8 July 2006
Naples
It rained yesterday. The kind of rain that made it seem like it was the skies first time. First times often lack a certain grace, a certain ease, and a competence that only comes with practice. This was no gently falling, showering precipitation. The grey clouds amassed, the sky opened up awkwardly, and then they (the rain gods) threw down great buckets of water, here and there, sloshing it about. Stopping and starting, just when some ventured outside it would pour down once again. The thunder rolled around, echoing through our building, like a marching band that can neither march in a straight line, nor perform the music cohesively.
It was a strange day, nestled in amongst a plethora of glorious early summer days, filled with sunshine, rising humidity and evening mosquitoes. Gi returned from work in a depressed mood, a raging headache and a sense of melancholy, a longing for that place where he isn’t, where it probably wasn’t raining, and where he probably wouldn’t have such a horrendous headache; Brisbane.
I spent the afternoon on public transport. I always have this strange desire to get on buses and journey along the entire route. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Bangkok or Brisbane. Often, my reality is that I don’t have the time, and appease my curiosity by looking the route up on the internet or referring to the timetable flyer. The other curbing factor is the cost, but in Naples you can often ride for free.
A couple of days ago I told Gi I’d like to see exactly, that’s it you see, to experience the exactness, where the CS bus goes. It pulls up at the front of our piazza, and from the sign there I can see it goes to the downtown Piazza Dante (named after the writer and co founder of the Italian language, Dante), Piazza Caritá (meaning charity), the shopping street Corso Umberto I (the boulevard named after the King of Italy, 1878-1900, and the son of Italy’s first king Vittorio Emanuele II) and then Piazza Garibaldi (named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian nationalist revolutionary and the leader in the struggle for the unification of Italy and its liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule). However, after that point the listed stops were largely a mystery to me.
The rain appeared to have drifted out across to sea, so armed with an umbrella I didn’t need, I jumped on the CS. It trundled down the main down town shopping street Via Roma, turned left at Piazza Caritá and sweeps past the huge, curved central post office. Along Corso Umberto I, where I must spend some time getting more familiar with the shops, the bus passed one of the University of Naples campuses, where I hope to sneak in sometime and check out the library. Following that road it comes to Piazza Garibaldi, and the central train station, the seedy part of town that Gi avoids like the plague. Many of the passengers disembarked, and then it swung down through an area that always gives me an unsettled feeling. We drove by the immigration office (mental note to self to catch this bus next March when I need to extend my visa) and through the suburb crawling with Chinese outlets selling handbags and who knows what else as I wouldn’t go inside without Gi’s company. It’s a strange industrial part of town, there is nothing pretty about it, and you’d only come down here for a particular reason. I was quickly disorientated as the bus turned left, and right and right again, but then realised we were at the port, the enormous cranes and navy blue shipping containers giving the game away. This road runs along the front of the bay and I knew it would eventually lead to the castles.
Just as I was wondering if the bus wasn’t going to do the complete route as a loop, it pulled into a small bus deposit, where five other orange beasts were sitting idle. The last three passengers got off, and I followed a woman who crossed the road and jumped on the next tram, No 29. I haven’t been on a tram in Naples for years. It was interesting to be inside as it rattled along, honking shallowly at cars and scooters that blocked the tram line. It turned right, and as I was thinking I was lost again the tram quietly glided past the Circumvesuviana train station (the train we catch to visit Gi’s family), and soon pulled up at Piazza Garibaldi. I swapped onto bus 201 which sat for ten minutes filling up with afternoon commuters.
Many of the buses in Naples are now equipped to hook into the overhead electricity lines, like the trams. Obviously, they are not restricted to using the tram lines but when using electricity they do tend to drive towards the right of the lane, closest to the bus stops. The 201, a bus we regularly catch from the central station to home, drives around the piazza on diesel, and then pauses at the corner and spends about thirty seconds converting to electricity power. As the diesel engines die I always relax a little, and then wait to sense the bus antennas bond with the electricity lines above, knowing that for a while our trip will be quieter and less pollutant.
