Work/play

What should be my focus on this island?

Befores and afters

When the grated chocolate from Gay Odin in Naples was magically removed from our fruit sallad of last night - oh just a simple thing made from one peach, one banana, one plum and a handful of grapes - I had the same feeling American artist Charles Caryl Coleman must have had when his favourite motif was, literally, blown away.

Coleman built the Villa Narcissus and was one of many eccentrics on this island at the beginning of last century. (Apparently the eccentrics have been replaced by people rich with money, not talent, nor folly.)

On his 81st birthday he was dancing the tarantella in a ”blue velvet dinner jacket with his snowy curls and beard shining in the candle-light ... his long thin legs flying.” That must have been 1921. I'll try to do the same thing 2046.

Now almost completely forgotten in the US and Europe, Coleman's work was once sought after. His paintings appealed to various tastes: classical, romantic, commercial, and popular. He seems to have done it all.

When his classical work fell out of popular demand he discovered his grand motif, looking out on the Bay of Naples from his narcissistic villa. There it was: Vesuvius.

Coleman was again prosperous and sold paintings of the furious volcano en masse.

Until April 7, 1906.

That day Vesuvius erupted, and, apart from destroying substantial parts of Naples, ruined Coleman's motif.

The volcano had lost its famous cap, and the attration of the image was gone for Charles Caryl and most of his costumers. Coleman stopped painting.

So now you know how I feel about chocolate being removed from my fruit sallad.

The Villa San Michele is on top of the island of Capri, just outside Anacapri, at the end of the impossibly vertiginous 777-step Phoenician stairs, the ancient walk from the Marina grande.

We are here now, enjoying the views and the hospitality of the San Michele Foundation.

One of us suffers from vertigo.

La messa è finita, andate in pace.

Spending ”a few hours” in a city can present the most cherished moments. Walking on Spaccanapoli, one of the oldest streets in Naples, on a sunny Sunday morning I would suppose is lovely during any season.

The masses were being finished when we entered Santa Chiara and Il Gesù Nuovo after climbing narrow alleys from around Corso Umberto. A group of priests hurried by in the New Jesus, one of them, the youngest, wearing jeans and sneakers under his robe.

Confessions were taking place left and right, the sinners sitting outside the booths, priest inside.

We bought wild strawberry eclairs at Scaturchio on Piazza San Domenico Maggiore before checking out from the hotel to finally take the boat to Capri.

Just reading those words makes my day: Piazza San Domenico Maggiore.

Hotel Nobody

Naples train station and the Piazza Garibaldi have bad reputations for ripping off and mugging tourists. I wouldn't recommend anyone inclined to listen to warnings about the dangers of this city to arrive by train on a Saturday night. It is a l i t t l e bit scary (I could hardly breathe), but we made it safely to the dark alley of Hotel Nessuno, sorry Nettuno.

Yes, we even tipped the cab driver in spite of his overcharging. ”Thank you so much for not stabbing us” I wanted so say in Italian, but I need to brush up the language better first.

Saturday October 10. Bologna - Naples: 4.25 pm – 8.46 pm

The track hosts, or should I say the train stewards, of the Eurostar Italia, were ridculously arrogant on our route, half sleepingly handing out half empty glasses of water.

Everything about this modern train, at first sight similar to the Shinkansen trains in Japan, is annoying, except maybe for the Space: 1999 inspired sliding doors. (The series was called Månbas Alpha in Swedish).

Holding your hands under the super modern faucets in the pee and poo area (that's bathroom for Americans) was a joke. When hands were put in place to get the water running, the water stopped; hands removed, the water began pouring again, ever so irritatingly.

Try that exercise ten times and you are about to use extra foul Italian language.

No paper towels, no hand dryer working. Toiletpaper (would that be bathroom paper in American English?) the impossibly thin kind (favoured by Americans and, I'm sure, many other nationalities) that tears to pieces of moist dust as soon as you touch them with wet hands.

More inspiring was looking out the window, spotting Guiseppe Tornatore children playing soccer in the continous flow of cities and towns so unlike the Swedish countryside.

Next to us a tourist family with the Top 10 Florence & Tuscany guide book. I have nothing against handy tourist guides per se, but the woman looks so miserable I fear that she is suffering from a facial paralysis if not a very severe case of cultural shock.

This train is frequented by heaps of tourists, primarily Western nationalitites. The restaurant has a full menu and we went for primi piatti (pasta etc), secondi piatti (vitello tonato), contorni (the tomatoes!) and dolci (torta di albicocca; apricots are in season). Too bad the Swedish krona is so weak: almost 11 to the Euro.

Saturday October 10. Munich - Bologna: 9.31 am – 4.11 pm

But then who needs fancy?

The six seat compartment taking us from Munich to Bologna brings back memories of the beauty of temporary and casual train acquaintances. How often do you lean over and strike up a conversation with your next seat passenger in a modern train?

We are instantly thrown into a six hour chat with a lovely and handsome couple: Frank and Marion Abbott from Cambridge in England, on their way to Bologna for a four day vacation.

We all appreciate the walls of mountains, the Alps on display through the train windows.

As always when I talk to British people I am self conscious because of my American accent which sometimes sounds banal and sloppy.

I mean, I love American English, I also love quite a few Americans!, it's just that the accent can be too much of everything every now and then, as I will show in a fresh exampel here soon.