Day 12 - Naples: Going underground

So the room I'm in consists of five bunks in total and they were all full. The hostel was full in fact, so full that a guy, Stave from Russia, slept on an air bed next to me. When we woke up this morning, it was 8am and most of the people in the room had already left. He and I chatted for a while and he eventually got up.

Now, the thing about this room, this dorm, is that it shares a communal bathroom with another equally large dorm. There are male and female toilets though. The men's is about thirty feet long, has showers down on side, separated from each other but not from the room itself, and sinks opposite, with cubicles at the end. It's clean, but horrendously school like. Needless to say, European boys have no issues with getting entirely naked and flaunting EVERYTHING around. Everything.

After this dramatic and emotional experience, dominated by a 17 year old French boy called Claude, who had forgotten his shaving foam and asked to borrow some of mine (he wore nothing but flip flops, a pair of the smallest, tightest pants I'd ever seen and a smile) I got dressed and headed to the city to see some good old sights.

Now. Let me explain some things to you about Naples. Firstly, it has two underworlds. The first is the Roman archeology. The second is the Napoli version of the mafia. Yes. I shit you not.

The organised crime in the city resembles that of Gotham. A friend of mine, Stuart, should go around this city as masked crusaders being the heros. (I'm Batman and he's Robin) ..... And by god, don't they need it.

In 1999 the 'mafia' began systemically buying up certain public sector businesses and winning contracts; the garbage companies, primarily. In 2002, they made international news when they went on a strike (it wasn't an official strike, they just told the people who worked for them they would pay them twice their normal rate not to do their jobs). And so, for 5 months, rubbish accumulated in the streets. Lots of rubbish. Some mounds got as big as double decker buses. The rat infestation and maggots got so bad that the people of Naples couldn't last any longer.

You have to understand that in fact there was no reason for this strike. There was nothing demanded, nothing that needed gaining, just the 'mafia' showing how powerful they were and so there was no foreseeable end to the strike.

Finally, the Italian army was called in to clean the streets up and the contracts taken away from the 'mafia'. Normality restored, the city elected a new, female, mayor. Since then she has tried to (forgive the pun) clean up the streets of Naples, so far, unsuccessfully.

So anyway I shall get to the second half of the underworld later.

The guide book describes a 'four hour walking your of the Centro Storico. After consulting the guide book, and the talking to the incredibly good looking boy on reception, I found that there in fact wasn't that much to do in Naples. I decided to make the four hour tour last two days.

Unintentionally, it happened anyway.

I started at Piazza Gariboldi, named after the Italian national hero, not the biscuit (which ironically isn't named after him either). Opposite the piazza (which is closed for building works - another contract the mafia seem to have won) but leading off of that is the biggest street market I've ever seen. Stall (and I use that word loosely) after stall of clothes and books and fruit and veg and meat and fish, god, more fish stalls that Leicester market - all with live octopus and lobsters - and bread and cakes and sports wear and buttons. It felt like being at home, except I have never felt more vulnerable, scared and 'stick outish' in all my life. It was the first time in a long while (the last being in a very dodgy back street between Soho and Tottenham Court Road where I nearly got mugged) where I feared for my safety. There were no police here. No friendly faces. No one to turn to, even the fish sellers wives looked bloody scary.

I quickly made an exit, heading for the main road. And quickly is an understatement. I wasn't running, but as close as. Like that ridiculous 'sport' walking in the Olympics.

There is a small church on the left as you head down Via Forcella with a huge water mill like wheel that disappears into the building. This is where mothers would abandon their unwanted babies. They would put them in the wheel and turn it, where a Nun would be waiting on the other side to look after it.

Further along the street is Duomo, the cathedral. Apparently, three times a year dried blood is liquified here by nuns in the convent, namely May, September and December. Clearly I didn't go in the miracle season....

From here you go towards Dante (the metro station which everything is based around) and you are confronted by Chiesa di San Paolo Maggiore, a gothic church built almost entirely out of Roman ruins. The roman forum once stood on this place, and I was expecting the 'Napoli Sotterranea' to be a bit rubbish, but how wrong I was.

The Sotterranea is a vast underground network of nearly 30km of tunnels under the city itself. It was originally made by the Greeks who found the 'tough stone' here that the city sits on perfect for building. They would dig down until they met this stone and then begin carving out vast caverns under the bustling city above. It was used then by the Romans who incorporated it into their theatre, with the tunnels acting as passageways from one side of the stage to the other.

