Photojourney

in #story7 years ago (edited)

It's a sunny day today and it would be a waste to stay indoors, so I'll have a walk into the city centre.
Would you like to come with me? Let's go, I'll show you some of the weirdness of my hometown.

I believe this is a contraddictory place: people here is in love with food, but there is no way you can have it the way you like it. You must eat it the proper way; they are bighearted and will try to help you in any possible way if something happens, but you need to beware them because they could cheat you. This city is a huge, modern metropolis stuck in the middle age, with plenty of ghosts, legends and funny habits.
It must be hard to understand if you're not from here, but I'll do my best to give you an insight.

We (not me, we as a population) have a solid catholic background, so it's pretty common to find small altars almost in every corner

altare.png

but you could as well bump into this

maratona.png

maradona2.png

Yes, it's exactly how it looks like: this guy actually belongs to our pantheon. Despite the catholic belief that idolatry is sin, he's regarded as a demigood from locals.
They even rewarded him with an italian citizenship ad honorem last summer and we had a big party.
My opinion about the whole situation is: he'g got pretty cool hair and I don't really care (I'm born and breed italian, after all :) ). But let's leave him alone and go back to our journey,
can you see this long, endless alley?

spaccanapoli.png

It's called Spaccanapoli. The name litterally means: "it cuts Naples" because, well, it crosses the city from one end to the other.
As I said, we are too lazy even to think sometimes. It's hard to get lost though.

spacc.jpg
(This picture is not mine, I downloaded it from the internet. Looking forward to have a drone)

Before Christmas it's supercrowded and it's very common to run into scared kids who lost their parents and sad petty thieves who cannot work as there is no room for them to comfortably lift your wallet. It can take you half an hour to walk a few metres and this happens because there are very good handcraft shops here. They mostly do presepi, do you know what a presepe is?

presepe1.png

Basically a dollhouse,but you can only play with sheeps and the baker.

And here we are! In the first square before a square, before a square, before a square, before a square, before a square...

And this guy

nilo.png

represents the god Nilus.
It's actually a fake, the original statue got lost long ago (maybe stolen, hidden somewhere closeby, someone says)
Are you wondering what the hell is doing an ancient egyptian god in the middle of the street? According to the most accredited theory egyptians put it here somewhere between the 2nd and the 3rd century in order to mark one of the angles of a triangle in which the spiritual power of the town reaches its maximum.
It's a fascinating story to me.

A bit further you can see Jesus' square with its two churches. In a lack of fantasy we named them "the new Jesus church" and "the old Jesus church" and now it's too late to put it right.

chiese.png

The old one looks like a regular church, while the other one hangs over us with its black, creepy, massive front.

gesùvecchio.png

Can you see the symbols carved in the stone?

simboli.png

Apparently nobody knows exactly what's their meaning. The main theory we came up with is: either it's an encrypted sheet music (they say if you manage to play all the notes in a raw the devil will come), or the signs were supposed to help the builders to assemble the bricks.
I like to believe that aliens landed here long ago and they left us a message.

Is that creepy enough?
If you turn left, 30 degrees, you will see Jesus' obelisk.

gesù.png

obelisco2.png

Of course we figured out something for that as well.
The statue on top represents Jesus, but if you look at it from a particular perspective, with the right light, you will see the Death.
I personally tried, looks like it works.

Well' it's getting late and I'm starving. I'll go for an ice-cream.
I know you all believe we can only feed with pizza, but I swear: it's just another urban myth.

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Woah, very well written article, looks like you had quite some fun walking around, thanks!

As a sidenote, regarding urban myths: as a proud nomad that is from time to time also proud of being from Naples, I tried to only eat pizza for a while, and even though after few days my belly were making weird, death-metal-like noises, it was all in all doable. And I know people who, while not completely pizzarian, eat pizza at least once a day. I'll leave any health consideration aside, but it's not a urban myth, it does indeed happen =D

Shhhh, don't tell them! They will think we are weird :D

culture, beliefs define the color of the streets, many are lost among the everyday and pass as invisible. Applause to the rcreació that transports us and recreates from a distance

Such a beautiful comment, trascendental, I wish I had great command of the language as you do

hello, I do not speak the language, I used a google translator, it's beautiful what you do

Thanks :)
I would like to read your posts as well, but I see it's spanish poetry mostly and I can't read it. I would like to, though

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Oh my, the footballer as demigod! I mean, I had some idea, but that really just puts it in perspective. I truly enjoyed this photojourney, you have turned your gaze on the funky elements of your city that give it character, the warts and oddities as well as the beauty. I am very happy to have found you today, I looked back through your prior posting and I am very impressed! Much love - Carl "Totally Not A Bot" Gnash / @carlgnash



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Did you carve the signs on the bricks?

Thank you for the badge anyway! The design is exactly the kind of thing I like and I feel very proud of it :)

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Thanks! I woke up very happy today :)

Thank you for the journey, I really liked it! It took me a few months back when I was in Napoli with my darling and friends. We had such nice time there, however I felt unsafe there. It is an interesting city with beautiful old buildings but as a tourist, you can't get the right feel of the place without local knowledge. If you are interested you can read my post about Napoli https://steemit.com/travel/@wnfdiary/naples-is-a-scary-place

Hi wnfdiary, I'm writing you from my parent's place, placed in a small town half an hour by walk from the top of the volcano :D
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience over here, and you're not the first person who ends up traumatised by this place. Many tourists find accomdation in the poorest neighborhood in town because it's cheap and then they regret because, of course, they have no idea of how it really looks like. It would probably been easier if you had known that. Anyways you have to fill your backpack with a good amount of sense of humor before coming here and if you look at the bright side (what else can you do except jumping on the first plane to go back home? :D) you can have a lot of fun just sitting somewhere and looking at people acting crazy

How beautiful. It must've been a spectacular day. Thank you for sharing.

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