(July 2, 2014) The Green Schooner is
back! (photo, right) Besides concern
for air quality, industrial and domestic waste, the
Ecomafia, overbuilding (the infamous "ecomonster"
hotels), etc. the Italian Legambiente
(Environmental League) has conducted Green
Schooner voyages for 29 consecutive summers. They
are now in the midst of the Campania leg of their
2014 edition and moored at Castellammare.
Along the way (the entire Italian coast!) they make
32 stops, take hundreds of water samples and hold
press conferences where they report on the general
quality of the waters at beaches, at densely
populated areas such as Naples, at the waste
effluents and mouths of rivers, etc.—a
national report card, as it were. At Castellammare
they will give their findings on the state of the Sarno river, just a few miles
from Castellammare and right next to the new Marina of Stabia, the
future of which may very well depend on the general
water quality in the area. The Green Schooner (goletta
verde) will make two more stops in the
Campania region before continuing south. Besides the
science of water quality control, the Green Schooner
holds educational voyages for the general public,
where you are informed of problems and invited to
inform on problems you know about. The Legambiente
is a welcome thorn in the side of those who don't
care about the environment. The league has been
responsible for getting at least some of the
overbuilt eye-sores on the Italian coasts
removed. (Scroll down to item for July 15 on
this page for an update.) (photo: Legambiente)

-
(July 2)The Environmental
League is, indeed, a very busy bunch of good
people. Their website reports at least two other
items of interest to the area around Naples. One is
an appeal to save the hard-pressed Trianon Theater, opened in
2003, attached by creditors in 2010, and constantly
struggling not to be sold at auction, becoming, in
the words of the Legambiente “Another
defeat! ...a traditional Neapolitan theater turned
into a megastore, a bank or a fast-food place.” Item
two is another edition of a festival at Paestum (photo, right)
sponsored by the Legambiente with the clever name of
Paestumanità. There will be bike rides,
discussion groups, archaeology (of course!), art
shows and a fascinating thing called a “silent
disco” on the beach. I have no idea what that is,
but I like it. The goal of all this is to propel a
movement to acquire the private properties that are
within the boundaries of the archaeological areas
and integrate them into the whole site.
-
(July 5) Napoli Underground
(NUg), an organization of urban spelunkers and
would-be troglodytes is responsible for much of the
extensive and fine work done in exploring the nature
and long history of the caves, tunnels and holes in
the ground beneath Naples. Their website covers much
more than that and has a worldwide audience. The
site maintains a large collection of on-line
photography. NUg has now started a photo page
devoted to the bunkers and similar
defensive military structures such as blockhouses
and pillboxes that dot the local landscape. The
start-up statement (in English) on their web site is
here. There is also a link to the initial
photography (including the photo on the right,
identified as "via Veneto, Marano di Napoli",
a town a few miles to the NW of the downtown area).
The photo collection is small but will get a lot
bigger in a short time. There are many hundreds of
these things in the area of Naples. Most of them
were built by the Germans in WWII to defend the
invasion route used by the Allies, a route that
stretched from the Salerno beachhead (Sept. 1943),
up through Naples and then on to Mt. Cassino. Some
of them are of the small "pill box" variety, such as
the one in this photo; others can be quite
large--artificial caves, as NUg calls them. I have
seen at least a few dozen of them in random driving
between Naples and Salerno. The NUg statement
remarks that they are decaying; "In a few years, no
one will remember that they ever existed." Well,
they are eye sores and I am not totally unhappy that
they are doomed to disappear. On the other hand,
maybe it's not such a bad idea to remember that they
existed. (If you are interested in caves, caverns
and tunnels, see our portal
for Underground Naples.)
[update from
Sept. 2019: the Website for Napoli Underground (NUg)
is suspended. (Further information when available.)
-
(July 6) Yacht Watch Redux.
