Naples Pizza Party, Day 3

Metro mosaic featuring Vesuvius

Day 3 – January 19

Sylvie”s husband Erik arrived and the plan was for him to settle in and then we would all go to the Archeological Museum before lunch. I took the time to dash off to three nearby Metro Stations that I had read were decorated by various contemporary artists. I had done the same thing in Lisbon a few years ago. I started with the Dante station, near the hotel, then went to Universitá, then backtracked to Toledo and finally back to where I started – Dante.

Talk about sensory overload. So much art in so many colors and textures. So much beauty. At the first level down the escalator at Dante Station was a wall sculpture of lots of old shoes and clothing trapped behind sections of railroad tracks. I went down one more escalator of shiny stainless steel walls with glass panels overhead painted in bold swirls of red, black and white graphics. The walls of the station platform are decorated with tile mosaics of spacey shapes and forms in eye-popping colors: suns, moons, planets and stars in gold and lapis and silver.

On to “Toledo” station, where the floors on various levels are tiled in mind-bending Escher-like designs in customary, graphic black and white. The walls are covered in panels silk screened in hot pink and lime green squiggles and swirls. Color variations of the designs included Hot yellow, pink and blue or yellow and orange. The stairs at this station are graced with the portrait of a psychedelic, 70’s style woman. In contrast to the colorful wall graphics, a sinuous, rather sexy Carrara marble bench provides seating for passengers waiting for the trains. 

At “Universita” station I admired a photo montage covering the length of the walls on either side of a moving walkway down a long tunnel of faces staring back at you. Multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-age and compelling faces engaging you and sometimes seeming to stare you down.  Round the corner and you walk a corridor of photos of bigger than life people confronting you. Lastly a wall of pure whimsy and bits of poetry to remind you of the looming presence of Vesuvius. Wow.

 

















The Archeological Museum is famous for having all the good stuff from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The mosaic floors, statuary and richly painted wall panels – all looking as fresh as yesterday, were beautifully presented but as Vigdis pointed out, sadly out of their context. All of this would be research/preparation for our planned trip to Herculaneum the next day.

After looking at all that beauty, we were starved for lunch. We decided to try L’Ello, the restaurant next door to and owned by the hotel. It has the same “contempo/arty décor and design sensibility. It offered a buffet lunch ala NYC salad bar but the menu was fresher, home-cooked Italian specialties. Just like a salad bar it was priced by weight – 2.50 Euros per 100 grams  (about $3.00 per ounce) Lots of vegetable choices: spinach, grilled endive, braised radicchio, green beans, zucchini, sautéed eggplant cubes, roasted pepper, etc. For entrée: fish baked with potatoes, roast pork with rosemary, really tasty roast chicken, riso nero that was really superb, intensely flavored eggplant parmegiano (sliced very thin like a French Tian) veal meatballs, sausages, various pastas lots of cakes for desert. My bill was 12 euros or $16 – not bad for a pretty amazing lunch.

We all went back to our rooms for a little rest and then met for a long walk along the harbor to see the sunset. The weather was pretty raw – windy, cold and totally overcast – a real Turner sky with pounding surf at the embankment walls. The Mediterranean is usually so calm; this was unusual and quite gorgeous. After quite a long walk we all taxied back to the hotel to warm up, collect Aurel (Sharon’s dealer arriving from Berlin) and then re-emerge for Sharon’s big birthday dinner.



Erik,Sylvie,Sharon, Stephanie

  



Back to Ciro & Mergellina for Sharon’s Birthday party dinner. Seven of us: Sharon, Vigdis, Anna, Sylvie, Erik, Aurel and I. For starters we again ordered the octopus salad and Marguerita pizza (Sharon again whipped out ther package of fresh basil) and a platter of prosciutto and milky mozzarella. I had grilled gamberini ( even better than those from Antiche Ristorante) and a couple of grilled Branzino – soft’ sweet flesh with a terrific char on the bottom. We drank a couple of bottles of a very good 2009 Taurasi. Baba au Rhum for dessert. Of course, Sharon’s serving was graced with a birthday candle.