At every stop people got on. When two shabby women got on, entering through the exit door, demanding that everyone move up and make room, someone called out that there was no more room, and besides they’d broken the local etiquette by getting on through the exit doors. The trick with buses in Naples is that the front and rear doors are for getting on. The middle door is for getting off. Thus, as you approach your stop you begin to manoeuvre towards the middle doors, always politely asking the person in front, inevitably blocking your path, if they too are getting off at the next stop. This question will then determine if you wait behind them, or need to shimmy past them, somehow squeezing yourself between the bulk of the grandmother dressed in black and her shopping trolley without stepping on the small boy or the tan leather shoes of the beautifully suited gentleman.
At my stop, Piazza Cavour, the reason for this process became very obvious. The two shabby women were making a practice of getting off the bus to allow disembarking passengers the opportunity to indeed disembark, then quickly remounting and taking up their positions by the folding doors. I was near the door, but across from it by the window, jammed in like a Melbourne Cup winner after the race. There was a young woman beside me, short purposely mess hair, dyed orangey red. She too was watching the internal soap opera of a Neapolitan bus with interest. At Piazza Cavour she lifted up a backpack (that I had failed to notice in the crush) and in a feeble, trying to be polite-but-I-don’t-really-speak-the-language, voice asked for permission to move through. Everyone ignored her. I had been resigned to the fact that I could get off at the next stop, only twenty metres away and walk back through the piazza.
Changing my mind I tried to do as the locals do and raised my voice, throwing out the appropriate word with authority and a there-is-no-other-option tone. The crowd began to part, and an opening appeared (and where it did not I find the gentle application of elbows, hands to shoulders that are inevitably lower than mine and assertive hips always helps). I almost fell out of the bus, and the backpack carrying girl followed, throwing me a smile of relief as if to say ‘god, even the bus here is an adventure’.
She’d be right; every day is an experience in Naples. The buses are a soap opera stage. And indeed, even the rain seems to be seeking attention and self gratification.
Naples
It rained yesterday. The kind of rain that made it seem like it was the skies first time. First times often lack a certain grace, a certain ease, and a competence that only comes with practice. This was no gently falling, showering precipitation. The grey clouds amassed, the sky opened up awkwardly, and then they (the rain gods) threw down great buckets of water, here and there, sloshing it about. Stopping and starting, just when some ventured outside it would pour down once again. The thunder rolled around, echoing through our building, like a marching band that can neither march in a straight line, nor perform the music cohesively.
It was a strange day, nestled in amongst a plethora of glorious early summer days, filled with sunshine, rising humidity and evening mosquitoes. Gi returned from work in a depressed mood, a raging headache and a sense of melancholy, a longing for that place where he isn’t, where it probably wasn’t raining, and where he probably wouldn’t have such a horrendous headache; Brisbane.
I spent the afternoon on public transport. I always have this strange desire to get on buses and journey along the entire route. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Bangkok or Brisbane. Often, my reality is that I don’t have the time, and appease my curiosity by looking the route up on the internet or referring to the timetable flyer. The other curbing factor is the cost, but in Naples you can often ride for free.
A couple of days ago I told Gi I’d like to see exactly, that’s it you see, to experience the exactness, where the CS bus goes. It pulls up at the front of our piazza, and from the sign there I can see it goes to the downtown Piazza Dante (named after the writer and co founder of the Italian language, Dante), Piazza Caritá (meaning charity), the shopping street Corso Umberto I (the boulevard named after the King of Italy, 1878-1900, and the son of Italy’s first king Vittorio Emanuele II) and then Piazza Garibaldi (named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian nationalist revolutionary and the leader in the struggle for the unification of Italy and its liberation from Austro-Hungarian rule). However, after that point the listed stops were largely a mystery to me.