I don't know how we wound up with two of the world's
most beautiful sailing vessels here at the same
time, but we did. The other day it was the Eos (previous
Miscellany page, here)
She is still docked at Mergellina this morning (on
the right in the top panorama photo). Last night,
however, the Athena moored in the bay off of
via Caracciolo about 500 meters to the east of
Mergellina harbor (pan shot, on left). The Athena
(photo, right) is a clipper-bowed three-masted
gaff-rigged schooner built in 2004 by Royal Huisman
(The Netherlands). (I don't know what that means,
but I cannot imagine that having one's rig gaffed is
a pleasant experience.) The last time we had a yacht
dynamic duo out in front was in August 2011 when The
Maltese Falcon and the A (sic, that's
the whole name!) squared off and hurled witty barbs
and epithets at one another. (Details here. Also,
details on another large sailing vessel, Phocea, here.) The Athena
was built to order by the current owner, James H.
Clark, American Internet entrepreneur (remember
Netscape?). In July 2012 the Athena was
listed for sale with an asking price of $95 million
USD, but there is a much cheaper 204-page coffee
table book called Athena – A Classic Schooner
For Modern Times. Other stats: launched in
2004; Overall length, 90 meters (295+ feet); Beam:
12.20 m. (40+feet); Gross Tonnage, 1103; IMO:
1007237; MMSI: 319012000; Call Sign: ZCNP; Flag:
Cayman Is (KY). Oops, now there are three
beautiful sailing vessels here at the same time! The
Palinuro just drove up (as real sailors
say). She is on the left (below) (also seen here in this
large photo); launched in 1934, an iron-hulled
barquentine, three masts, 15 sails, 69 meters
overall length. She is one of the two square-rigged
"tall ship" training vessels in the Italian Navy.
(Also see this
photo & information).


(July 7) Morning photos at
Mergellina. (Last ones. Promise. Maybe.) Took
a walk down to the Mergellina harbor this morning at
6 a.m. while it was still cool. I actually went to
check on the situation at the now lowly vaunted boat
service between that harbor and anywhere. (More on
that in the entry below this one.) These two photos
presented themselves, so it was worth the effort.
First
we have the two yachts mentioned above; the Athena
(on the left) (described in the entry immediately
above) and the Eos (described at previous
Miscellany page here).
Instead, however, of being some distance apart,
petulantly pouting, as it were, they are now
berthed, cuddled next to each other at the luxury
breakwater in a display of restored harmony between
the very wealthy and the very wealthy, something,
alas, we see all too little of these days. On the
other hand, I wonder if the owners really like each
other, or do they lay awake trying to figure out how
to scratch the other guy's hull? (Hard to do since
these yachts have balloon fenders the size of the Hindenburg.)
And look at the way they are docked—cheek by
jowl or, in less metaphorical terms, bowsprit by
bowsprit. Both these ships claim to be the longest
private sailing yacht in the world (depending on
what you count). This seems to me to be a clearly
pubescent acting out of what the editors of Marine
Psychology and Psycholinguistics (my Bible!)
call "Bowsprit envy." But judge not that ye be not
keelhauled. I merely note the presence of my own
modest vessel off to the left in the foreground. We
don't need no freakin' bowsprits, man!
Second,
speaking of metaphors, I wasn't sure exactly what to
call this photo. I was toying with Light &
Dark, Good & Evil, or even The
Manichean Dichotomy, but it occurred to me
that I don't know much about Mani and, besides, I
borrowed that phrase from my fruit vendor (which
might explain why his nectarines have gone so
tragically wrong recently). The good guy in this
photo is the Italian naval sails training vessel,
the Palinuro (details on the ship plus
another photo may be viewed here.) That
really is the good and rising sun reflecting off the
vessel, bestowing strength on her as she girds sails
and guns for the struggle with evil, in the far
corner, born in 2004, 294 meters long and weighing
in at 54,214 very gross tonnes, the Behemoth of Bad,
the Liberia-flagged container ship, the Jennifer
Rickmers. Boo-hiss!
