Being a Tourist in Italy

[Birdjaguar]

More interiors:

Clock and mirror.

Door and detail. All the doors were fabulously done and gilded.

detail

 

[Birdjaguar]

View from a window overlooking the plaza.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Gallery

Tapestry: Water and detail

Tapestry Earth and detail

 

[Birdjaguar]

The King's Study

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Queen's Apartments

Gilded Ceiling

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Hanging Gardens off the Queen's rooms has a view of the Bay of Naples. They were called "hanging" because they were on the second story.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The last stop on the Royal Palace walk through is the Hall of Hercules. Halls of Hercules is a common name among European royalty and there are more than one of them in Europe. The one in the Royal Palace in Naples is a very large room with lots of tapestries. #22 on the diagram posted above.

Looking one way....

And looking the other.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Up above you saw a video of the throne room as it is today. This image is of a 1759 painting of the same room.

Abdication of Charles of Bourbon in favour of his son Ferdinand IV in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace of Naples, 1759.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Royal Palace and the upcoming National Archaeological Museum walk through illustrate the condensation of huge art collections into few spaces and the overwhelming nature of visiting those spaces. Florence was the same way but had much less of a "real city" feel surrounding the collections. Setting aside Pompeii, Naples is more reflective of post Renaissance Italy that Florence. Naples was the leading city and/or a royal capital of southern Italy from the end of the Roman Empire until the unification of Italy in 1861. Much of its history prior to about 1300 has been "paved over" as it were and those remains being excavated here and there under existing buildings. Its many churches carry over some of those older traditions.

Here is a Google earth image of the area around the Royal palace.

• The Royal Palace is tagged as blue and green. The Green area is the part I visited and the blue is now the National Library.
• Red is the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola (lips?)
• Purple is the modern Galleria shopping plaza
• Yellow is the Castel Nuovo where I started my visit to Naples.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Still life of Italian food from the Royal Palace.

Still life of lunch in Naples 2025

 

[Birdjaguar]

Across the plaza from the royal Palace is the church San Francesco di Paola. Napoleon's brother in law, King Murat, planned the plaza as a tribute to the Emperor during his short reign as king of Naples. With the return of the Bourbons in 1816, the circular colonnade was kept but the building redesigned as a church with its design tied to the look and feel of the Pantheon in Rome. The construction was completed in 1846.

Dome interior with open hole

Alter

 

[Birdjaguar]

I did lots of walking around in Naples between all the various museums and churches. Most places were within a mile of my apartment and the various plazas were connected by streets large and small. The Municipal Plaza is down near the Castel Nuovo and is a long narrow open space.

Take note of the streets surfaces.

Florence was mostly graffiti free; Naples not so much.

There were lots of really tiny cars to go with the motorcycles.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Ssome of the streets were mostly vendor free, but other chock full of folks selling things. Ashtrays were a common item along with T shirts and shopping bags.

Cork bark was a bit unusual.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Traffic at a busy intersection next to the Archaeological Museum. I had to cross this every day.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I did lots of walking around in Naples between all the various museums and churches. Most places were within a mile of my apartment and the various plazas were connected by streets large and small. The Municipal Plaza is down near the Castel Nuovo and is a long narrow open space.

Take note of the streets surfaces.
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Florence was mostly graffiti free; Naples not so much.

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There were lots of really tiny cars to go with the motorcycles.

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Wow, it needs some work. Looks very similar to my city of birth , Cádiz, but after having suffered a carpet bombing campaign or something.

The Queen's Apartments

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Gilded Ceiling

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Click to expand...

Always I see that kind of old palaces and such i think how much woould it cost today to get stuff like that done (if it were possible which i doubt)

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Thorgalaeg The Municipal Plaza is a bit bleak and empty but many of the various plazas were similarly empty. Perhaps they fill up with people on weekends or holiday events.

This one, Plaza del Gesu Nuovo, has a statue and restaurant seating areas that spilled into it. Mostly empty though.

Today's billionaires have other ways to spend their money beyond fancy interiors: yachts, airplanes, islands, multiple cars, watches, etc. The skill sets to actually create such extraordinary interiors is much less common now too. Restoring Notre Dame in Paris cost a billion euros, took 5 years and needed over 1000 workers and craftsmen. We often lose sight of the years and decades it took for grand projects to be completed in the past. We get to see them complete with little thought as to what it took to get them finished. Basilica of La Sagrada Familia is a modern example that has taken 140 years to be "almost finished". The speed of the project has been improved with increasingly better construction technology and equipment since 1883. Vision, money and time produced magnificent buildings.

Folks like Bezos and Zuckerberg would rather have 10 smaller less ostentatious homes than one huge one. Their homes are more private spaces.

Mar a Lago
During the 1920s Florida land boom, Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the Post Cereals business and later the wealthiest woman in the United States, paid for the house to be built with her husband Edward F. Hutton. She hired Marion Sims Wyeth as designer and Joseph Urban for interior design and exterior decorations. Post spent US $7 million (equivalent to $127 million in 2024). It was finished in 1927.At the time it was the most expensive non-royal residence built in history. Trump bought the property in 1985.

 

[REDY]

Empty squares? How Italians made it?
Many European cities (especially mine) are polluted by tourist traps and scams. I do not understand why is it tolerated. There are begging gangs which travel by air according season.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Empty squares? How Italians made it?
Many European cities (especially mine) are polluted by tourist traps and scams. I do not understand why is it tolerated. There are begging gangs which travel by air according season.

There are small streets full of vendor stalls selling "stuff" but not too many. There were more in Rome. We'll get there. It such situations are seasonal, then perhaps they will appear in Naples closer to the main tourist season. Does Prague have time of year when there are many more tourists?

 

[Birdjaguar]

To experience Pompeii fully involves two stops. One is the excavated city south of Naples and the other is the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. Pompeii is mostly a barren ruin of streets and walls. Most of the "good stuff" has been moved to the museum. The easiest way to get to Pompeii (and Herculaneum) is by train. I took the metro from the stop next to the Museum to the Garibaldi main train station and spent 30 minutes wandering around, asking and wandering some more to find the platform for the trains that take you to the ruins. As the Italians say: "You down there, go left and then go right and walk a bit and you'll be there..." Anyway I did find my way.

The weather was nice, sunny and warm. Having a map, paper or digital is important to find your way around. Once inside you can wander around all you like. I entered through the Marina Gate (lower left).

The earliest settlements date back to the 8th C BCE
The Greeks showed up about 750 BCE and Pompeii became a safe port of Greek and Phoenician ships.
The Etruscans took control about 500 followed the Samnites in 320 and finally Rome in 290 BCE.

The current city walls date back to the Samnite period and 2nd Punic War. The city flourished under roman rule and the estimated population in 79 AD was between 11,000 and 20,000. As the city grew, fancy villas were build by the wealthy outside the walls: Villa of Diomedes and Villa of the Mysteries are examples. The oldest parts of the city are to the left side (west), closer to the coast. As the city expanded, the street plan became more organized. Currently, the city is 700 meters from the shore. In Roman times it was at the water's edge.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The Forum and surrounding buildings

The Basilica was not a church but a large civil building (1500 sq. meters) dedicated to legal issues. One end of the ruins has two stories, the remainder only has the stumps of columns that defined its shape. It was one of the earliest building in the city.

I was surprised by how the columns were constructed of bricks as was much of the city.