The rain appeared to have drifted out across to sea, so armed with an umbrella I didn’t need, I jumped on the CS. It trundled down the main down town shopping street Via Roma, turned left at Piazza Caritá and sweeps past the huge, curved central post office. Along Corso Umberto I, where I must spend some time getting more familiar with the shops, the bus passed one of the University of Naples campuses, where I hope to sneak in sometime and check out the library. Following that road it comes to Piazza Garibaldi, and the central train station, the seedy part of town that Gi avoids like the plague. Many of the passengers disembarked, and then it swung down through an area that always gives me an unsettled feeling. We drove by the immigration office (mental note to self to catch this bus next March when I need to extend my visa) and through the suburb crawling with Chinese outlets selling handbags and who knows what else as I wouldn’t go inside without Gi’s company. It’s a strange industrial part of town, there is nothing pretty about it, and you’d only come down here for a particular reason. I was quickly disorientated as the bus turned left, and right and right again, but then realised we were at the port, the enormous cranes and navy blue shipping containers giving the game away. This road runs along the front of the bay and I knew it would eventually lead to the castles.
Just as I was wondering if the bus wasn’t going to do the complete route as a loop, it pulled into a small bus deposit, where five other orange beasts were sitting idle. The last three passengers got off, and I followed a woman who crossed the road and jumped on the next tram, No 29. I haven’t been on a tram in Naples for years. It was interesting to be inside as it rattled along, honking shallowly at cars and scooters that blocked the tram line. It turned right, and as I was thinking I was lost again the tram quietly glided past the Circumvesuviana train station (the train we catch to visit Gi’s family), and soon pulled up at Piazza Garibaldi. I swapped onto bus 201 which sat for ten minutes filling up with afternoon commuters.
Many of the buses in Naples are now equipped to hook into the overhead electricity lines, like the trams. Obviously, they are not restricted to using the tram lines but when using electricity they do tend to drive towards the right of the lane, closest to the bus stops. The 201, a bus we regularly catch from the central station to home, drives around the piazza on diesel, and then pauses at the corner and spends about thirty seconds converting to electricity power. As the diesel engines die I always relax a little, and then wait to sense the bus antennas bond with the electricity lines above, knowing that for a while our trip will be quieter and less pollutant.
At every stop people got on. When two shabby women got on, entering through the exit door, demanding that everyone move up and make room, someone called out that there was no more room, and besides they’d broken the local etiquette by getting on through the exit doors. The trick with buses in Naples is that the front and rear doors are for getting on. The middle door is for getting off. Thus, as you approach your stop you begin to manoeuvre towards the middle doors, always politely asking the person in front, inevitably blocking your path, if they too are getting off at the next stop. This question will then determine if you wait behind them, or need to shimmy past them, somehow squeezing yourself between the bulk of the grandmother dressed in black and her shopping trolley without stepping on the small boy or the tan leather shoes of the beautifully suited gentleman.
At my stop, Piazza Cavour, the reason for this process became very obvious. The two shabby women were making a practice of getting off the bus to allow disembarking passengers the opportunity to indeed disembark, then quickly remounting and taking up their positions by the folding doors. I was near the door, but across from it by the window, jammed in like a Melbourne Cup winner after the race. There was a young woman beside me, short purposely mess hair, dyed orangey red. She too was watching the internal soap opera of a Neapolitan bus with interest. At Piazza Cavour she lifted up a backpack (that I had failed to notice in the crush) and in a feeble, trying to be polite-but-I-don’t-really-speak-the-language, voice asked for permission to move through. Everyone ignored her. I had been resigned to the fact that I could get off at the next stop, only twenty metres away and walk back through the piazza.
Changing my mind I tried to do as the locals do and raised my voice, throwing out the appropriate word with authority and a there-is-no-other-option tone. The crowd began to part, and an opening appeared (and where it did not I find the gentle application of elbows, hands to shoulders that are inevitably lower than mine and assertive hips always helps). I almost fell out of the bus, and the backpack carrying girl followed, throwing me a smile of relief as if to say ‘god, even the bus here is an adventure’.
She’d be right; every day is an experience in Naples. The buses are a soap opera stage. And indeed, even the rain seems to be seeking attention and self gratification.
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