Category Archives: Naples

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The best drivers in the world?

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A look back (first published 12 February 2015): this was an evening that confirmed what I had begun to realise about driving in Naples … that rules and road rage are for wimps, and that care and courage are what’s needed. As well-trained wimps we had a lot to learn.

thephraser's avatarThe Phraser

The roads into Naples The roads that dive off the tangenziale into Naples

“Are you sure you know the way?”

“Yes.”

“Is it really better than my way?”

“Yes.”   Louder, wounded, exasperated, emphatic.

“Okay – your directions have got to be clear.”  Ominous …

The tyres rattle and echo off the tunnel walls.  It’s six o’clock in the evening, a bright, dark night and all of Naples seems in a rush to get somewhere.

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Naples loves music

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A look back (first published 10 February 2015)

thephraser's avatarThe Phraser

Buskers in Naples Buskers in Naples

Naples loves to have music – classical music, world music, new music, Neapolitan songs – music from palazzo to piazza, music that breaks your heart and throws you up to the sky all at once.

Take a stroll down Via Toledo any day of the week and the chances are that somebody somewhere will play you a tune and they’ll play it well.

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Fireworks boom around the Bay of Naples

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A look back (first published on 6 January 2015)

thephraser's avatarThe Phraser

The lone bright light in the left third of the picture is the Mt Vesuvius Observatory. It is minutes before the end of 2014. The lone bright light in the left third of the picture is the Mt Vesuvius Observatory. It is minutes before the end of 2014.

It was cold and seconds off midnight.  A sub-zero wind fleeced coats, squeezed eyeballs and jumped camera shots into shaky blurs.  Plenty of reason to go indoors but none of us did.

The view from our hill of steeply barked pines was incredible.  We could see right across the night to the lights on the opposite shore of this mythical bay.

We stamped frozen feet as we stood suspended between geography, history, and two calendar years – Vesuvius to our front, Roman remains beneath and behind us, and Naples about to mark the annual switch.

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