I read that, or if I just dreamed it.

Our first view of it was when they were preparing the big stage for New Years eve. My ankle still hurts.

Setting up stage for New Years in the Piazza Plebiscito

Naples - Palazzo Reale

Palazzo Reale

Funny Murat...

Palazzo Reale: This I have been told is worth a visit though supposedly it was closed during the time we were there. I believe it contains some hideously baroque rooms that I remember form my Antique Review magazines that I got from the dustbin of that house on the way back from the Cove bay Clinic thirty years ago. The front of the palace on the Piazza Plebiscito has niches filled with carved images of all of the rulers of Naples. The Murat is rather amusing, I have posted a picture and that is all I am saying about the matter (though I confess I laughed very-very loudly). The whole palace, like Caserta, is a grandiose monument to monarchy. Originally built in 1600 in anticipation of a visit by some king or another, it has passed through the hands of all of the Kings of Naples and the Two Sicily’s  until Vitorio Emanuele II took over as head cheese of all Italy.

All in all it underwhelms. Oh I mean yes, it’s big, it’s positively huge, but an aircraft hanger is big, doesn’t make it exciting.

Palazzo Reale and raised basement facing the bay of Naples

Naples - Galleria Umberto I

Galleria Umberto I with the arcade of Teatro San Carlo to the left

Just to the west of the Castel Nuovo are the gardens of the Palazzo Reale (surrounded by a high wrought iron fence), the Teatro San Carlo and the entrance to the Galleria Umberto I. The latter is a nineteenth century wonder of engineering and a frosted tea cake of architecture both inside and outside. It is immense and a little overwhelming in scale. Personally I liked it; flamboyant, grand, overbearing a bit shabby, perfectly Naples. By shabby I mean; like most things in Naples it was a little gritty, but that is all part of its charm. Just ignore the man urinating in the corner, I did, twice or was it three times? I kid you not.

Inside Galleria Umberto I

The vaulted glass roof (so reminiscent of the crystal palace), the gilded angels, the vast quantity of marble, the delicate mosaics; all indicate that this was one of those massive projects undertaken after the unification of Italy. Apparently it was under the weather for quite some time (40 years), though now it is a bustling hub of activity.

The floor is covered in a beautiful mosaic with the signs of the zodiac in the center under the glass dome. Being the holidays there was a huge Christmas tree chillaxing in one of the wings.

There are four entrances/exits: South to the Teatro San Carlo, beautifully framed by the arch and colonnade, the North and East exits open onto rather dull narrow streets (Via Santa Brigida and Via Giuseppe Verdi respectively), The West entrance is on the Via Toledo (AKA Via Roma), the femoral artery of Naples. Frantically busy both day and night, loud boisterous, entertaining and chillingly frightening at the same time.

Will I? Won’t I? Will I? Won’t I? Get shanked in the Via Toledo tonight?

Towards the post office inside Galleria Umberto I

Naples - December 29, 2011 - Castello Nuovo



Castello Nuovo

We arrived in Naples much earlier than I expected so we left the hotel to see our first destination the Castello Nuovo.
The Castello Nuovo: A gigantic medieval castle of typically castle like features, parapets, towers, crenelated bits. Stone stuff. Begun in 1279 it was completed in just three years. During the reign of the Aragonese king Alphonso V (1470's) a triumphal arch in white marble was built over the main entrance. A strange and stunning contrast to the brutal stonework of the medieval castle.


Triumphal Arch


It is also interesting to note the early interpretation of the ancient roman triumphal arch before the renaissance really had taken hold. The interior contains yet another picture gallery. This one focuses on 19th Century Italian Artists. Meh.


Castello Nuovo with Construction to left



Mike didn't like this castle and said it was ugly. Meh (it's the word of the day), I thought it was very "castle like" big round towers a big fat moat and strangely not as built up around as I would have thought for being in the center of Naples. This could be because there was a massive amount of construction going on in front of the town hall (with a giant facebook "like" thumbs up sign on it).

They have been trying to build a subway here; however every time they dig down they find some sort of archaeological treasure that delays the building for years. This one happens to be some Roman ships that sank in the harbor 2000 years ago. Fairly awesome find really. Doubleplus, if you are actually in the square turn around…yes I mean you, smell that? That is a McDonald's, over there in the North West Corner of the square next to the town hall. For some reason the smell of McDonald's can overpower the smell of Naples and the sea combined, which is quite a feat let me tell you. I have been in some strongly scented places before (Agadir, Damascus, Amman, Venice, The East Village, Gresham, a sun baked port-a-john at a music festival, the great garlic soup disaster...) but those, horryfying as they might be, were mere olfactory sensations, this is more of an assault. A vicious assault. The kind that makes it onto the 10 o'clock news: the smell has walked in though your nose rounded everyone up, hog tied them, pistol whipped them, ransacked the house and kicked the cat. After a while the senses shut down, you learn to breathe through your mouth when stepping outside, but even then some of the chunky fugged smell gets lodged in your the back of your throat and travels up threatening to make your brain dribble out of your ears.

Cannonball damage

There is cannonball damage to the big bronze doors which is pretty fabulous. If you think about how cool it is to have cannonball damage still visable and not the fact that people were dying all over the place.

And I really do love the strange pre-renaissance triumphal arch...it's quirky.

The interior courtyard had a great looking rose window. Looked very much like the set of some BBC production of Shakespere.

Interior courtyard of Castello Nuovo