SEE NAPLES AND DIE (Italy)

There is no other place in the world like it. It is not as polished as the other Italian tourist cities. It has rough edges and a gritty atmosphere interspersed with some of the friendliest people in the world. The most captivating spectacle in Naples is real life itself in the Neapolitans stars. once one has seen the Italian city of Naples one can die in peace as nothing else can match its beauty vedi napoli mori see Naples and die it seems that at one point in history everyone wanted a piece of this beautiful and crazy city the Greeks were the first to arrive and later the Spanish who felt at home for a remarkable period before Naples reluctantly became part of a unified Italy, but one thing is certain, this sight has always belonged and will always belong to Naples itself.

This is a series of streets in the historic center. center of Naples, which is called scapanopoly or dekumani, made up of several different roads that run through the city essentially dividing two halves of the historic center and the ancient Greeks founded this city and called it neapolis, so the layout of the historic center and the roads They are exactly what they would have been in the Greco-Roman period. The Neapolitans are lucky enough to gift Italy with perhaps its most beautiful invention: the pizza, which might initially seem like nothing more than a simple dough base topped with tomato sauce and cheese. and occasionally some other toppings are a cultural art here in Naples, many restaurants around the world claim to make Neapolitan pizza, but what does that really mean?

In 2004, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture defined exactly what constitutes an authentic Neapolitan pizza, width, thickness of base and crust ingredients and cooking temperature Pizzeria Atelier is a favorite of Neapolitans who come here to enjoy an excellent example of the perfect Neapolitan pizza and they are also one of the best at making the original margherita pizza invention. The story goes that the reason it is called La Pizza Margherita is because it is named after Queen Margaret of Savoy, so she was the wife of King Umberto and shortly after the unification of Italy in 1861, she arrived to Naples and chef Raffaeli Esposito had the task of preparing a very delicious pizza, so he decided to prepare it with basil. mozzarella and tomato, all the colors of the Italian flag, red, green and white, and she loved it, so they called it pizza margherita.

Folding it, I think might be the best way, amazing, so few ingredients and the combination makes the most incredible food in the most mythical neighborhood. of

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the cuartieris pagnoli were born during the reign of the spanish viceroys who wanted to build a neighborhood for their troops today this historic district is full of life and color people live in small houses at street level called bassey where the line between the public and The private space is constantly blurred and the maze of streets is transformed into a series of outdoor living rooms Japanese foreigners Ciao Neapolitans say you know they talk a lot with their hands, so they have unique ways of saying things, so He says: where are they?

You go and then he showed me another one, but I need to find out what it means because I'm not really sure what he said. You know, okay, it's been amazing walking through the Spanish Quarter and I feel like I'm in a movie. I know you have clothes hanging on balconies and motorbikes whizzing by and it's a really authentic insight into life here in Naples. What many people don't know about Naples is that it has the largest number of churches in the world. It is often known in Italian as the cheetah, which means the city of 500 domes.

Walk through Naples and you quickly feel as if you are part of a nativity pageant. Every street corner has a large church or makeshift religious shrine, but delve a little deeper into the city's religiosity and it becomes clear that Naples' Catholic faith has some decidedly Neapolitan eccentricities in rituals that to an outsider border on morbid but For a Neapolitan they make perfect sense in this church there are remains of anonymous skulls from the 17th century and what group of what people did was adopt these skulls and pray for them pray for their soul to leave purgatory and reach heaven and they hope that In exchange they will receive thanks and favors.

It is a very interesting interaction in Naples between traditional religion and the more superstitious and pagan one. The beliefs, the traditions of Naples are deeply rooted in both superstition and religion to the point that they intertwine and become difficult to distinguish, and there is a famous street in the historic center that shows the seemingly strange interaction. In the store in particular, you will see many figures of traditional emblems and symbols of superstition and what they believe is good luck. It is very interesting to see how good luck figures are among the most traditional religious figures. This one, for example, you will see that it has little garlic around it and if you look back.

She has a hump on her back, the saying is that if you rub her back you will know you will have good luck. Another superstitious belief here in Naples is that if you rub the nose of Pulcinella, who is a very popular figure in Neapolitan puppet shows, she will bring you. good luck, so you have to stop by and rub his nose. Ryone Sunita is a historic neighborhood of Naples and was a meeting place between life and death as it was used as a burial place in the Greco-Roman period ash means health and It was named so because the Greeks believed that the soil here had powers curative.

It used to be one of the worst areas of the city and it still has a bit of a stigma, but as you can see now it has become a very normal neighborhood area, this shrine was made by the people of the neighborhood. People want a personal shrine where they can go and worship the specific saint or Virgin that they worship in their specific home or family and usually make a vow to the saint or Virgin. like if you make me cured of cancer, I will set up a shrine and pray for you every day, that's why they believe that if they go and worship and pay their respect, yes, they will get some kind of favors and grace, yes, exactly, the religion in Naples, uh, was very mixed with the superstition of the people and our belief in witchcraft, basically, very similar to the Neapolitan, so yes, a little superstitious, yes, exactly, would you say the reason why the people of Naples adopted religion and then superstition?

