As the radio account of our Easter holidays will be coming down off iPlayer soon, I thought I had better write up our experiences for posterity.
'See Naples and Die', said Goethe (allegedly) and our arrival in the area was overshadowed by death. The morning we set off, the earthquake struck the Abruzzo area, killing hundreds and causing a massive delay to our flight. Alitalia told us that over-flying the region was suspended as there are missiles housed deep in the mountains there that could have gone off. Was this just the latest in outrageous excuses by one of the world's worst airlines or was Italy really stupid enough to site deadly weapons in the most earthquake prone region of Europe?
That proximity to life and death haunts Rossellini's Voyage to Italy in whose footsteps we followed faithfully throughout the week. I did my Ingrid Bergman bit at the National Archeological Museum and gazed at the life-like Roman statues though I missed out the marital confrontation she and George Sanders had at Pompeii. We intend to re-create the scenes at Pozzuoli and Capri next time round.
The other work that criss crossed the week was Norman Lewis's remarkable Naples 44, an account of a British Intelligence officer's year from the allied landings in 1943. Three quarters of the family finished it in the week, literally gazing at the current day landscapes as they read. We were staying in the hills above the bay of Salerno and we could look down from our balcony at where he landed and lived through the battle that raged for 20 days against the Germans. He also lived through the last major eruption of Vesuvius in 1944 that lent the mountain its current shape. There is a great passage describing the lava flow taking off half of the village of San Sebastiano at the glacial rate of a metre an hour. As the church trundles down the hill, the remains of San Gennaro are fetched from Naples to halt the flow; they are hidden down a back street though as it is not his turf and followers of the local saint could get shirty. Luckily it stops and San Gennaro stays on the bench.
The book also captures the chaos and humanity of the starving inhabitants of Naples who retain their dignity even when reduced to prostitution. We tackled the city on two occasions and I have to say, you need to be up for it, as they say. I asked my mother if she had been to the city when she had taken a Saga holiday to the area and she said the tour guides forbade it. It could be a new form of assisted suicide - what's it to be, a clinic in Switzerland or a spin in a Cinquecento round the sink estates of Naples? It really is full-on, the kind of city I wished I had visited in my youth for an adventure or two. After drilling us thoroughly to take our jewelry off, stow our money in our pockets, not to take any bags, our host took us round the centre of town with throw away remarks like "that street on the right has the highest TB rate in Europe" and "yes we can go that way if you are happy to become a heroin addict". It is the most densely populated city in Europe with noise and crowds everywhere and mopeds whizzing past, two up and potential 'scippatori' ready to snatch your bag. The authorities are trying to reduce petty crime in the centre but I imagine they won't want to eliminate it altogether. Brave northern Europeans will want a hint of danger to hang over the city in their relentless quest for 'authenticity'. Otherwise it'll just become another Barcelona and the next thing you know Woody Allen will be setting sanitised romcoms there.
So we'll be back. A few days in Naples itself this time, an overnight in Capri (and a glimpse at Villa Malaparte) and then Ravello on the Amalfi coast clutching a DH Lawrence novel. Perfect.
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