one more round Vesuvius

You squeeze into Napoli more than anything else, between the looming volcanic Mount Vesuvius on one side and the '80s glass cyber-punk towers of Centro Direzionale on the other. You cannot see the bay from here, and therefore are deprived of breath, rumbling past construction sights and urban decay, or 'urban archeology' as Neapolitans like to call it, with a profound sense of history. Stazione Napoli Centrale. Brace yourself.

Sitting over sublime puffy-crust Neapolitan pizza at Trianon in the quartiere Forcella with a plastic cup of Nastro Azzuro beer to wash down those filetti di pomodoro strait from the slopes of Vesuvius. I now understood the longing I felt before, felt all along. Just wanting to abandon it all, reason and rationality, to climb inside the perfect style that makes you stare and enter the eyes that grab you, to the vacuous void that lies within.

Standing outside Porta Nolana a short while later, in broad daylight as the market moved around us spewing squid guts into the stolen handbags and street-kid cigarettes, we saw some young men smashing bottles of champagne against a dirty wall -- must be a sacred spot. Then, a few steps down in front of a stall with DVDs of old Sherlock Holmes stories and horror flicks -- wooooshh!!! Fuochi! Multi-colored tongues of fire shooting strait up in the middle of the market. Right on the battlefront of the Camorra war -- Happy New Year! At the moment, we never wanted to leave...

But it was not meant to be -- no rooms. Unless we wanted to sleep on the streets, which is is really bad idea on New Years eve in Naples since the custom is for everyone to throw everything old out their apartment windows into the street -- sinks, TVs, bathtubs, you name it. One hour later we were on a train back to pretty-boy Rome, like an uptight whore with its vacant soul behind a cheesily suggestive pair of eyes. It is in Napoli, actually, that you are safe.