Naples doesn’t give a shit. Not about your schedule, your expectations, your aesthetics. Where you’ve come from or where you’re going. Naples has seen your type before, and every other – the visiting artist, the conqueror, the pilgrim, the cultural elite.
First came the Greeks, then the Romans, followed by the Ostrogoths, the byzantines. The Germans, the Hungarians, the Spanish and the French have all claimed the city at one time or another. The city has been home to pagans, Muslims, Catholics, revolutionary Republicans, and fascists. The elite on the grand tours of the 1800s. And now the cruise ships, unleashing swells of people on their way to Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast.
It’s enough to give a city an identity crisis – or an unshakable sense of self.
To be sure, there is a tourist serving surface complete with bus tours and souvenir shops. But beneath this, the city of Naples is very clear about who and what it is. Traffic rules are a suggestion. The metro will run when it runs. Business will cease from 12-4 so Napoli families can go home for lunch. Dinner is pizza or pasta, take your pick. Migrants from around the world are taken into the fold and standard issued a moped, the city’s unofficial symbol, bird and wildflower all in one.
Keep up with the flow of traffic, it will not stop. We will keep the graffiti and the trash piles, thank you very much. We will not put on a show or a false face for tourists. We are going on about our business with or without you.