Tag Archives: Vesuvius

Napoli wore pearls yesterday

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A look back (first published 7.1.16): Days without sunshine in Naples, Italy feel wrong … but when they pass the relief is like the burst of light at the end of an unexpected tunnel.

The Phraser

Vesuvius at the end of the Lungomare in Naples, Italy Vesuvius at the end of the Lungomare in Naples, Italy

When light bounces off the sea, then rises up through blue sky towards the sun it takes your heart with it … at least it does on the seafront in Naples, Italy.  It’s impossible to resist, like a balloon freed by the breeze, up and up it goes.

Yesterday was one of those days.

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I’ve just read the Napoli section of Goethe’s ‘Italian Journey’

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A look back (first published on 6 January 2016): Naples is not a ‘do-in-a-day-city’ – it’s a city with roots, a city that takes time, a city that feels like it might be time itself. Even Goethe lost his rhythm here.

The Phraser

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (portrait by Stieler 1828)

There are names I heard at school that are still buried beneath teacher dust. Names I’ve never looked at again – unreachable, academic names.  Goethe was one of them.

Then, a few weeks ago, I bumped into him on the internet and I read his notes on Naples.  They were a happy find.

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Ancient Stabiae and its villas, once so luxurious, and then ….

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A look back (first published 8 September 2015): there was a sense of being slightly apart from the ‘real world’ at these two villas, of being caught between the ‘was’ and the ‘is’. They felt tranquil., dormant.

The Phraser

Looking over the top of the Villa Arianna in Stabiae towards Vesuvius Looking over the top of the Villa Arianna in Stabiae towards Vesuvius

We stand in a mid-day drowse, like the citizens of ancient Rome must have stood – the sun is warm; the sea glistens; and there is the distant rise and fall of bells.  Behind us roll green hills and to our front, the double-backed outline of Vesuvius steals the horizon.

So peaceful … yet it never has been, and still is not.  There remains a threat below the surface.

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