After our visits to Pompeii and Herculaneum we wanted to see some of the actual art treasures from those cities, all of which were taken away in the 18th and 19th centuries as the sites were excavated. Most of the good stuff is nearby, at the National Museum of Archaeology in Naples.
Accordingly, we got pastries for breakfast from the shop downstairs from our flat in Sorrento, then set out by train for Naples. The main train station is a vast labyrinth, not very clearly marked. Finding our way to the subway and getting a ticket required a stop at the tourist information office. Apparently in Naples you get your subway tickets at the tobacco stand. Even in the train station.
We rode across town from the Piazza Garibaldi to the Piazza Cavour. Nice metaphor for Italian reunification there, or something. Given the time we decided on having lunch before tackling the Museum, so we found a trattoria a couple of blocks away. I had pasta strips with clams and zucchini puree, which was quite good. Robert had a Sicilian pizza. I forget what the ladies got. To drink, both kids got the beverage which gradually became an addiction during our visit: Lemonsoda. It's kind of a carbonated lemonade, far less sugary than Sprite or 7-Up. Sadly it appears to be unavailable outside Italy.
Suitably fed and lemon-flavored, we went back to the Museum and plunged in. Thanks to Culture Week it was free.
The Museum occupies a huge old palace, and is simply stuffed with classical art. The core of the collection was assembled by Alessandro Farnese, who had the significant advantage of being Pope at the time of some major discoveries in Rome. He snagged all the good stuff and passed it along to his family. The Farnese collection passed through various intermarryings and inheritances to the Bourbon dynasty of Naples, who augmented it with all the loot from Herculaneum and Pompeii in the 18th and 19th centuries. With the unification of Italy it became national property.
We saw pretty much the whole thing. I'm not going to list all the artworks; you can go to the Museum (or its Web site) and see for yourself. My personal favorites:
• The giant head of Vespasian. He looks like a real hard-nosed guy, but with a sense of humor. Almost certainly a big softy with his grandchildren, but don't get on his bad side.
• The satyr with the infant Dionysus. Absolutely charming.
• The gnomon on the floor in the great hall upstairs, with a tiny hole in the wall to admit a ray of sun at noon. The markings on the floor show what sign of the Zodiac it is.
• The absolute best-of-the-best is the collection of art and scrolls from the "Villa of the Papyri" at Herculaneum. Amazingly, some Enlightenment-era scholars were able to unroll and translate scrolls which had been buried in superheated mud over a thousand years before.
• The "Secret Collection" of naughty Roman art was actually rather unimpressive: some stone phalli, some rather tame wall paintings, and only one work which could genuinely be called obscene (the statue of Pan with a goat). The room was plagued with visitors posing for comic photos with the artworks.
Having "done" the Museum we walked down the Via Toledo to get ice cream at a place called Il Scimme (the Monkey). From there, more or less on a whim, we decided to head down to the harbor and go home by boat instead of train. (The reasoning was that by the time we got on the train it would be rush hour and therefore packed. Plus I think we were all getting tired of trains.)
We got the hydrofoil to Sorrento, and headed out of the harbor . . . just as the nice sunny afternoon turned gray and squally. None of us actually got seasick on the voyage, but there was definitely some "stomach awareness" going on. I'd like to report that the view of the Bay of Naples was spectacular, but in point of fact it wasn't.
Dinner was simple: we finished up all our lunch supplies of bread and cheese in the refrigerator. Then we packed up to relocate to Naples the next day. Everyone was tired and a bit cranky, so we all went to bed early.
Tomorrow: the city!
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