(Also see Boats of the Bay)

Demonstrators protesting with
mock funeral posters the
demise, or at least sorry condition, of the
200-year-old
Sannazzaro pier at Mergellina. photo: il Mattino

(July 8) I mentioned (above) the Mergellina harbor (photo,
left), the facility used in the past for tourist and
even commuter traffic with the islands. It used to be
possible to catch hourly hydrofoils from Mergellina to
Capri, for example. That ceased a number of years ago
as the main port of Naples gradually took over most of
the maritime traffic. The city hall's point of view is
that since the downtown area is where most tourists
come in, it is easier for them just to walk over and
catch a boat to anywhere. Fair point, but it ignores
the fact that the port is already chaotic and
overburdened.
There
are three company names familiar to those who have
occasion to use the Naples port facilities. Snav,
Alilauro, and Caremar. (I am excluding the superjumbo cruisers, which
all use the main port of Naples.)
-(1) Snav.
It stands for Società Navigazione Alta Velocità—High
Speed Navigation Company. It's a subsidiary of MSC
(Mediterranean Shipping Company). They run large
ferries and hydrofoils to the islands in the bay of
Naples, to the Aeolian islands (north of Sicily),
and to Sardinia and Sicily, all from the downtown
port, but, as far as I can tell, from Mergellina
they run only limited hydrofoil service to Ventotene and Ponza, the two inhabited
islands in the Pontine archipelago out past Ischia. For those, the
boats use the Sannazzaro pier.
-(2) Alilauro.
They run ferry, hydrofoil and catamaran service to
Ischia, the Sorrentine peninsula and Amalfi coast,
and the Aeolian islands. At Mergellina they have
their own pier next to the original Sannazzaro pier.
-(3) Caremar.
(Campania regionale marittima). This is
the local company that used to have hourly runs from
the Sannazzaro pier at Mergellina to Capri.
According to very recent reports, the company is on
the verge of bankruptcy; they have no service at all
from Mergellina any more, although they still
operate from the main port.
The fishermen's
point of view. They work here
just like in the good old days (photo, right).

In
any event, the papers have carried reports of
Mergellina locals bemoaning the decay of the old Snav
pier, (called by locals the Sannazzaro Pier of
Mergellina, named for the area's favorite son). There is
a lot of tourism on the west side of Naples, running
along the seaside through the Chiaia section of town
all the way to Mergellina and up the coast. There are
many major and minor hotels that cater to tourists,
many of whom would like to take a leisurely trip on
the bay from a nearby harbor and not have to fight to
get to the main port. I'm trying to find a
reason why they should not be able to do that, and I
can't. It might have to do with fact the both piers at
Mergellina share the same narrow access to the harbor
with large yachts docked behind yet a third facility
that can only be described as a luxury breakwater.
(See the large photo with the super-yachts in the
entry above this one. They are docked at the entrance
to the harbor.) That has changed the economics of the
harbor.) Beyond that I do not know.
From December 2009. Scaffolding
taken down
after a one-year restoration of the Gallery. It
may be time for another one.
-
(July 9) Speaking of decay
and rot, I mention in the main
entry on the Galleria Umberto that the
structure is on a perpetual roller-coaster ride. It
goes from splendor to decay, from the glories of Art
Nouveau architecture to being what one local
journalist has just called "a casbah of shame,"
where one is required to navigate the place by
stepping over bits and pieces of the crumbling
building (here the writer threw in a reference to
Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher) and
homeless bums. Desperate words, to be sure, but
understandable given the circumstances. They are
brief and unhappy: last Saturday afternoon,
14-year-old Salvatore Giordano from nearby Marano
was in the city with some friends for a leisurely
good time, wandering around and doing nothing, which
is what 14-year-olds should be doing. They passed by
the via Toledo entrance to the Gallery when a part
of the facade crumbled off from the top stories.
Salvatore saw what was happening, yelled at his
friends, shoved them out of the way and, in doing
so, took a piece of rock to the head. As of this
writing, he is in critical condition in the hospital
and at least one late report says that he shows no
brain activity. These things can change, so the city
just waits and hopes for the best. The rest of the
article is a rant against the "cheap and inglorious
daily death of a thousand cuts" as the building and
city fall apart. Hard to disagree with sometimes.
