Naples Pizza Party, January 2014

Day 1 - Thursday/Friday, January 16/17

I went to Naples, Italy for a pizza party - a bang-up celebration for Sharon’s 70th birthday. Four days of pizza and maybe a little of splendid Neapolitan seafood is my idea of heaven. No direct flight to Naples so I flew to Paris and then connected to a flight to Naples. On the overnight flight to Paris, my seat companion was a lovely young man - a jazz guitarist - on his to Lyon for a gig. We talked music and theater - I had just seen the Duke Ellington review, “After Midnight,” which I highly recommended: a fabulous jazz orchestra, great singing and splendid tap dancing. I mentioned I had been to Lyon and he asked if I could recommend any restaurants. I was in Lyon maybe 10 years ago but I said oysters at the oyster bar in the market and duck and quenelles pretty much anywhere. In Lyon, go for duck and quenelles.

I dozed a bit waiting for my connection at Charles De Gaulle Airport, and then dozed some more on the flight to Naples. I woke like a shot as we began our descent and there looming outside the window was Vesuvius. I love flying into Naples - there’s the beautiful bay and that majestic volcano - still active but thankfully, quiescent.

We landed, of course the taxi overcharged me and after a wild ride, I arrived at the very lovely Hotel Piazza Bellini, located in the historic center, across from Piazza Bellini. The hotel's décor is contemporary but filled with warm and whimsical artistic touches. I decided to take a little nap before the arrival of Sharon, the birthday girl. She woke me an hour and a half later and then we were off for pizza - I was truly starving - and then a walk through the historic center to see churches and the art therein.

The concierge told us we would find lots of pizza restaurants on Via Tribunali in the nearby historic centre, but she said the best is Gino Sobillo. Everyone has a favorite and we were more than willing to try hers. We ended up at Sobillo - a relative of Gino [kind of like all the Ray's Pizzas in New York.] Supposedly not as good as Gino's but I thought it was fine, although the crust could have had a bit more char. Very good cheese and sweet tomato flavor.

We had amazingly good coffee at the corner of Tribunali and S. Gregorio Armeno. I hadn't had any coffee that day - just won't drink airplane swill - so I really appreciated the great coffee at the corner cafe. Then we walked down via S. Gregorio Armeno - the street of crèche or in Italian, presepio (mangers) Terribly kitch but I love the stuff and Sharon generously tolerated my need to take it all in.

On Via San Biagio we encountered the baroque madness of the church of Gesu Nuevo.  Sharon’s comment: "If it ain't baroque, don't fix it." After getting through so much sensory overload with our sense of good taste still intact we entered the Capella Della Visitazione, which is totally devoted to ex voto. The mostly silver representations of body parts (arms, legs, torso, eyes, hearts, lungs, backs and heads covered the walls from floor to ceiling and the ceiling as we'll. Ex voto, a kind of Catholic voodoo, are left in chapels by supplicants who have had their prayers answered and received their cures.

Further down the street we stepped into Sant’ Angelo a Nilo, a church that promised a Donetello sculpture, It turned out to be second rate work by his students but directly opposite in the chapel of Statuaria Sacra was a spectacular sculpture - a tomb monument - of a skeleton climbing from a grave. Expressive and delicate, it was another example of Neapolitan fascination with death and mortality. Among all the kitchy mangers on the street of presepio, are statues of sports figures, politicians and other notables, all engulfed in flames. We saw lots of glass enclosed street shrines with flaming figurines and much of the iron work fences are decorated with brass skulls, worn away with constant rubbing. Maybe it's about living at the foot of a volcano.

We had dinner at Antica Trattoria on via Tribunali,near S. Gregorio Armeno. My husband Tony and I had a lovely dinner there eight years ago. Sharon, who is a perennial “weight-watcher” decided after a pizza lunch, she wanted a dinner of salad or vegetables. From the antipasto buffet: braised artichokes, spinach, and sautéed peppers - all perfectly cooked. I also had the artichokes and big fat grilled shrimps that were sweetly succulent.