Beliefs have to do with tragic events like throughout the history of Naples, everything in Naples I think revolves around love, it is always love, love for the land, love for the sea, love for religion, love for death, as in other countries. In other cultures that is seeing something you have to be afraid of, here no, we are not afraid of dying, we believe that when you die you become the ghost of your house, so basically you will continue living forever, so it all depends on love . Even the fact that you have this sanctuary here, people deeply it's not just the belief that they have in Jesus or the Virgin, they love him deeply, yes, it's all about love, like for example, the most adored character in Annapolis, the Virgin Mary, because the Virgin.

Mary is a mother and everyone here loves their mothers to death, so family is very important here, yeah, it's definitely important to say that it was like one of the core values ​​of the people here, yeah, definitely, this neighborhood, Rihone Sonita, is the birthplace and hometown of the famous comedian. Here in Naples, you'll see her picture is all over the little streets here, but one thing that's really cool about Naples is that the people in Naples that they're very proud of like their local talent, so you'll see Sofia Loren. It's really nice to see that they still worship those original figures of Neapolitan culture.

Here in the Spanish Quarter there is an incredible shrine dedicated to Diego Maradona, the famous football player with whom he started playing at Napoli at a time when Naples was going through a really difficult period a few years after the great earthquake of 1980. and you know the city was very depressed, it literally gave the Neapolitans a lot of hope because it really raised the status of Naples by winning many cups and many games. so he really has a divine status here in Naples and it's amazing that people still adore him and they named the stadium after him, so now the stadium is called Maradona stadium.

It is clear that football is in the heart and soul of Naples and there is a bar dedicated to Maradona in the historic center abroad of all the great Neapolitan traditions that are kept alive perhaps the one that makes the city most famous is its vibrant gastronomic scene, even northern Italians agree that the best dishes in the country are served in the frying pan of Naples on Sunday we have two liturgies, okay, the first one we go to church in the morning, the second, the most important, today We sit at the table and the whole family gets together and we eat and eat and eat and eat.

We start around April two and don't know when we're done until the food is gone. A lot of this food is seafood, so you can't come to the dried pineapple market and not have seeds, which is basically a basket, a paper basket. and we put everything fried inside fried so this is a cup of gelatin cup is with seafood wow mixture of seafood and this is the best we fry everything and the result is this bravo co now you become a designated bravo the funny thing is that we fry everything in napoli we fry children we fry everything of course we fry everything yes everything why there is a tradition of frying a tradition from areas where they are not very tasty you fry for many reasons you try to give flavor I always give this example you boil potatoes it has no flavor but fried potatoes fries are the best in the world if you ask me this is just to show how we fry everything everything fries rice pasta polenta ricotta cheese mozzarella cheese eggplant zucchini flowers what do they even fry pasta This is a bucket of tomato wow zucchini flowers it's one of the best things that they export to me and it's just a vegetable that became unhealthy.

Our mother, if we eat healthy, they tell us that we will get sick, but the Italian does, we will tell you if you eat. healthy food you will get sick, of course, you should eat because, according to popular thinking, healthy is equal to giving no energy, no protein, nothing to keep you strong, it is very difficult, in fact, it does not taste very unhealthy, even you can try zucchini from Of course, you know, that's good in a wood-fired oven with bricks, so traditionally margherita we only eat at the pizzeria we go out to and our grandmother came up with the idea of ​​taking a friend to put oil and fry the pizza, so this became the only authentic form of atom we add our pizza the pizza frittata and then soon the baby will be born here look look look at master emmanuel how good is he at frying this pizza this is authentic homemade Neapolitan pizza and this is the result look here this is this is paradise, my God, it's really good, how do you like it?

Very good fried pizza. Neapolitans love the beach and weekends are a day to worship the sun and lounge on one of Naples' beautiful suburban beaches, in typical Neapolitan style you will find everyone from extended families to groups of friends and lovers enjoying of this coastal pilgrimage of sunbathing and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea so Antonio, yes, foreigner, what makes Staples so special to me is the people who are passionate about so many things and I feel like I am the person who defines characteristics of this incredible city and the life of the Neapolitans like football their love for marijuana the food they simply enjoy the best high quality natural food and then how religious they are and how intertwined that is with a superstition and above all they seem I value family and you just see them everywhere, families on the streets having a lot of fun.

I feel like I've just absorbed the atmosphere of the city and there's an incredible energy that runs through it, coming here with an open mind and ignoring everything. That has been said about Naples. I have realized that they really are the underprivileged in Italy and this is a really authentic place in Italy to come.