(update from July 10) The morning papers
carry the sad news that young Salvatore has died.
(July 10) After the 7-1 shellacking
that Brazil took from Germany at the World Cup
yesterday the other, a very wise Brazilian woman
said, "The time for bread and circuses is
past... We don't need new stadiums; we need
schools and hospitals." I am always taken with
the phrase "bread and circuses" and, indeed, I have
used it once in these pages, at this link, about a book.
To wit: Feste, Farina e Forca
by Vittorio
Gleijeses (1919-2009) a Neapolitan
scholar and historian... Even the title is a
treasure: feste=celebrations;
farina=flour;
forca=gallows.
Those were the proverbial "Three F's," said to be
the keys to keeping the masses in line under the
autocratic rule of the Bourbon dynasty. It's a
variation of the Latin of Juvenal, who complained
that the once proud Romans, who “sold our vote to no
man” now seemed to be interested in only two things:
panem et circenses,
that is, bread and games. (He might have added TuTubum, if he
were alive today). After the real
tragedy of the Gallery (item above this one),
I am once again reminded of panem et circenses when
I read today that "Napoli have received the
all-clear to play their Champions League preliminary
round at the San Paolo
[stadium in Naples]. There were real fears the team
would have to relocate to the Stadio Barbera in
Palermo for the August match, as the Stadio San
Paolo is undergoing restructuring work." Real
fears? Juvenal, thou shouldst be living at
this hour.
(July 15) Repubblica Napoli
of 14 July says in an article signed by Antonio
Ferrara that the Sarno river,
just given another failing grade in the recent
“clean water report card” by the Green Schooner (see
item at the top of this page), could do a lot better
than it does. After all, the new water treatment
facility (photo, right) really does work. It takes
the water fouled by 200,000 inhabitants along the
Sarno basin and really does clean it and dump it all
as clean water into the sea. BUT, it was designed to
process twice that amount. The reason it does not do
so is that the network of sewers and drains that
should get the waste water to the treatment facility
are inadequate. That story is repeated “upstream”
elsewhere in that section of the Campania region, as
waste water from other communities wends its way
sooner or later directly into the sea, having
bypassed water treatment. It will be some years
before the situation is corrected. Indeed, it is
hard to envision a new
marina and an adjacent resurrected urban beach
front running over to the town of Castellamare ever
really thriving next to a river that is still a
sewer. (photo: Repubblica Napoli)
-
(July 16) The French word
clochard means a vagrant, a beggar, etc.,
stemming from Old French and then Latin meaning to
limp or be lame. I have seldom heard it used in
English, but in Italian it is common. The Italian
equivalents are senzatetto ("without a
roof") and barbone ("big beard") —in other words, "homeless." I have a
feeling that the French word works somewhat as a
euphemism in Italian, meaning that maybe it
doesn't sound so harsh to refer to a clochard;
maybe it's "better" than senzatetto or barbone
in the way that "vagrant" sounds better than
"bum." In any event, the papers report the
appearance of "anti-clochard benches" (of the kind
seen in this photo) in some quarters of the city;
that is, benches that have been altered by the
insertion of an armrest halfway along the length,
thus making it impossible for someone to stretch
out and sleep. The benches are quite commonly
occupied at night by people who have nothing and
nowhere else. Citizens of the areas where the
benches have appeared are upset at the callous and
anti-social nature of the move by city hall. You
can get all sociological about it, too; that is,
"another symbol of division between the haves and
the have-nots." This has happened elsewhere in
Italy, as well, but not here, claim residents.
"Where is our compassion?" No one seems to know
who gave the go-ahead and whether or not these
things are now here to stay.
