Our travel company, JayWay, had helped us with the first 7 days of our trip. Now we are on our own until we connect up with our Tauck tour in Milan. A visit to the Archeological Museum is the main item on our agenda today.
We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel, and checked out of the Hotel Bellini. They were kind enough to let us store our luggage for the day. It was an easy walk to the museum. Once again we were confronted with a massive building filled to the brim with art and artifacts.
In addition, to the incredible mosaics that were part of the museum’s regular offering, we were treated to a special exhibit of additional mosaics. The majority had been removed from Pompeii and other Vesuvian cities. The workmanship was truly incredible. One of the most impressive was a battle scene where Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in 331 B.C. Interestingly enough it is a 2nd century copy of the original and had once decorated the floor in the House of the Faun located in Pompeii.
The museum also housed a “Secret Room” or “Baginetto Segreto. You must be of a certain age in order to enter, as it contains a collection of erotic statues, paintings, and frescos. They were found in the homes of wealthy Romans, along with brothels and shops. Considered to be entertaining by the Romans, they are quite risqué. There were plenty of phalli to be found, but a phallus wasn’t necessarily a sexual symbol during Roman times. It could also symbolize fertility, happiness, etc.
The museum had an amazing collection of daily life objects. Pieces of furniture, huge pieces of pottery, glassware, cookware and gorgeous jewelry all gave insights into the Roman household. One item stood out to us, the Blue Vase. It was made around mid-century 100 A.D using a cameo affect. Shaped like a wine amphora, it was most likely a cremation urn. In addition, some of the clay urns were extremely large.
Rooms were filled with frescoes, which are paintings done rapidly on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries. It was the same method used by Italian Renaissance painters such as Raphael and Michelangelo. Many of the paintings depicted scenes from mythology, but they also included everyday life or landscapes.
on Marble
As to be expected, the museum was full of statues, many of which were Roman copies of those originally made by the Greeks. The most famous was Doriforo. It’s a Roman copy of a 5th century B.C. Greek bronze by Polyclitus. He once stood in Pompeii’s gym, and helped inspire the Renaissance by inspiring people like Michelangelo and Donatello.
There is no question that the Archaeological Museum is worth coming to Naples to see, but it isn’t possible to see it all in one visit. After several hours it was time to change direction and find another pizza. We headed to what we were told was the first pizzeria in Naples, Antica Pizzeria Port’Alba. On our way we stopped at Naple’s Galleria to look at the shops. Sadly, it was almost totally empty and quite depressing to walk through. We also paid a little more attention to Piazza Bellini, which had its own Roman ruins.
Our Margarita pizza was delicious. We thought the pizza was a little bit better than the first pizza we had eaten, because the sauce was less watery. After lunch we picked up our luggage from our hotel, hopped into a taxi and headed to the train station for our 4:00 PM train. Our train ride to Florence was a pleasant experience. This time we traveled business class, which gave us a little more room and more snacks and drinks were served.
Upon arriving in Florence at 7:00 PM it was a bit of a challenge finding a taxi stand, and once we did, there was a long line. Luckily the line moved quickly and we arrived at The Hotel Silla where we were to meet our friends Eileen Strauss and Jim Murdoch, tomorrow.
We seem to go through cash so we inquired where we could find the nearest ATM. Our hotel is located in the Oltrarno neighborhood and in order to reach the ATM we had to cross the Arno River via the Ponte Vecchio bridge. How cool is that? Here we are on our first evening in Florence and we have already visited the oldest bridge in the city. The bridge is lined with high end stores, but it used to house blacksmiths, tanners and butchers. The Ponte Vecchio was rebuilt after a flood in 1345 by a student of Giotto, Taddeo Gaddi. During WWII it was the only bridge across the Arno River that the fleeing Germans did not destroy.
As soon as we replenished our funds we headed back to our hotel on the other side of the Arno River. Our tour of Florence begins at 10:00 AM.
BY THE WAY WITH WENDY & DAN 