View From a Naples Pizza Stand

DH and I rarely do speed tourism. We prefer to stay in one location for several days at least, preferably weeks or months, so we can soak in what the place is really like. Unfortunately, this is DH’s teaching term, so this trip to Italy had to be a quickie. He had an important role to play at a conference on the Amalfi Coast, so we squeezed in the few extra days we could justify in order for him to de-jetlag and be in peak form for his event.

That meant that we didn’t stay in Naples long enough to really have a fair view of what it is like as a city. (Sorry Teresa Spinelli!) I’d love to return and explore more of it. The coastal views are beautiful. There are many wonderful buildings, including the first opera theatre in Europe, according to our B&B host. 

​We spent one night in Naples at the start of our trip and another at the end. On our last night we returned to the same street stand pizzeria we’d gone to our first day. The pizza was tasty and inexpensive, and the street life was entertaining. 

Not entertaining in a street performer type of way. Rather, it was genuine, non-tourist street life. Nennella’s Pizza does a steady flow of business. They’ve been at it since 1930 and are still going strong. They work fast and hard, churning out chewy, cheesy, piping hot pizzas in minutes. Most people bring stacks of filled pizza boxes home, but we sat at one of the two outdoor tables to eat ours while watching the world go by.

The last night we were there was a Friday, in the early evening. The sun had set, so there was almost a theatrical feel to the lamp-lit street. 

The pizzeria is at the intersection of two single-lane, one-way, cobblestone streets. Motorcycles, pedestrians and cars do a daring dance, weaving in and out amongst each other at the highest speed that traffic makes physically possible. 

Street directions don’t seem to apply to the moto riders. Mind you, they don’t to cars either: we saw several cars, as well as motorcycles, going the wrong way down the streets. This caused some traffic consternation but not enough to justify honking. People shake their heads but accept that this is life. Ditto for when delivery vans stop and block the road, or when parents stop to discharge children coming home from soccer practice. Realistically, there is nowhere out of the way for them to stop.

Everybody rides motos: little old ladies, well-dressed businessmen, tattooed young bucks, couples of all ages (sometimes with an unhelmeted child squeezed in between them). I wish I had photos for you of some of these, but I wasn’t able to grab any subtly enough to feel comfortable taking them.

The pollution and noise levels are incredible. Poorly maintained cars and motos spew dark plumes. People smoking add to the fumes. The lack of soft surfaces means that sounds bounce; nothing is absorbed and softened. I guess you get used to it if you live there.

Life spills out onto the street in many ways. Knots of families, sturdy women, and macho young men chatting and smoking. Laundry hanging not just from windows, but even from drying racks put out on the grimy sidewalk, forcing pedestrians onto the road. Piles of garbage and parked cars also make pedestrians spill onto the road.

There is a hierarchy on the roads: cars rule, although they do battle each other for supremacy, creating lanes and squeezing by each other with millimeters to spare. (Or without millimeters to spare: pretty well all cars have scratches and dents in them). The motos come next, although perhaps they should be at the top of the hierarchy, since they can squeeze through spaces too small for cars to pass. Finally, the pedestrians. As we found in Rome, it is up to pedestrians to jump out of the way when cars or motos whizz by. The chaos reminded me of the frenetic roads in Lima, but without all the horn honking!

I’m afraid this sounds too negative. I actually enjoyed watching it all, although I don’t think I could live there. I have been too spoiled by our orderly Canadian roads and rules. I can imagine, though, that for someone moving from Naples to a city like Edmonton, the shock would be immense. Our mid-sized North American cities would seem sterile, and probably a little lonely.