-
(July 17) It's years late, and I'm still
not convinced that it has happened, but the papers
report the opening of the logjam-breaking tunnel
between Pozzano and Seiano on the Sorrentine
Penisula, letting motorists effectively by-pass
most of the old State Road 145. According to this
snap of a YouTube upload by Fancesco Calenda
(image, right), the deed is done! This new tunnel,
the fourth and final one in a chain going back to
the 1980s, effectively links everything together
and gives drivers one very long tunnel around
Castellammare, by-passing the old SS145 for a
considerable distance, exiting past the town of
Seiano. There is a map of the whole affair at this link. As far as I
know, there remains the caveat of heavyweight TIR
traffic still having to use the old coast road, as noted here.
(update from a few
days later)
(July 18) The crumbling
city. The incident
(above, July 9) of a young local boy being struck
and killed by falling masonry from the facade of
the Galleria Umberto has produced an uneasy
situation. In rapid succession, bits and pieces of
other monuments and buildings have been crumbling.
Some of them are well known, such as the San Martino museum or the
buildings that bound the vast central square, Piazza Plebiscito,
only one block from the Galleria Umberto; others
are less known but nevertheless integral parts of
the social and civic affairs of the city, such as
the entrance to the cable-car
at Mergellina. Some older private residences have
had similar episodes, and barricades festooned
with red-and-white, keep-back tape are popping up
all over. The papers are quick to say that the
city is "crumbling." I don't know that that is
happening, but maybe it's better to err on the
side of the overly dramatic once in a while. We're
all looking for someone to blame. Partially, at
least, it's the fault of the architecture. I like
Art Nouveau, but
buildings from that period (1880s and 90s) such as
the Galleria or the Mergellina cable car have tons
of ornamentation hanging off of them --ledges
sticking out, moldings, capstones, drip edges, all
of which require constant monitoring and upkeep.
There are people who are supposed to do that.
[related
update here]
(July 18) AISA stands for
Associazione nazionale sulla sicurezza
ambientale [National Association for
Environmental Safety]. It is a relatively new
organization that started in the Campania region
of Italy (of which Naples is the capital) and now
has affiliates in other parts of the nation. It is
not a governmental organization but is staffed
entirely by volunteers, those with particular
interest and skills in areas that concern the
protection of the environment; i.e. the natural
flora and fauna as well as the urban environment,
public health, waste removal and the offshore
marine areas. The group has just conducted a
public demonstration (photo, right) of new drone
technology at the large square, Piazza Dante. The square is
large enough to make such a demonstration of the
monitoring potential of drones practical for a
large audience—which there was. The square also is
often victim to mindless acts of petty and not so
petty vandalism. The message here is that it is
possible to keep tabs on entire sections of the
city and surrounding areas, even those that are
out of the way, and see who is dumping, breaking,
spray painting, stealing, etc. I used to be in
favor of roaming squads of vicious police Komodo
dragons, but drones sound pretty good, as long as
they're armed.
(foto
riccardo siano) [related item here]
-
(July 20) I noted
some time ago (2011!)
that the upcoming Forum of the Cultures was
supposed to come up in 2013 in Naples. It finally
came up yesterday evening at the Rotonda Diaz, the
large venue at the midway point along the seaside
road, via Caracciolo. Billing itself as the Fourth
edition of the Universal Forum of Cultures– and
the first in Italy – and presented by the The World Heritage Sites of
Campania," the Forum was inaugurated by a
speech from the mayor and a concert by Neapolitan
singer-songwriter and composer, Enzo Gragnaniello.
It is the beginning of an ambitious series of
events that will cover theater presentations,
music recitals, cinema, art shows, archaeology,
round table discussions, athletic competition,
etc. presented at 120 different sites in Naples
and the Campania region over the course of the
entire summer, indeed, almost until the end of the
year. Well-known venues include the San Carlo
theater, the church of San Domenico Maggiore, the
Mostra d'Oltremare, Pompei, Paestum, Herculaneum,
and the Caserta palace; lesser known, but equally
fascinating, venues include the ancient city of Elia (Velia) where
presentations will focus on the civilization of
Magna Grecia in Italy.
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