Vesuvius from the Castell dell’Ovo
We should have known better – nothing is obvious about Vesuvius.
The volcano has sat across the bay from us all summer – big, blue and balmy. It reclines like some artist’s prop, a balance to the curve of sea and islands, a backdrop for the scuttle of life on its slopes and down to the shore.
It looks benign, the perfect place for an afternoon stroll, perhaps even a villa or two.
Father and son – the third and fourth generations of the Squillace family of Omega srl (with the founders in the background)
Italy equals leather in the same way that England equals gardens. In Rome and Florence well-ordered workshops are easy to find on the main tourist streets – in Naples, amongst the best in business especially for gloves, there is no sign.
Naples never hands anything to you.
The maps app took us to the exact address and … nothing. No shop window, no big sign, no smell of leather, no sounds of tapping and stitching, no gloves. We were up in the top end of the city and Omega srl had vanished.
I love art – not in an expert way, just in a ‘this amazes me’ way. Two weeks ago we visited a statue that seemed to have barely stopped breathing – ‘The Veiled Christ’ in the Museo Cappella Sansevero in Naples, Italy.
It was a mini Indiana Jones of an event.
The Phraser 