Blog #5 Naples vs. Rome

Naples is one of the big cities which is located in Southern part of Italy and the place where the first pizza has been invented. In addition, people who are interested in street arts, Naples is the place where they must visit because it is the place where graffiti work has started in Italy and later spread to other cities. I was excited and looking forward to go to Naples because I have read and learned about the Southern parts of Italy for the past few weeks and this is the time I can relate my readings in personal. Moreover, I traveled to several Northern parts of Italy the weekends before, so I have already experienced its atmosphere, people, and architectures so now I am ready to get expose myself to the Southern part of Italy and empirically able to compare or see the differences for the first time. After two hours on train, we got off and the first thing that I did was questioned to myself “Am I still in Italy?” Naples looks completely different from where I live, Rome. Even though I have learned and imagine how it will be look alike, what I draw on my mind of Naples was totally wide of the mark. Somehow I imagined that physical appearance of Naples will be look similar to Rome but ethnicity of the people will vary and more residences of immigrants but in reality, even physical appearance was different. From what I saw when I got off the train was high skyscrapers which look crumble and little bit haunted maybe because of the weather, the color of the buildings, and the atmosphere of surroundings - it was gray and cold - whereas Rome was very beautiful and I was overwhelmed by the grand and delicacy of different styles of architectures on the very first day when I got in Rome.

Unfortunately the day before we left to Naples, I had a really bad cold so I had no chance to meet Alex Valentino who is Neapolitan and hear the history of Naples prior to visit there. Therefore, unlike other people from my group, I got in Naples with less information and history background - It gave me different impressions on the place and I was so shocked that there is garbage on every streets and no one cares or clean them. Other than garbage, one thing that caught my sight was while I was walking down the streets; majority of household’s laundries were hanging outside the windows and flapped by the wind which I can barely see in Rome or at least near the UW Rome Center. By looking at the laundries hanging outside, I felt that now I am visiting a place where actual local people live in their own way because Rome is a very tourist place where the real shape of its life could be hidden or covered by the tourists. Again I felt that the picture of Naples, none of them were artificial or it is unaffected but real. After realizing this, I was able to see the Naples is beautiful in its own way and attractive enough the way it is. Next, the population or groups of people who live in Naples were exactly the same how I expect - I saw a lot of immigrants, especially Black people and rarely Asian people, while I was in Naples and most of them were selling jewelry, brand imitation bags, or toys in the streets. Moreover, during my trip to Naples, I have noticed that stores, pizzeria and markets close earlier than the ones in Rome and unlike Rome, I feel like Naples has lack of night life. What is mean by that? Around 7:15pm Manka, Luis and I went for shopping because prices in Naples are cheaper than in Rome. Therefore, we went to the main streets where there are many shops but some of them were already closed or closing by the time we got there so we had to hurry. In addition, from my experiences, most of the people whom I met in Naples were neither very nice nor friendly.

As I have said previously, Naples is totally different from Rome in appearance, people, and atmosphere; thus during my entire trip, I felt that I am in a completely different country and I remembered I said to someone from our group that “I feel like I am in India right now” I do not know why but at some point, image of India came into my mind and overlapped on what I saw in Naples; therefore, I started feeling that I am in India although I have not been to India before and I have only seen several pictures and videos from travel channels. I think it is because of the buildings; people themselves who mainly have darker skin color; large road with less transportation; and less people walking on the street during the night time or it could be just my reflection on my own perspectives influenced by movies or travel channels. In addition, I saw a lot of graffiti in Naples and it is easy to find in the streets and most of them have been used as tools for political messages whereas in Rome, most of the graffiti works were more likely to be considered as just an art piece. Again some architectures of Naples and how metro have been decorated are very modernized and artistic itself. So I would say that Naples is the place where coincidence of old and new are exist just like how Italian and immigrants mixed well together in the place.

In sum, when I arrived in Naples and on my way to hostel, I talked to myself that if I have to choose a place to live in Southern parts of Italy, I will not pick Naples but maybe other cities but at the end of this trip I am willing to live in Naples and/or want to visit again someday. Ironically my first impression on Naples was very dirty but at the same time, Naples looks beautiful the way it is. According to my observations, people in Naples were more active and able to see more of them during the day time whereas in Roman were active during the night time. Overall, I had enjoyed our official class trip to Naples and I have seen, learned, and experienced a lot! The experiences that I had in Naples are unforgettable and I am pretty sure that it has changed my perspectives and lens of how I see the world. Lastly good to be back in Rome!


ciao,