All of the Roman evidence of the city is either hidden below steer level, or gone, stolen by past generations.

For the next 17 centuries, the city was built in exactly the same fashion. Builders would dig down under the plot of land they wanted to build on, and carve out the stone in exactly the same way as the Greeks did. They would take out all the stone they needed and then connect the void left behind to the city's growing water system. It was fed from a spring outside the city and explains why Naples grew up where it did without a river.

This network was eventually joined together and the city got all of their water from here. Sadly the 'tough stone' is porous and when the city built a sewerage system just 8 metres above the top of the water line, the system quickly became troubled. In 1834 a cholera epidemic killed thousands of people, and a year later, the system was closed. Residents were told to fill the wells with garbage and rubbish from their homes and then cover the wells up with concrete. It remained this way for a 100 or so years until in 1940 war hit Italy and the city needed somewhere to act as a communal air raid shelter. The city quickly went down to the now dry caves but found years of rubbish, 100 years of rubbish in fact, blocking their entrance. Instead of moving it out, they simply spread it level and concreted over the top of it, effectively halving the height of the caves. Even now they're 50 feet high.

You enter through a tiny door and then into a surprisingly wide stair case with 126 steps (I counted) going straight down. They were spread not so you could walk, buy so when running, they were the right distance apart.

Scary thought...

Once at the bottom, the caves are literally, and unexplainably massive. To give you an idea of size, at one point during World War Two 4,000 residents lived down here nearly exclusively for 4 months. It was huge. Much of it not accessible on the tour.

There was running water, sewerage systems, rooms for sleeping, eating, partying and one, only one, for cooking. Because of the fumes and smoke, any cooking had to be done in one room, the only one with an open ventilation shaft. This shaft opened up directly beneath a church and the smoke escaping was only allowed out of the church windows and doors at night. Fantastic use of God's house I think.

On with the tour and they show you one of the old access tunnels that the cleaners used to use when it was a 'water tank'. The water would be upwards of 30 feet deep and the cleaners got around on foot and hand holes on the walls and long thin corridors just above the water level. We were to go down one of these corridors.

I'm not someone who gets claustrophobic, but Lord above, this was tight. The passage way is probably 50 feet high, but in fact is less than, and I mean this 10 inches wide. You don't walk, so much as push your way along the corridor sideways. The longest one in the network is 3km long, yes! 3km! The one we did was 125 metres (and back again), plenty far enough for me.

At the end they'd created a cute little room full of water showing you what it would have looked like in Roman times showing a case being lowered and lifted again from the ceiling. It was incredibly humid and dark and dank.

Back in the open part of the network, there was, I kid you not children, a weather and seismic activity station. The latter I understood, but the former?

The seismic map of Rome and Southern Europe was showing little activity. The guide said 'it's fairly quiet at the minute, we had 3.2 last week, which wasn't pleasant, and a 2.9 on Monday, but it seems fairly stable'. I notice they tell you this closer to the end of the tour. There was a small shake and the needle indicated that there has just been an earthquake of 0.9 magnitude... The guide casually looked at the computer and said 'not really worth getting out of bed for.... But consider yourself lucky. We never have them when people are down here'

The weather figures showed the following:
Temperature: 15 degrees (feels like 15 degrees)
Humidity: 100% (feels like 100%)
Pressure: 1015.0hPa (rising rapidly)
Rain fall: 0.0mm
Wind: no wind

I couldn't help but presume the total uselessness of the 'weather station' if indeed you can call it that...

The guide said 'I've been down here for 13 years, and that has never changed. Ever'...... I nearly said 'why, do you expect it to?' but thought better of it.

Finally before climbing the steps, there are 5 plants in the floor. These plants have artificial light for 8 hours a day, but are never watered, because the humidity keeps them alive. Fascinating. Kind of.

So, back out into the 35 degree heat.... Eurgh. Down a road called Via San Gregorio Armeni famed for it's nativity scenes and it's Christmas gifts. Did a bit of purchasing, presents for the Christmas tree in mine and Henry's flat, and for Mother too, she'd only moan if I didn't get her some kind of jovial apparatus to hang on her tree.

It was here, now 3pm that I called it a day. I headed back to the hostel, had a nap and wrote this massive blog out. Hope it's not bored you too much.

Until tomorrow children!