Today I took one of Naples’ funicular tramcars up to the Piazza Fugo. There are several of them in the city. From there I walked to the Castello St Elmo, which was closed today. Still, nearby there was the small piazza St Martin, named after the church there. The piazza provided a beautiful panorama of the city, even though it was pretty cloudy. Vesuvius loomed. It looked so close. Millions live within range of that infamous volcano’s wrath.

One of the fresco cycles in the Cappella Palatina in the Castel Nuovo in Naples depicts scenes from the life of William of Gellone, by the painter Niccolo di Tommaso (1346-76). This detail is from a scene where William, a hero of the Carolingian period (he was a cousin of Charlemagne) defeats a giant Moorish soldier. I’m presuming, like Perseus and St George, he also frees a maiden; though in this case there appears to be three of them. Though the middle one doesn’t look that maiden-like. All three kidnapped, no doubt, by the marauding Moorish warrior.

I went back to the Castello Nuovo again this morning, but this time paid the entry fee to see the museum part on the inside. It was full of wonderful things, including the original bronze doors from the mid-fifteenth century (today replicas take their place in the front of the castle). The big surprises were the frescoes and sculptures in the Cappella Palatina, the Palace Chapel, which is as big as many churches. There were frescoes from the 14th and 15th centuries. Many were partial, but they’d been cleaned and conserved. I also took the wonderful funicular to the Piazza Fugo. Funiculars are not just a tourist thing in Naples, there are several of them and they play an important role in the city’s public transport system. It was fun and something I didn’t expect. Another great day in Naples.

Today I went to two ancient Roman villas that were destroyed by Vesuvius in the eruption of 79 CE, just like Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Villa Poppaea is in Oplontis (sometimes it’s just called the Villa Oplontis). Later in the day, I visited the Villa Arianna at Stabia, which even today has a million dollar view of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. It must have been stunning in antiquity. The Oplontis site was fantastic, with many frescoes still in situ. I took this detail, of a small bird flying in a garden. It struck me as marvelous that I was looking at it 2000 years after it was painted, and was able to take a picture of it and share it with the world on my blog. I think the painter would have liked that. He captured a beautiful animal flying through space, a brief instant in time, held for all time in mid-flight. Even the destruction of the volcano could not destroy it. These are treasures.

I can’t think of any city that offers so many surrealist images. Naples is special, that’s for sure. The oddest things, and the oddest juxtapositions of things are found in the streets of this wonderful city.

The arch of Alfonso of Aragon (previous post) has numerous incredible sculptures. My favorite ones are found on the inner parts of the arch as you enter the castle. They show scenes from Alfonso’s court, but with a decidedly martial slant to them, as befits sculptures on a triumphal arch. Alfonso is shown with his soldiers and generals, all in their armor and with guards in the background brandishing their spears.

Alfonso of Aragon conquered Naples in 1443. By 1470 he’d constructed a triumphal arch in the narrow space between two large medieval towers, demarking the entrance to the castle with myriad sculptures celebrating Alfonso’s triumph and his ideal courtly ideals. The Castello Nuovo, or ‘New Castle’ is one of Naples’ most impressive works of architecture. It sits by the seaside and once towered over a medieval port just to the north. The sea would have come right up to its walls and the moat may even have had water in it.

I took this detail of a saint from a mosaic of the Coronation of the Virgin in the Naples cathedral. I had seen it before, but liked this particular picture. Naples is filled with surprises in every church and alleyway.  Weather is holding… it was sunny today, but there’s rumors of storms on the way again.

In Naples everyone dries their clothes on clotheslines. The streets and alleyways are always draped with clothes. It’s hard to think of the city without thinking about the lines and the pins, so I took this picture of some clothespins outside a woman’s house. I thought it funny that she seemed to have ‘designer’ pins (‘IVANA’). They do look a bit more stylish than the conventional ones.

The last few days of heavy rains washed lots of garbage along the streets of Naples, much of it, alas, out to sea. Some of the little bits clogged the drainage grates, making a colourful–if unfortunate–mess of urban detritus.

The Commedia del Arte characters, including the pulcinella, are popular culture icons in Naples. I took this picture of some wooden souvenir marionettes along the Via Tribunali. The street is among the most vibrant I’ve ever walked along. Everyone was out. The past few days had seen torrential rains and the sun-loving Neopolitans were enjoying the clear skies after having been cooped up during the downpours.

Like most large Italian cities there are immigrant men selling knock-off purses, watches, and sunglasses on the streets. The ones I talked to today came from Senegal, India, and Nigeria. The fellow from India (Calcutta–he was surprised I knew about the Howrah Bridge) let me take this picture of his display.

One of the most interesting streets in Naples is the Via Tribunali. I walked along it today and found lots of wonderful things. It was Sunday and all the Neapolitani were out for the afternoon passegiata. The store fronts in Naples are decidedly photogenic. I liked the warm yellows of this shop surrounded by the grey and black basalt stone that characterizes so much of the city. That dark stone, produced eons ago by Vesuvius, is the main building material in Naples and most of the streets, especially in the old town, are paved with it.

I took this picture this morning of some great 19th century iron light posts in Naples (was thinking of my friend Chris Husted, who loves the style). As it turned out, the bus that I’d just taken an hour before drove through the frame. I’m looking forward to ten days in Naples, a city I don’t know very well. It’s a photographer’s dream. I’ll be posting lots of images in the days to come as I stay at the ‘Hostel of the Sun’. My luxurious hotels are no longer (at least until the 23rd of October), with 8 beds to a room here. Still, these hostels have character and I always meet many nice young travelers in them.

I took this picture yesterday at Herculaneum: a detail of a mosaic in one of the town’s villas, the Villa of Neptune and Venus, which was named after a mosaic in the same room as this one. Great though a visit to Pompeii is, I prefer Herculaneum. It’s a much smaller but also a less crowded and more manageable site. Plus, things are generally better preserved there. Spent an hour and a half exploring . The most amazing things were charred beams of wood still surviving.